What are Orders: Market Orders (Part 2) 

It is recommended that you read What are Orders? (Part 1) to understand the concept/definitions of orders before reading this post.

What is a Limit Order?

This type of order is used by investors who have preference for a specific price when buying or selling a stock. While the investor has more control over what price they would like to purchase/sell the security for, the order may not be executed. 

The length of the limit orders is dependent on the patience/decision of the investor. If the investor believes that they can buy/sell the security at the price they want in the given day, they will place a day order. If the investor believes that it will take longer for their limit price to be reached, they will place a good-till-cancelled order (GTC). 

Advantages of Limit Orders: 

• The security can be bought/sold at the price selected by the investor or better, giving the investor more control on the price.  

• Unlike market orders, limit orders can be modified/cancelled so as long as the order has not been executed. 

Disadvantage of Limit Orders: 

• Limit orders may not execute right away, in fact, if the security consistently moves in the opposite direction from the desired price, the order may not be executed at all. 

Example of a Limit Order 

Consider an investor that owns a stock that is currently worth $100. With a bid price of $98 and an ask price of $102. The investor decides to place a limit order to sell the stock at a price of $110 about $8 higher than the lowest price offered by the sellers. No bidder will be willing to buy the stock for $110 if there are prices below that, therefore the order will not be executed right away. The next day, a positive earnings report boosts the stock’s value to the investor’s limit price. The order is then executed and the investor sells that stock for the desired price of $110. How much profit the investor made is dependent on the price that he had initially purchased the stock for. 

However, assume that the stock’s earnings report is negative and instead drop’s the stock’s value to $90. The investor has 3 options when dealing with this new information. 

• Keep the order to the sell the stock at $110 in hopes that the stock’s value with rise in the future 

• Modify the order to lower the limit selling price to make selling the stock more realistic. The investor will likely lower their price down to between $90 – $100. 

• Cancel the order completely and continue holding onto the stock. Then place a new order when a similar or better opportunity to sell the stock arises. 

What are Orders: Market Orders (Part 2) 

It is recommended that you read What are Orders? (Part 1) to understand the concept/definitions of orders before reading this post.

What is a Market Order ?

This is the fastest order an investor can place to buy or sell a security. When this order is placed, the investor will quickly buy/sell the security for the best possible price that the other investors are offering (If the investor is buying the security, they will buy it for the lowest price that was offered by the owner of the shares AKA the Ask Price. If the investor is selling the security, they will sell it for the highest price that was being offered by another investor AKA the Bid Price). Because of this, Market Orders will always be executed and cannot be cancelled if placed during regular trading hours. 

The main purpose of this order is speed, the investor wants to buy/sell the security as fast as possible no matter the price. Unlike other orders the investor does not have a choice on the price that is determined when the security is bought or sold. They will only find out after the order has been executed. In many cases they may find out that they bought/sold the security for more/less than they expected depending on the security’s volatility. 

Advantage of Market Orders: 

• Orders are executed quickly, allowing traders to buy/sell their security without worrying if the order doesn’t go through (as long as there are willing buyers and sellers of that security 

Disadvantage of Market Orders: 

• Prices from trading the security may not be what the trader was expecting (especially if the security’s prices are volatile) 

• Unlike other orders, Market Orders cannot be modified meaning that the trader’s decision regarding this order will have to be final before doing through with it 

Example of a Market Order:

A trader sees a stock listed at a price of $150 per share and wants to buy the share a quickly as possible because he predicts the stock will rise rapidly in value. The ask price for the stock is $153 and the trader places a market order to buy 10 shares. When the order is executed, the trader noticed that he paid $156 for each share instead of the $153 he originally anticipated, therefore he paid an extra $30 to buy these shares ([$156 – $153] X 10 Shares = $30 OR $1,560 – $1,530 = $30). This is an example of a trader receiving a stock for a price that is slightly higher than he anticipated. 

What are Orders? (Part 1) 

Buying/selling a security does not occur without this step happening first, the trader must first place what is called an order if they want to purchase/sell a security under specified conditions. From there, another trader must decide if they will buy/sell the security from you. Similar to how you order food at a restaurant, you must place an order for a meal, wait a certain amount of time for your meal to arrive, and then pay after you finished eating. If there is no waiter to take your order or your meal takes too long that you decide to leave the restaurant, then the order is effectively incomplete. You don’t pay any money and your stomach is still empty. This is exactly how securities trade in the market, you will not buy/sell the security if no one takes your order or if you think the order is taking too long and you decide to cancel it. 

Whether your order will be executed or not is determined on the bid/ask price. The bid price is the highest price that a bidder/buyer is willing to pay to buy the security. The ask price is the lowest price that an asker/seller is willing to take to sell the security. These prices help investors determine an appropriate price for which they can trade their securities at the best possible outcome. Take for example a stock with a bid price of $95 USD and an ask price of $105 USD, bidders will not pay more than what askers are selling the security for ($105 USD) and askers will not sell for less than what the bidders are buying the security for ($95 USD). 

