pre and after market trading

[Alekseysank]

Does anyone actually get a market price as a trade after hours? I mean any time I trade after hours (and I've only tried it a couple of times) there is a delay before the order is actually placed in the am, so any activity that happened the night before is 100% fruitless to the trader. Even a stop loss is not going to work due to the delay of that order until many seconds after open (in my experience).

So am I missing something? Is there an entire group that actually has orders fulfilled after the market closing and benefits from the earlier price? Or is this just a whole slew of really dumb people that continuously chase a price after hours thinking they will benefit but never do?

[Aliciaet]

I don't really understand your question. Stop losses usually aren't allowed in after hours trading.

In general, after hours trading has much less volume/liquidity, therefore you have more delays, more volatility, and larger spreads. Sometimes one can benefit from this, sometimes not. But this is why you're limited to using limit orders.

[AlfredoMl]

I have placed a Limit order for a Trailing Stop loss. BUT, the order is not placed. It just sits in a queue waiting till the morning. It can take as much as 30 seconds after market open to actually place the order. So why bother doing it the night before? Why push a stock higher with a whole bunch of orders if your order isn't actually placed. Isn't that simply intrinsic value benefiting or hurting those who already own the trade?

[AlmedaBly]

Ahhh, so you're not really talking about after hours (or extended hours) trading, you're talking about placing an order for the REGULAR SESSION outside of trading hours. Two different sessions, two different things, hence my confusion.

[alisavb69]

Well, I personally wouldn't place orders the night before because too much can change from then until the open. But if you place your buy order well below the last price, you could get lucky and get a favorable fill in the first few minutes of volatility. Still, if you can, it's better to wait until the morning and SEE what the stock is doing at the open and then place your trade accordingly at that time.