Take out the stops

English

(finance) The supposed practice whereby locals (floor traders trading for their own account) buy or sell to push prices towards where they suspect stop loss orders lie, with a view to profiting from the resulting acceleration of the move when those orders hit the market.
2006: Chris Towner, consultant at risk manager HIFX, said: "The move came when traders looked at each other and said 'it's about time we broke out of these ranges', and took out the stops." — Financial Times article Euro gains from dollar's slump by Steve Johnson, 5 April 2006, reproduced at HiFX [1]