I got stopped by my spread betting company but the chart (or SST SwingTrader) shows I should still be in the trade – why?
Spreads widen after the market closes and can stay wider than normal (sometimes considerably) until the market opens the next day and a few trades have gone through for that stock. In addition it is possible that the quote price has moved outside of trading hours based on the Futures (see above). This means that the quote price may have hit your stop level even though the Market mid price has not triggered the stop on your chart or in SST SwingTrader. I am afraid this is a “feature” of spread betting we have to cope with. Sometimes you can get stopped out purely due to the spread being much wider than normal even if that stock has not traded at that level. If this happens to you it is worth a call to the spread trading company to ask if the stop was correctly triggered. “Did it actually trade at that level?” is the question to ask. I have had many occasions when I have had a trade reinstated due to an abnormally wide spread when the stock didn’t actually trade at that level. Sometimes
