I made a rookie mistake the other day. While buying shares of gold miner stock, I punched in the number of shares I wanted and hit “buy.” The order filled instantly, which made me happy as the buy was more of a shorter-term play. What didn’t make me happy was the fact that the purchase cost me more than estimated.
The reason why? I simply wasn’t paying attention to the kind of purchase order I was selecting.
While my error only cost me a small amount in the grand scheme of things, using the wrong trading order type could be a huge problem for some investors. A problem that could end up costing you thousands if you’re not careful.
Day traders should follow these seven big rules.
All About That Bid & Ask Spread
My problem and the reason for my headache with Kinross Gold (KGC ) comes down to a concept called slippage. Prices for stocks, or any asset for that matter, is driven by supply and demand. The more people want a stock, the more it is valued by the market and vice-versa. And since there is a finite number of shares for any given stock, even mega-caps, supply/demand is what will drive the price of the stock.
