there are 2 parts to our order -
1) price at which it shd get executed - market price i.e. whatever is available at the moment or a limit price.. i.e. price that u want to pay. For limit price order, your order will be filled at that price of better price. Better price means, price below your limit price to buy order (if you are ready to buy at limit price of 100, and the stock is available at 99, hence 99 is better buy price.. and hence the order will be filled at 99). For sell order, better price is limit price given in sell order or higher than that.
2) Whether the order should go to main order matchin queue now or only when a particular condition is met. In former, when there is no trigger price is given, order directly hits the main queue. but when there is trigger price given, order sits in a side queue and jumps on main queue only when that trigger price is traded.
once order goes to main queue, then it is processed as per the logic mentioned in point 1 above.
Hope this clarifies the basic concept of order processing.
now coming to your example -
if a stock opens at 100 and goes up to 102 - and i want to short sell only below 101, should i place a short sell order with both limit price and stop loss at 101?
you want to sell only when 101 is hit.. so that shd be your trigger price.
now it depends on at what price u want to sell, is it whatever price is available after hitting 101, or u want to sell at 102/103 or 110 at that time. Accordingly u shd fill limit price or just mark it as market order.
If in doubt, generally be ready to give limit price slightly lower then yr trigger price for short order cause when ur order is triggered at 101, and ur limit price is 100.95, quite possible mkt might have gone to 100.90 and never comes up to 100.95 and hence u will never be filled.
Try to grasp the concept and u will never go wrong with it. This is nothign but commonsense. else if u are trying to mugup then u will still be confused.
(btw - stoploss price = trigger price as per your language and limit price = limit price. These orders are also called stop limit order at some places but as long as u understand the concept u will not be confused with what brokers platform is saying)
hope this helps.
happy trading
