If you’ve ever been stopped out at the high or low tick of the day, you know the feelings of persecution and paranoia that can accompany such a bit of bad luck. But is there anything you can do to decrease the odds of getting taken out of the market at the least opportune moment?

Traders often try to avoid getting taken out of trades unnecessarily by placing their stops away from round numbers (e.g., 75.00) and other price levels they perceive to be magnets for market insiders adept at picking off unsuspecting novice traders. For example, if you went long a stock at 50.87 and your trade plan called for you to risk exactly .87 on the trade, you might place the trade at 50.91 (or 50.88, etc.,) to decrease the odds of getting caught in the flood of likely stop orders right at or below 50.00.

We conducted a little experiment to determine how often certain prices turned out to be the daily high, low, and closing prices in a certain market — the E–Mini S&P futures (ES), which are the most actively traded stock index futures in the U.S.