How to automatically buy and sell stocks at a specific target price

As I shared on previous articles, investing in the stock market is one of the best investments instrument you can use to grow your money. Given that you do it long term with a right strategy and right self-discipline. And of course, you should have at least the basic knowledge how it works.

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Assuming that you already have an online stock market account(COL in this case), this article will share basic and easy steps how to automatically buy and sell stocks when it reached a specific target price.

How to automatically buy and sell stocks

Setting a specific target price for the shares or stocks you have should be part of your financial goals and your investing plan. Before you buy that stock, you should have the plan when are you going to sell them.

What’s your target price or what is your target date? Most of the time, a target price is the ideal goal. To make it automatic, you can use the feature called GTC or Good til Cancel in COL Financial. This is for COL Financial customers. Other online brokers may have the same option but probably a different name. Here’s how you can do it.

What is GTC?

In a nutshell, GTC is an abbreviation for “Good Til Cancel“. It’s a trading feature of an online stock broker(COL Financial in this case) that allow the customer to set an order(BUY or SELL) of a specific stock or shares at a pre-defined price. The system will automatically execute that order when the set price matched on the current price of that stock in the market.

You can also check other stock market terminologies a beginner should know here.

How does it work? It works simply like this: You select your stock, set the price and number of shares to buy/sell and then select GTC in the type of order. When the price set was matched, the system will automatically buy/sell those shares. In COL financial, GTC last for 60 days.

This can be helpful in short-term to medium-term investor that are busy with their life, career or business. You can automatically buy and sell stocks at a particular price without always watching the market. You just have to re-visit again in 60-days to set another GTC if your buy or sell order didn’t match. Sounds cool right? Let see it in action.

You just have to re-visit again in 60-days to set another GTC if your buy or sell order didn’t match. Sounds cool right? Let see it in action.

How to automatically buy and sell stocks using GTC order

Using the GTC feature is like you’re normally entering an order. Go to the Order Entry Function (Trade/Portfolio->Enter Order). Select the GTC option like what you’re seeing on the screen capture below.

When you click the preview order, it will show the details of your transaction. You may check the term of the order and it should show that it’s a GTC order. You can also review additional details. Once done, just put your password to confirm and place your order like the one you see below.

You can also view your GTC order like a normal order when the market is open. Just go to the View / Modify Open Orders Window (Trade/Portfolio->View/Modify Order). See screen capture below for illustration.

Your GTC order will remain within 60 calendar days. Again it will only be executed if the set buy or sell price are matched. If the buy or sell price you set didn’t match within 60 calendar days, the order will be cancelled. In case like this, you can re-visit your portfolio and set another GTC order for your target buy or target price.

The GTC order sample we have on this article is for BUY option. The same thing applies when you want to SELL your stocks automatically via GTC.

Lastly, like any other type of order, you can cancel your GTC order anytime the market is open. Just go to again to the View / Modify Open Orders Window (Trade/Portfolio->View/Modify Order and then cancel your GTC order.

COL has also a program called EIP(Easy Investment Program). This one really automate your investment via peso cost averaging. It automatically buy your preferred stocks on your preferred schedule as long as there is fund in your account. To know more about EIP, kindly check this article.

GTC is a very helpful feature. You don’t need to manually buy or sell stocks during market hours. This can help you semi-automate your stock market investments while focusing on other important things in your life.

Disclaimer: I am not in anyway related to COL Financial. Though I am one of their clients(I have them as my broker) this article is for informational purposes only. Image, courtesy of COL Financial.

I hope this has been informative. Cheers!