I have a few quick questions. I have around 3K worth of stock I'm trying to off load, partly to finally invest in health insurance. What should I know about selling my stock? How much is the broker (Schwab) probably going to suck out of me? What do I need to know about being taxed on my sales? And, what's the difference between the order types Market, Limit, Stop and Stop Limit?
If you've held the stock less than a year, you will pay your regular tax rate on earnings (whatever income bracket you fall into). If held longer than a year, you will pay capital gains tax:
-0% rate if your total income (including capital gain income) places you in the ten or fifteen percent tax brackets.
-15% rate if your total income (including capital gain income) places you in the twenty-five percent tax bracket or higher.
Schwab will take their ~$7 commission on every trade. So if you've got 3 different stocks to sell (no matter how many shares of each), you will pay $21.
You should never really use market limit. You're handing your shares to your broker and saying "get whatever you can for them". While most of the time this will be ok, you can end up getting screwed big time under certain circumstances.
What you want is a limit order, set at a price you're comfortable selling your stock for. It will sell at that price or better.
A stop order will execute at a given price. If you set a stop at $2.00, you automatically issue a market order to sell that stock when it reaches this prices. That's why I prefer stop limit orders, so I can set a stop ($2.00) and a limit (say, $1.98). This way, if the stock hits a low of $2.00, my stock will sell but not for less than $1.98.
Hope this makes sense.
