Order prices

First never use market orders as they can be manipulated especially on stocks that have low volumes.

In a fast rising market, market orders could be the only exception. However, I still prefer not to use it. If you really want that stock, trade it at prices closest to the last traded price. I seldom lose orders for that. Sometimes I use the day's lowest (or highest to sell).

We all want to pay less and sell higher. However, if they're too far away from the current prices (say > 10%), we may never materialize the trades. I have a long list of buy orders that are not traded and they could make me thousands.

On a falling market, 10% less than the current prices for buy orders are OK for some stocks. To illustrate, I had about 10 of such orders last two months. I got about half of them executed. Half of them have turned around and half of them are still falling. CAT, Cisco... are some recent buys at these discounts.

At the end of the day, there seems to be high volumes that move the prices a lot. It could be the effect due to day traders as they do not want to leave any positions overnight. Another effect is what the big boys are trading. They are the movers of stock prices. We like to ride with their band wagons than against them.