I'm interested in making the transition to swing trading stocks. I was curious If anyone has been significantly slipped on stocks over night with a stop in place, or slipped in general.

Itchymoku 

I'm interested in making the transition to swing trading stocks. I was curious If anyone has been significantly slipped on stocks over night with a stop in place, or slipped in general.

Yes of course you can have significant slippage.

Scenario:
- Long AAPL @ 600.00 as of Thursday's close.
- Overnight, news breaks that all iPad's ever made are defective.
- Monday morning pre-market, AAPL is trading down 50%.
- Depending on the type of stop you set and your broker, you may have your stop triggered pre-market.
- Apple opens Friday morning with a gap down 75%. It does not matter that your stop was only 5%, you will lose 75% because the first traded price triggered your stop (ie: gap down)

Basically, the market can open at whatever it wants. It does not have to open where it last closed. Above scenario could play out for any type of fraud, bankruptcy, etc type announcements. Stocks can also be halted mid-day and re-open with a huge gap down.

In all of the above, you will have significant slippage well beyond your stop.

Mike

With most brokers (maybe all) market order 'stops' expire at the close of the daily session and unless it's a GTC order, it will have to be reset the following day.

In other words, unless you're using a 'stop limit' order, your stop will will not be filled in after-hours or pre-market. So, if price gaps past your stop.... you're screwed

yeah that sucks, diversification should help. I would make my portfolio market neutral, but even that doesn't really protect against random factors after hours.