[LowryBigwood]

Originally Posted by jerkit

Tommy,

I think E*Trade, Ameritrade and the likes offer after hours & pre-market trading. Not quite sure how late they go.

Gotta be careful though with after-hours & pre-market as those markets are usually volatile. Regardless of when you place a trade, never do a "market" trade as you'll get filled at the "ask" at the time the trade hits the floor.

Always make your trade a limit trade.

This means:

If IBM has a bid/ask of $70.00/$70.25, and you put in a regular market order to buy 100 shares of IBM, you'll be filled at $70.25.

Conversely you could look at the day's chart, note that it swings about $1.00 on either side of the open price and put in a LIMIT trade saying that you want to buy 100 shares at $69.25 and won't pay a penny more than that. Then if the share price drops to $69.25 or less during the day, your trade will be filled at $69.25 or lower.

Placing limit trades gets around the need for the volatile after hours markets, and lets you pick the price your comfortable with when entering a stock. Course how you pick that price is totally up to you..

Thanks for this tip. That seems like a nice nugget.