Market Orders are executed when they are submitted and become trades to buy or sell based on the market exchange rates in effect when the order is executed. Market Orders can be closed at any time provided liquidity is available (with the difference between execution rates and current market rates paid or charged). Market Orders can have Take Profit or Stop Loss Orders attached to them so they're closed automatically when certain criteria are reached, and upper and lower bounds to ensure they're executed at a rate close to the one in effect when the Order was submitted.
Open the Buy/Sell Window to Place Orders
You issue Market Orders or Entry Orders for either buy or sell trades from the Buy/Sell window. (You can select the type of order by clicking the window's tabs. A Market Order is the default type.)
You can open the Buy/Sell window in a variety of ways:
Click on the Buy/Sell Action button.
Click on the bid or ask price in the Rate List or Rate Panel.
Press the keyboard shortcuts: F2 (Buy Market), F3 (Sell Market), F4 (Buy Limit), or F5 (Sell Limit).
Click the graph at the value you want and select the order type from the menu that appears. The Buy/Sell pop-up window appears once you've made your selection.
Click the Buy button or the Sell button above the graph at the top right.
Default Fields
The fields of the Buy/Sell window are filled in depending on how you open the window or which preferences you've set up. You can preset the default number of units, upper/lower bounds, and stop loss/take profit values in the Trading tab of the User Preferences window. (Select Tools > User Preferences.)
Place a Market Order
Market orders are executed when they are submitted. They are executed at the current market price, unless it's outside of upper and lower bounds optionally set by the user.
To place a market order:
- Open the Buy/Sell window using any of the methods listed above.
Note: If the window title is "Entry Order", click the Market Order tab to change it.
- Define the bid or offer, including the position (Buy/Sell), the market (currency pair), and the number of units.
(See below for a complete description of all the options. You can click the arrow above the Submit button to reduce or expand the number of options available.)
By default, the upper bound, lower bound, take profit, stop loss or trailing stop are not set. To set them, click the corresponding check box. Their initial default values are determined by the settings in the Trading tab of the User Preferences.
Change the field values using the buttons, or by typing a new value. (Click the radio buttons above these values to view them by quoted price or by difference in pips.)
- Check the information provided at the bottom of the window to verify your order.
- When you are ready, click the Submit button.
If the order is successful and a trade occurs, then an acknowledgement window appears with a ticket number that you can use for future reference.
(You can disable or enable trading confirmation windows in the Trading tab of the User Preferences window.)
- The Trades and Activity tables are updated and the aggregated effects from this new trade are reflected in the Positions and Exposures tables.
Important Note
If an order is successful and a trade is executed, the exchange rate obtained for the trade will correspond to the most current exchange rate maintained at the OANDA fxTrade servers and not necessarily the rate you saw in the Buy/Sell Market Order window. This is because the rate may change due to market conditions during the time it takes to process and confirm the order.
To control this situation, you can set lower and upper bounds. The trade will be executed only if the exchange rate at the time of execution is between the two bounds. (You are not required to use lower and upper bounds when requesting a market order.)
Place a Market Order with One Click
From the Rate Panel, click the One-Click Mode button:
- The Rate Panel adds Units fields (as pictured above) in which you can change the size of the trade. These fields are pre-filled with default values.
- Scroll to the currency pair you want to trade, verify and update the number of units you want to trade, and then click the BUY or SELL side of the rate.
- By default, a verification window appears for you to confirm your trade. (To avoid seeing this window, de-select the Confirm One-Click Trades preference in the Trading tab in the User Preferences window.)
Market Order Options
Buy/Sell
Choose between buy (long) and sell (short).
To find out about the differences between buy and sell, refer to the currency trading conventions section of the online tutorials.
Market
Choose the currency pair you wish to buy or sell from the pull-down menu.
This field shows the following currency pair by default:
- If you click the Buy or Sell button, the currency pair currently shown in the graph.
- If you click the bid or ask price for a particular currency pair in the Rate panel, respectively, the sell or buy order for that currency pair.
Units
The number of units of the currency pair you wish to buy or sell, expressed in terms of the base currency of the pair.
You can use the following shortcut abbreviations when typing: k = thousand (that is, 15k = 15,000), m = million (that is, 1m = 1,000,000).
You can set a value that will always appear by default in this field on the Trading tab of the User Preferences.
Rate
This read-only field is constantly updated to show the most recent exchange rate for the selected currency pair.
Price / Pips
Shows units in either the price, or in the number of pips from the current price (a pip is 1/150th of a price unit).
Lower Bound
The order will result in a trade only if a price is obtained from the OANDA fxTrade servers that is higher than or equal to this limit.
Upper Bound
The order will result in a trade only if a price is obtained from the OANDA fxTrade servers that is lower than or equal to this limit.
Take Profit
If the order results in a trade, then this take profit value will be associated with the trade. Setting a take profit limit closes a position at a specified level, thereby locking in your expected profits. Once this level is reached or exceeded, the order is executed at the prevailing rate. You may not receive execution at the price specified
Stop Loss
If the order results in a trade, then this stop loss value will be associated with the trade. Setting a stop loss limit protects against the possibility of losses "running away" from you. Use this order if there's a sudden movement in the market at a time when you are experiencing computer problems or are away from your trading screen. Once this level is reached or exceeded, the order is executed at the prevailing rate. You may not receive execution at the price specified
Trailing Stop
A trailing stop allows a trade to continue to gain in value when the market price moves in a favorable direction, but automatically closes the trade if the market price suddenly moves in an unfavorable direction by a specified distance. Once this level is reached or exceeded, the order is executed at the prevailing rate. You may not receive execution at the price specified
Technically, a trailing stop is a loss order that makes use of an automatically-adjusted stop-loss limit instruction to maintain a trigger price. The trigger price dynamically follows the market price in the favorable direction at a specified distance. For example,
- In the case of a long position, the trigger price keeps moving up if the market price moves up, but stays unchanged as the price moves down.
- In the case of a short position, the trigger price keeps moving down if the market price moves down, but stays unchanged as the price moves up.
Read-Only Information
The following read-only fields, shown at the bottom of the Buy/Sell window, provide information on your account and on your proposed trade. These values are automatically updated when you change the other fields in the window.
Units Available
The maximum number of units of the base currency that you can trade for the chosen currency pair. This value is based on your available margin funds. If you already have a position in the pair and you select the opposite trade, the units released from closing the existing trade are added to the total number of units.
PIP Value
Shows the profit or loss in the account's home currency for a 1-pip change in the exchange rate.
Trade Value
The total cost of the trade, in the account's home currency.
Margin Used
The amount of your account's margin used by this trade.
Profit
if the exchange rate reaches the Take Profit level, shown in the account's home currency or in pips. (This value is 0 if you haven't set a Take Profit.)
Stop Loss
The maximum amount lost if the exchange rate reaches the Stop Loss level, shown in the account's home currency or in pips. (The value is 0 if you haven't set a Stop Loss.)
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