Question about table featuring different types of orders

External question — Personal Finance Stack Exchange Author: Wildo Waldo Original post: https://money.stackexchange.com/questions/164065 License: CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ Adaptation: HTML converted to plain text; contact email addresses removed. Please see the following table , which is an excerpt from the book "Day Trading for Dummies". Could someone elaborate on the table? It is absolutely unclear to me what is meant. What is the meaning of the "Market Price ($)" column on the left? What does it mean--the market price when ? It is also not clear how the "Action after the stock hits $30" relates to the Market Price column. I previously thought I understood the different order types, but this "explanation" confuses me highly, and now I do not understand anymore what these things mean. Thanks a lot in advance for providing a clear, unambiguous explanation for this.

External answer — Personal Finance Stack Exchange Author: D Stanley Original post: https://money.stackexchange.com/a/164066 License: CC BY-SA 4.0 — https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/ Adaptation: HTML converted to plain text; contact email addresses removed. I agree the table is confusing (which is not uncommon in these "dummies" books). To start, the "Market Price" seems to be the final market price of the stock based on the actions taken, e.g. if the stock "goes to" the market price, it shows the action taken for each order type, but since it's not clear what the starting market price is (which would make a difference for some of the order types) I agree it's not clear at all. Basic idea of the three order types: Stop Buy/Sell Order at X : Buy/Sell the stock at the market price (not necessarily the stop price) if the stock goes above/below the stop price (X). Commonly called a "stop loss" order - if you own a stock and it goes down you want to limit your losses as much as possible, so you sell when it goes below a certain point. Generally used when you have an existing position. Stop Buy/Sell Order at X : Buy/Sell the stock at price X or lower/higher. Essentially the minimum amount you want to sell the stock for, or the maximum you want to buy it at. Can be used to open a new position or close an existing one. Buy/Sell at Stop X, Limit Y - a combination of the two. Buy/Sell the stock if the stock goes above/below the stop price (X), but don't buy/sell it for any more/less than the limit price (Y). Essentially tries to stop losses, but only to a point. Also used to open a position if a stock drops, but not if it quickly rebounds. Example: You own a stock that is trading at 100. You want to cut your losses if it drops to 90, but don't sell for any less than 80 (to limit the realized loss you would take). You would put in a "stop 90, limit 80" sell order.