Conditional trading with Westpac Share Trading

Conditional trading allows you to submit orders that are only placed if certain market conditions are met. It means you may not have to constantly monitor the market. You simply set the criteria for your trade and our systems place your order when your conditions are met.

Conditional orders

Conditional orders are active for up to 12 months, and you can cancel or amend them at any time during that period. When all your trigger conditions are met, your order will be placed. If your order is not placed immediately once the conditions are met, it will have a default expiry of 21 calendar days. We can also notify you via SMS or email when your conditional order is triggered and/or placed.

Key features

• Place trades according to your predetermined investment strategy.
• Choose from six different order types, including falling sell (stop loss) and trailing stop orders.
• Orders remain active for 12 months.
• Easily cancel or amend orders.
• Receive an SMS or email notification when your order is received, triggered or executed.
• Ability to set conditional orders based on volume or time-based conditions.

Conditional orders are available to all Westpac Share Trading customers and there is no cost to activate this service. You simply pay the normal brokerage rate that applies to your account if your conditional order is triggered and the trade is placed.

Types of conditional orders

• Falling sell order (stop loss): A falling sell order helps you limit any losses or protect any gains. For example, you may have an unrealised profit on a share that you don’t want to lose should the price fall. You can set a conditional order to sell the share if its price drops to a specified level.
• Falling buy order: A falling buy order allows you to set a trigger for an order to buy a share if the price drops to a particular level.
• Rising buy order: A rising buy order allows you to set a trigger for an order to buy a share if the price rises to a particular level. For example, you may believe that if a share trades through a certain price (resistance level), its price will continue to rise (break out). In such circumstances, you could consider placing a rising buy order with a limit slightly higher than the resistance level.
• Rising sell order (profit trigger): A rising sell order allows you to set a trigger to sell a share if its price rises to a particular level.
• Trailing sell order: A trailing sell order allows you to set a trigger for a sell order for a share if its price rises to or above your nominated ‘trail start price’ and subsequently experiences a fall in price equal to or greater than your nominated ‘trail stop value’.
• Trailing buy order: A trailing buy order allows you to set a trigger for a buy order for a share if the price falls to or below your nominated ‘trail start price’, and subsequently experiences a rise in price equal to or greater than your nominated ‘trail stop value’.

Optional Parameters

Trading volume and time conditions

For any conditional order type, you may set:

• The minimum volume (number of units of the security) that must have traded before your order may be triggered
• A time constraint. 

Setting a parameter for the minimum volume traded may help ensure that the order is not triggered without sufficient trading activity in the security. The volume condition considers all units traded on the day the trigger parameters are met, and includes units traded above and below the price trigger parameter.

You can also set a time constraint so that your conditional order will only be triggered according to your set time criteria. For example, between 11am and 3pm on any trading day.

Please refer to the Westpac Share Trading Terms and Conditions for further information regarding conditional orders.

The above information has been prepared without taking account of your objectives, financial situation or needs. Because of this, you should consider its appropriateness, having regard to your objectives, financial situation and needs and, if necessary, seek appropriate professional advice.