Getting order fills on ToS.... and some Stop loss shenanigans

Hi Everyone,

So traditionally with trading you buy at the Ask and sell at the Bid right? So on ToS there is this thing they have called the "MARK" price. That is the mid point between the Bid/Ask spread. On ToS you can make trades buying and selling at the MARK price. Now when you buy and you want instant fills it's usually best to you the Ask price, and when selling it's usually best to use the Bid price.

However, many times when I make an options purchase I will use the MARK price and it usually fills very quickly. Using the MARK price for selling the option when it times to leave usually doesn't get a quick response.

So today I up an OCO order on an option. I made the option purchase at $0.85 cents using the MARK price and it filled instantly. Part of my OCO order was set with a STOP order 0.50 cents lower than my entry price which puts it at $0.40 The other part of the OCO is the Limit order to sell for a profit at $2.10.
So as the day wears on the option move against me, and I'm waiting for a text message that my stop loss order filled at $0.40 cents. Later I checked and the Bid was at $0.15 cents and the MARK was still at $0.40 cents. So I'm thinking, "why didn't my stop order trigger". Well apparently according to ToS support because the MARK price was still above my Stop loss order it wasn't triggering. Till now I had "assumed" that the Stop loss orders were always at the Bid, but apparently it isn't the case. It could be the Bid or the MARK or any place in between. To me that just seems like a cheat. So I asked the ToS support person, "let's suppose the price moved down 0.05 more cents putting the Bid at .10 cents and the Mark at .35 cents?". Which price would I get? He said it would likely fill at the Bid price. So the MARK triggers it to fill at the Bid? So I instantly lose the difference ($0.25) between the Bid and the MARK????!!! WTH is that about????...... So he told me about using "Custom Orders" to have the Stop loss trigger on the Bid. Now I'm gonna give that a try to see if it's any better. Things have been working fine up till now, so I'm not sure I should mess with it at all at this point. The point is the Stop loss order I set should have protected me and kept the lost at $0.50 cents, but it didn't, and instead I left with a $0.70 cent loss. It's a very small loss, but I'm still a touch pissed.

I'm guessing you're all thinking I'm bat-shit crazy aren't you? lol

Is okay. I think that too.

R

I've never used the MARK price as the stop... OCO/bracket orders I do use.

We all are a little crazy for taking on this endeavor. LOL

Yeah I never thought about using the MARK as a stop either, but apparently the guy at ToS says the system could do it if you leave it on STD. To me that just leaves things a bit to much up in the air. A couple times he even mentioned that I could use the "Ask" price. I thought that was really odd and just assumed he meant Bid. lol

I have since changed my OCO template to use a custom stop loss order to use the Bid price only. Why anyone would want to use the MARK price or even the ASK price on a stop is beyond me. To each their own I suppose.

If I'm ready to leave a position I know my fastest way out is to use the Bid price instead of anything else.

Of course I could always do a market order, but it just turns my stomach to much to think of doing that.

Well in the words of one of my favorite people (Sponge Bob) "This isn't your everyday crazy, this is advanced crazy!"

OMG that's so funny!

Sponge Bob is the best! Good one!