Daily Trading Limit

A daily trading limit refers to the uppermost and lowermost threshold price movement of a security set up by market exchanges or regulators that can happen in a single trading session or day. Its goal is to keep conditions for orderly trading by preventing extreme price volatility, averting market manipulation, and helping investors make informed investment decisions.

Exchange-traded securities use it in trading of bonds, securities, and options. The security's trading halts as soon as it attains its maximum trade limit and remains suspended until the next trading day. It prevents any excess deviation of prices towards higher or lower limits, preventing manipulation. Moreover, these limits are an essential risk management tool financial markets use to promote stability and fairness.

Key Takeaways                                                               

• A daily trading limit pertains to the highest and lowest price range allowed for security within a single trading session, established by market exchanges or regulatory authorities. 
• Its primary objective is maintaining orderly trading conditions by preventing excessive price volatility and deterring market manipulation.
• By its virtue-Market manipulation was reduced, stability was promoted, and efficiency improved through monitoring.
• Moreover, its criticism includes investor frustration, market troubles, arbitrage openings, and a false sense of security.

The daily trading limit refers to the maximum amount by which the price of a financial instrument, such as a stock or commodity, is allowed to move within a single trading day. Regulatory authorities, exchanges, or brokerage firms put these limits in place to maintain orderly and fair market conditions, prevent market manipulation, and manage risk. Investors derive time to assess the market situation and decide their investment strategies using the limit.

Additionally, if the stock price reaches a limit up or down, the concerned market closes or locks to prevent any trading until the next trading session. As a result, market manipulation, market volatility, and price swings become curbed leading to the stabilization of the market. Therefore, daily trading limit loss aims to control risk and prevent traders from taking on too much exposure in a single trading session. Thus, if one has reached their daily trading limit and wishes to continue trading. Hence, they must wait until the next trading day when the daily limits reset.

Effect On Financial Sectors

It promotes confidence in investors concerning investing in markets. Moreover, it reduces market risks and controls the manipulation of stock prices during increased market turbulence. Investors get enough time to make informed investment decisions, protecting markets from panic selling and buying.

How To Avoid?

Investors and traders must closely monitor market conditions and possible price movements. Hence, to know about any trigger for a trading halt, one must oversee the nation's impactful news and economic conditions. Moreover, investors must try to trade securities having lower limits for daily trading.

Furthermore, standard verified individuals have a Kucoin daily trading limit of 1,400 USDT, while exceptional verified individuals can trade up to 70,000 USDT daily.

Let us use a couple of examples to understand the concept used in the topic.

Example #1

Suppose a new business called "AcmeCorp" is preparing to go public. The exchange sets a daily trading restriction of 10% because it anticipates high volatility in its shares. According to this limitation, the market price of AcmeCorp's shares cannot change by more than 10% within a single trading day.

Moreover, authorities will temporarily halt trading until the next day if the stock exceeds this limit. Hence, shareholders get time to carefully evaluate the situation and decide on their stock trades.

Example #2

On March 16, 2023, Chicago Mercantile Exchange lean hog futures fell by the maximum daily trading limit due to rumors of a probable epidemic of lethal pig disease.

Unsubstantiated rumors about an African swine fever case in the United States circulated in the market. Still, the United States Department of Agriculture said it was a rumor, and the agency had not heard anything about a suspected case.

Moreover, CME April lean pigs fell 4.3 cents to 79.450 cents per pound, marking the lowest price since October 2021. The closest contract is down 9% from its closing price as of March 17, 2023.

The losses amounted to a "total technical meltdown," according to Dennis Smith, commodity broker analyst at Archer Financial Services.

Limits on daily trading have become a common feature of securities exchanges. However, investors and market participants have also criticized them, and below are some of the listed criticisms:

• Potential for Market Manipulation:  While trading limits prevent market manipulation, critics argue that sophisticated traders could exploit them to create artificial price movements before the limits kick in.
• Market troubles: Abrupt halting of trade on reaching the daily limit disrupts liquidity causing order backlogging. As a result, market efficiency is affected negatively.
• Arbitrage openings: Trading limits create arbitrage avenues promoting price disparities amongst related markets to be exploited by experienced traders.
• False sense of security: Investors might be misled into thinking that daily limits provide the best protection for their investment. Hence, they may overlook other security strategies and tools to consider other risks and put their investments at risk.
• Limited risk mitigation: Investors remain vulnerable to the gradual risk of price changes as they take note of significant price changes.
• Impacts efficiency of markets: The efficiency of the market gets affected when the trading limits are interfered with. It is because the natural flow of markets takes the route of inefficient capital allocation.
• Various security needs: The limitations imposed by the regulators only fit some size risk profiles of different securities.

A daily trade restriction may have both beneficial and negative effects on the financial markets, including investor behavior, influencing a variety of factors: