shodson 

I don't use stops so my initial reaction was "so what?" but I find it rather disturbing that the exchange sees that the market is so volatile and out of their control that they have to disable GTC and stop orders to prevent stop hunters and people complaining/suing for trades to be broken whenever there's a flash crash.

The problem here is that there are liquid and illiquid stocks. For small caps it is easier to manipulate price in such a way that stops are triggered, and there is a risk that you get filled far aways from the last (genuine) market price.

The alternative to suppressing stop orders altogether would be to convert all stop orders to "stop orders with protection" as CME has done. In that case stop orders will not be executed either, when prices have moved too far from the prior day's close. CME uses the "no-bust-range" to determine these levels.

In the end whether you call it "stop order with protection" or whether you suppress stop orders, it has the same meaning. You will not be protected in case of a large move or a crash. If in doubt, the solution adopted by NYSE is easier to understand. There are no stop orders available and you are not protected. The CME solution and the meaning is probably not easily understood by everybody.

The NYSE solution however may put small investors at a disadvantage. When a stop level is triggered, their broker simulated stops may take longer to migrate to the exchange and only arrive second after the stops of hedge fonds that have faster access to the exchange.

Fat Tails 

Stop orders and limit orders are different. For example a stop buy order is placed above the market, while a limit buy order is placed below the market.

I know.

I was referring to the handling of such orders by the exchanges.

There are no stop orders anymore - stop orders are simply (marketable) limit orders with very wide limits.

Thats how they are processed internally.

Sry, I did not find a good link - but there are more details somewhere.

Sorry to revive an old thread,

In what way's do you all see this affecting futures?

hh713 

Sorry to revive an old thread, In what way's do you all see this affecting futures?

It applies to the NYSE. I don't know of any futures contracts traded on NYSE.

shodson 

It applies to the NYSE. I don't know of any futures contracts traded on NYSE.

Right….should have clarified I meant if anyone thought this would have a trickle effect on the ES or YM.

hh713 

Right….should have clarified I meant if anyone thought this would have a trickle effect on the ES or YM.

It just depends on whether or not the exchanges (CME, ICE, CBOE, CBOT, COMEX, NYMEX, etc) want to do this or not. I tend to think the HFT problems are not as prevalent in futures as they are in stocks because of lack of "dark pools" that they can arbitrage against, but for very liquid instruments like ES there might be some shenanigans going on.