How to sell stocks in Moomoo (and how to know when to sell)

Selling is harder than buying. Not technically — the screens are almost identical. What’s hard is your head.

When you buy, you’re full of hope. When you want to sell, there are two voices in your head: “if I sell now, what if it goes up right after?” and “if I wait longer, what if it drops even more?” Both are valid, and that’s exactly the problem.

This guide does two things: shows you screen by screen how to sell, and gives you three valid reasons to sell so your decision comes from a plan, not from emotion.

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Part 1 — Three valid reasons to sell

If you want to sell and your reason isn’t one of these three, stop and think again.

1. You actually need the money. For a house deposit, an emergency, anything real. This is the most honest reason and nobody can argue with it.

2. The reason you bought it no longer holds true. You bought because the company had a certain edge, and that edge is gone. The business changed, competitors moved in, management changed direction. If the original story is broken, sell — even at a loss.

3. The position has grown too big. Your stock went up so much it’s now 60% of your whole portfolio. Selling part of it to get back to a size you’re comfortable with isn’t a lack of confidence — it’s risk management.

What is NOT a valid reason: the price dropped 8% this week and you feel uneasy. That’s the market behaving normally, not a signal.

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Part 2 — Selling, screen by screen

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In the Moomoo app

Open the stock you want to sell

There are two paths, and both lead to the same place:

First path — from your portfolio. Go to the Accounts tab, scroll to the Positions section, and tap the stock you want to sell. This is the safer path because you can only tap a stock you actually own — there’s no way to pick the wrong one.

The Positions list has four columns you should understand before selling:

• Symbol — the stock code
• MV/Qty — current market value, and below it the quantity you hold
• Price/Cost — the current price, and below it your average cost. Compare these two numbers to know whether you’re in profit or loss.
• P/L — profit and loss in ringgit and percentage

Second path — from search. Tap the magnifying glass icon, type the stock name, open its page, then tap Trade.

Then, on the order screen, switch Direction from Buy to Sell. The whole screen turns red — that’s a visual cue so you don’t mix up direction.

⤢Position columns

⤢Sellable = how much you CAN sell

Sell

2

In the Moomoo app

Understand the word Sellable — this is the most important part

Look at the Sellable row in the screenshot. In this example it shows 0, because that demo account has no Maybank shares at all.

Sellable means: how many units you can actually sell right now. It isn’t necessarily the same as the total shares you own. It can be lower for three reasons:

• Part of your shares already have a pending sell order. Those units are already “reserved” by that order, so they can’t be sold twice.
• You just bought today and that market has certain settlement rules. For most cases on Bursa you can sell the same day, but don’t assume it — check the Sellable number.
• The shares are being used as collateral if you have a margin account.

The simple rule: the Sellable number is the truth. If you try to sell more than that, the app rejects your order.

The Max · 1/2 · 1/3 · 1/4 row right below it is a shortcut: tap 1/2 to sell half your position, Max to sell everything.

3

In the Moomoo app

Choose your sell price — limit or market

Same choice as when buying, but the effect flips direction:

Limit order when selling means: “sell only at this price or higher.” You control the minimum price you’ll accept. The risk is, if the market doesn’t rise to your price, the stock never gets sold.

Market order when selling means: “sell right now, whatever the price.” It’s almost guaranteed to sell, but you get the current Bid price — the price a buyer is willing to pay, which is always a bit lower than the price displayed.

Remember the Bid and Ask rows:

• When buying, you pay the Ask price (higher)
• When selling, you receive the Bid price (lower)

The gap between them, the spreadBid / Ask (and spread)Bid = the price a buyer will pay. Ask = the price a seller wants. The gap between them is the spread.See it in the glossary →, is the real cost of getting in and out. For actively traded stocks it’s just a few cents. For small, rarely traded stocks it can be a few percent — and that’s your money.

⚠️A common mistake when selling

Using a market order to sell a stock that’s not actively traded, then being shocked to see the price you got is much lower than what was displayed. When your sell order is bigger than what’s available at the top Bid price, the rest of your order “eats” its way down — taking lower and lower prices. For stocks like this, use a limit order and be patient.

4

In the Moomoo app

Tap Sell and confirm

Before you tap that red button, check four things:

• The right stock? If you hold several stocks, it’s easy to pick the wrong one.
• The right quantity? Do you want to sell all of it or just part?
• Does the price make sense? Compare it with the current Bid.
• Is this a decision or a reaction? Is your reason for selling one of the three valid reasons above?

Tap Sell, confirm, and your order lands in the Orders list with a Working status.

Tap the order row, and three options appear: Quote · Edit · Cancel.

As long as the status is still Working, you can Edit to change the price or quantity, or Cancel to scrap it entirely — at no cost. Once it’s Filled, it’s a done deal, and the only way back is to buy it again at the market price.

⤢

Tap the rowEdit / Cancel

5

In the Moomoo app

Check the Open and Filled or Cancelled tabs

Below the Orders list there are two tabs:

• Open — orders still waiting. Your sell order starts here.
• Filled or Cancelled — history of orders that are done or cancelled.

