Q&A: Buy and Sell Orders on the Sabbath
Buy and Sell Orders on the Sabbath
Question
Have a good week, Rabbi,
Is it, in your opinion, permissible to set buy and sell orders on the stock market on Friday before the Sabbath, such that they might be executed on the Sabbath? For example: creating a buy order so that if someone sells Intel stock at 100 dollars, then I automatically buy the stock from him (the action is carried out automatically by a computer). I saw an online responsum that forbids this here. What is your opinion on the matter?
Best regards,
Answer
If there is no human action involved here (not even by a gentile), then it seems to me that there is room to permit it. It is similar to a Sabbath timer or a device that is set up in advance before the Sabbath and performs an action on the Sabbath.
If human beings are involved here, then one must distinguish: if it is a Jew, there is room to forbid it, even though causing an atheist to sin is, in my opinion, not prohibited. He is acting for me and as my agent, and at least according to Rashi there is agency for a transgression as a stringency. And even with a gentile, telling a non-Jew before the Sabbath to perform a prohibited action for me on the Sabbath is forbidden (on the basis of agency as a stringency).
Discussion on Answer
The machine is not intended specifically for the Sabbath, and therefore the Sabbath activity is subsumed within it. But here we are talking about an order for execution on the Sabbath. Beyond that, with the machine you did not instruct them to do this; at most, you placed the machine before them. Here you are instructing him to do it.
It is possible to enter an order that is not specifically for the Sabbath, but rather from Friday onward until the order is executed.
The order is a kind of offer to buy/sell at a certain price, like my offering to sell a can of Coke at a certain price. There is no necessity that the order will actually be answered by execution, and the gentile does it of his own will and for his own benefit, not for me.
In my opinion, that really is permitted.
Sorry for bringing this up so long after the fact; this question just came up for me recently.
My question is whether the fact that the trading itself is done on the stock exchange in the U.S., where it is not yet the Sabbath, could be an additional reason to be lenient.
(Just to summarize the discussion here: the questioner asked whether it is permitted to give an automatic trading instruction that will be executed on the Sabbath, and the Rabbi answered that if it is by a machine there may be room to permit it, but if it is done by a gentile one should be stringent.)
Thank you.
Definitely yes. That may depend on the basis of the prohibition of telling a non-Jew: if it is because of “and speaking of them,” then it depends on the Sabbath where I am, but if it is because of agency as a stringency, then it depends on the Sabbath where he is (the gentile). But that can be challenged.
If I may sharpen the point: for the gentile this is his job and he gets paid for it, which means he has his own personal gain, and he is not doing it for me but for his work and livelihood.
Also, I am placing a buy/sell action not specifically for the Sabbath but in general, though there is some chance it will happen on the Sabbath.
And another question: if I own shares that will be active on the Sabbath, and I bought them before the Sabbath, and on the Sabbath there will be no action of buying or selling, but the stock can go up or down and only after the Sabbath will I be able to benefit from that, is that permitted or forbidden?
He is being paid to work for you. The one paying him is giving him that payment on your behalf.
That is a different question. If there is doubt, then it is a rabbinic-level doubt, and there is room to be lenient.
I am not expert in this, but if it can go up and down on the Sabbath without any actions being taken, what is the problem? Is it forbidden for stocks to go up on the Sabbath?
I heard from someone that it is permitted to place a machine for selling drink cans in a place frequented by gentiles, even though they will buy from it on the Sabbath. Isn’t that similar to the case above?