The most important financial terms - with simple and concise explanations.
Investors use stop-loss orders to protect their individual positions in the portfolio against large price declines. The sell order for a security is triggered automatically once the price falls below a predefined level. Important: This does not mean that the actual selling price is identical to the stop-loss price. It may be slightly lower or higher, depending on where the price has moved after the stop-loss level has been broken.