So I bought Aeropostale stock(ARO) about a month ago for 20cents/share. It had a huge jump over the past month and closed today at 47cents/share. However, they released the fourth quarter earnings per share today and they were poor so now the after market trading price cut the price of the share in half. If i place an order to sell the stock as soon as the market opens tomorrow morning will it sell at 47cents like when it closed today or 20 cents because of the after market trading hours? what should I do?
-
I don't have time to dig up citations but the answer is yes, the opening price is usually affected by earnings announcements and after hours trading, and is not "pinned" to the official closing price from the previous trading day.– user132278Mar 17, 2016 at 22:37
-
1As with any transaction if there are no buyers at $0,47 per share you won't be able to sell it at $0.47 per share.– quidMar 17, 2016 at 22:38
1 Answer
In general a stock can open at absolutely any price with no regard for the closing price or after hours price the previous day. The opening price will be determined by the best bid and offer made by people who decide to trade the next day. Some of the those people may have put orders in on a prior day that are still on the books and matter, but there's a lot of time overnight for people to cancel orders and enter new ones, which is especially likely to happen if there was substantive news overnight.
As for what you can do in your case, you have the same options that you always had: Sell or hold. If you're selling, you can sell after hours, in the pre-open hours, or during the trading day. There's nothing we can say about this case that's really any different than we can say about any other stock on any other day.
-
Other option not mentioned: buy more. If you believe strongly in the management of a company and the fundamentals, in many cases, you may want to increase your position since the shares are effectively on sale. Mar 20, 2016 at 16:21