How Long Can Orders Take Before They Are Executed? 

The lengths of the orders are dependent on the order type that is used and the length of time the investor wants the order to remain active. If a market order is used, it will take a few seconds before the order is executed. Other orders have specific options for how long/when they can be active. The first option is called the Time-In-Force. This option allows the investor to choose how long the order should remain active. The two main Time-In-Forces include: 

• Day: When the order is placed, the order remains active until the end of the trading day for the respective stock market (Stock markets in the U.S. close at 4:00pm EST). The order is cancelled if it has not been executed by the time the stock market closes. 

• Good-Till-Cancel: When the order is placed the order remains active until the investor decided to cancel the order themselves. Despite its namesake, the order will automatically cancel if the order is active for 3 months. 

The second option is having the order active outside of Regular Trading Hours. Normally if an order is placed, it will only be active during Regular Trading Hours (Mondays through Fridays, 9:30am to 4:00pm EST for U.S. Stock Markets), the order will not be active outside of those times and therefore will not be executed even if the price is reached by the amount set by the investor. An investor can bypass this situation by allowing orders to remain active outside of Regular Trading Hours, that way they can have their orders executed when the stock market is closed. (Between 4:00am – 9:30am EST and between 4:00pm – 8:00pm EST for U.S. stock markets). 

Note that there are some securities that do not allow trading outside of Regular Trading Hours. For example: stock options are only allowed to be traded during Regular Trading Hours. 

Modifying/Canceling Orders 

Orders (except for Market Orders during regular trading hours) can be modified/cancelled at any time by the investor as long as the order has not been executed. The order can be altered through the following ways: 

• The Order Type used 

• The quantity of stock to be purchased/sold 

• The price of the stock to be purchased/sold (Non-market orders) 

• The Time-In-Force 

• Having the order active after Regular Trading Hours (RTH) 

There are multiple reasons for why an investor may modify/cancel an order: 

• The investor changes their mind about the order 

• The security moved in an unfavorable direction to the investor that forces them to change/cancel their order 

• The order was/became unrealistic 

• The order was incorrect/had a mistake 

Index Funds and Exchange Traded Fund (ETFs) 

Buying and holding a stock in a particular company always has some form of risk involved. One of the biggest risks is that the investment relies on the performance of the company for it to gain profits. Should the company perform poorly financially, suffer from negative press, or other events that will harm them, their investors may lose value in their stock investment. One way to mitigate these risks would be to diversify the investor’s portfolio by buying other stocks to balance out any potential losses that may come from investing. However, this will cost more in terms of transaction/commission fees and varying prices of each stock makes some of the stocks not affordable to many investors. How can an investor diversify their portfolio while avoiding any extra costs/paying for expensive stocks? They can instead trade in Index Funds or Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs) 

Index Funds 

Index funds are described as a basket of stocks, bonds, or other securities that is used to represent the performance of a market segment or index. They may only be bought/sold after the stock market is closed. 

ETFs 

ETFs are almost identical to Index Funds but with a key difference; they can be day-traded like a regular stock. In fact, some ETFs are used to track indexes the same way that index funds do, making them more valuable for active investors.

Examples of Index Funds/ETFs: 

• Fidelity 500 Index Fund (FXAIX) 

• SPDR S&P 500 ETF (SPY) 

• SPDR Dow Jones Industrial Average (DIA) 

• Invesco QQQ Trust (QQQ) 

Advantages 

• Index funds/ETFs are diversified. they rely more on the performance of multiple stocks/securities instead of just one stock. 

• In terms of transaction fees, Index Funds and ETFs charge less than if the investor were to buy multiple stocks for their portfolio 

• Index funds/ETFs track the current state of the market in their respective fields. One can make a more informed decision when purchasing a stock based on the index funds’ current movements 

• ETFs can be day-traded like regular stocks allowing you to profit/exit from a position at any time 

• Some Index Funds/ETFs are cheaper than the stocks that are included in them 

• Some Index Funds do not require a minimum investment, investors can therefore invest with whatever amount of funds they have 

Disadvantages 

• Index funds/ETFs are not immune to market conditions that may affect a large quantity of companies (Example: The recent COVID-19 virus that cause almost every stock in the indexes to drop more than 5% in value) 

• Some index funds require a minimum investment, with some minimums being as high as $10,000 

• Some of the best ETFs in the market are expensive 

• Index funds can only be bought or sold at the end of the trading day; they cannot be day traded 

• Index funds/ETFs are not flexible compared to building your own investment portfolio from the stocks you choose. An index fund/ETF may also contain stock(s) that you dislike.