Statuses you’ll see:

Status	Meaning
Working	Order is in the system, still queued. The shares are still yours.
Filled	Order completed. Shares are sold, cash comes in (subject to settlement).
Partially Filled	Only part of it sold. Example: you sell 1,000 units, only 300 find a buyer at your price.
Cancelled	Cancelled by you, or by the system at the end of the day.

For a sell order that’s Partially Filled, the unsold portion stays as a Working order. You can leave it, or cancel it and resubmit at a lower price.

⤢Two status tabs

6

In the Moomoo app

How to cancel an order — and what happens after

Let’s walk through the whole process so you see the result, not just hear about it.

Step 1 — tap the order row in the Open tab. Three buttons appear below that row: Quote · Edit · Cancel.

Step 2 — tap Cancel.

Step 3 — the order instantly disappears from the Open tab, and reappears in the Filled or Cancelled tab with a Cancelled status. Notice the counts change: Open (3) becomes Open (2), and Filled or Cancelled (0) becomes (1).

There’s no charge for cancelling. An order that was never filled doesn’t get charged any fee.

One more thing: even if you don’t cancel it yourself, an order with a Day validity cancels itself automatically at the end of the trading day. You don’t need to worry about a forgotten order suddenly getting filled next week — unless you deliberately chose GTC.

⤢

Cancel

⤢Cancelled — no charge

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Part 3 — After it’s sold

The money doesn’t arrive instantly

This surprises a lot of beginners. Once your sell order is Filled, the shares are indeed out of your portfolio — but the cash isn’t withdrawable right away.

Stock markets run on a settlementSettlementThe waiting period after you sell before the money becomes cash you can withdraw.See it in the glossary → system. For Bursa Malaysia, it’s T+2: the transaction settles two business days after the trading day. So if you sell on Monday, the money settles on Wednesday.

In Moomoo, you’ll see two different numbers in your account section:

• Total Cash — all your cash, including the part still going through settlement
• Withdrawable — only the portion you can actually transfer out to your bank right now

Right after you sell, Total Cash goes up instantly but Withdrawable doesn’t yet. This is normal. It’s not a technical glitch, and the app isn’t stuck.

Count your profit honestly

Your real profit isn’t just (sell price − buy price) × quantity. First subtract:

• Brokerage on both the buy and the sell (twice)
• Stamp duty and clearing fee for Bursa stocks
• Currency conversion if the stock is in USD

For small purchases, these fees can add up to a big percentage. That’s why buying and selling back and forth (overtrading) eats into your returns even when every single decision you make is correct.

You can work out the exact amount before you sell. Open Accounts → All → Fee → Calculator, switch Direction to Sell, and enter your price and quantity:

⤢Full breakdown of every charge

Switch to Sell

An important number people often overlook: because fees are charged twice (once buying, once selling), a full round trip at this size costs about RM11.84 — over 1.1% of your RM1,038 capital. The share price has to rise more than 1.1% before you’re actually up a single sen. The full breakdown is in the buying your first stock tutorial.

You can view every fee one by one in Accounts → Funds Details. Each row there shows the actual transaction and charge:

⤢Fees are broken out from the buy price

Don’t watch the price of a stock you’ve already sold

You’ll be tempted. Don’t.

If it goes up after you sell, you’ll feel dumb — even though your decision was correct based on what you knew at the time. If it goes down, you’ll feel like a genius — even though that’s just luck. Both feelings teach you the wrong lesson, and both will mess up your next decision.

Judge a decision by the reason you made it, not by what happened afterward.

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Frequently asked questions

“Can I sell only part of my shares?” Yes. Type the quantity you want, or use the 1/2 or 1/3 shortcuts. For Bursa stocks, remember the lot rule — selling 150 units out of 300 means you leave 150 behind, and 50 of those become an odd lotOdd lotA share quantity that isn't a multiple of 100 — for example 50 or 130 shares.See it in the glossary → that’s harder to sell later. It’s cleaner to sell in multiples of 100.

“If I sell at a loss, can I buy it back tomorrow?” Yes. There’s no wash sale rule in Malaysia like there is in America. But ask yourself why you sold in the first place — if the answer is “panic,” buying it back tomorrow just adds another set of fees to one emotional cycle.

“My sell order is Working but it’s not filling.” Your limit price is higher than what the market is willing to pay. Your options: lower the price through Edit, or wait. A Day order will cancel itself at the end of the trading day.

“I sold by mistake. Can I cancel it?” If the status is still Working, yes — tap Cancel. If it’s already Filled, no. It’s a done deal, and the only way out is to buy it back at the current market price.

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Practice first, risk-free

If you’ve never sold before and your hand feels heavy, open Paper Trade in the app (Discover tab → Papertrade). Buy something with play money, then sell it back. Do it three times.

It sounds trivial, but it removes the doubt of “what if I tap the wrong thing” — and that doubt is what makes people hang on too long at the wrong moment. The full steps are in the paper trading guide.