Market order vs limit order: what are they and what are their differences?

What is an order?

An order is an instruction from a trader to a broker to place a trade on a financial instrument, such as shares, forex, indices or commodities – usually online or over the phone. There are different types of orders, but let’s look at two: market orders and limit orders.

What is a market order?

A market order is an instruction to a broker to execute a trade immediately at the best available price. This means the order is executed quickly provided that there’s enough liquidity in the market. When a market order has been executed, the order’s referred to as a ‘filled order’.

What is a limit order?

A limit order is an instruction to a broker to execute a trade at a specific level that’s more favourable than the current market value. In other words, a limit order allows you to specify the maximum amount you’re willing to pay for the underlying asset and the minimum price you’re willing to sell it for.

There are two types of limit orders: entry orders which open a new position, and closing orders which terminate an existing position.

Market order vs limit order

There are times when you might want to place a market order instead of a limit order, and vice versa. Let’s take a look at some of the advantages and disadvantages of each type.

A market order is good for traders who want to take a position immediately, regardless of the current market value. However, the market needs a certain degree of liquidity, otherwise there’s a chance the trade won’t be fully executed, or it’ll be executed at an average price far from the current market.

While a broker will try to place it at the best available price, there’s a chance the market could gap between then and when the trade is opened.

That’s only true for traditional market orders, though; when you place a market order with us, we try to limit the amount of gapping or slippage your order experiences.

With our out-of-hours¹ offering, you can trade on selected markets when the underlying is closed. Extended trading hours serves to reduce the risk of market gapping.

Limit orders are best used in highly volatile markets and those with a high bid-ask spread, as there’s a greater chance your order will be filled – and at the price that you want.

Since you determine the value at which you’ll buy or sell the underlying, you have control over what price you want to pay. However, there’s a chance the market may never reach the level you’re after, and so your trade won’t be executed.

You might place your order but the market takes a long time to reach your desired level – you could forget about your trade in that time, and when it finally is executed, it may interfere with your present trading strategy.

The market may perform even better in your favour than you expected, in which case, you’re subject to opportunity cost, as you’re missing out on even more potential profit.

In these scenarios, a risk management plan is essential to ensure you to keep track of your orders.

Learn more about the types of orders and their differences

When to place a market order and limit order

You may want to use a market order to hedge your risk in the underlying market. Let’s say you own Apple shares and the market value is decreasing. You could enter the market as soon as possible in an attempt to mitigate the drop in share price to hedge the loss on your stock holding.

On the other hand, you could open a limit order if the market is volatile, and you want to avoid the slippage you’d likely experience with a market order. You decide on the limit to what you’ll buy or sell for depending on if you’re going long or short, respectively.

You might use a limit order when you believe the market will reach a specific value. If you think the market will go up, you may want to take a chance that the price will first decrease before going up – and therefore shave a little off the purchase price to make a profit. Likewise, if you think the market will go down, you’ll open a limit order to sell at a price higher than the current value.

For example, you want to trade forex and think the value of EUR/GBP will rise. The current buy price is 0.8828 and the sell price is 0.8826. You might set a limit order to buy at 0.8823, thinking the price will decrease before it shoots up. If you’re right, you would have bought for 0.0003 lower than if you’d had used a market order. If you’re wrong, the trade will simply never be executed because the market doesn’t reach 0.8823 within three months.

The same principle applies if you’re trading on shares, indices or commodities.

You might want to consider this strategy if you’re fairly confident of the direction a market will take, or if your fundamental analysis and technical analysis are telling you what the market is likely to do.

How to place a market order and limit order

Because the order is an instruction to place the trade immediately, the way to do this is to place a deal on our platform.

1. Open a CFD² trading account or practise with a demo account
2. Choose your market
3. Use the deal ticket to select whether you want to go long or short
4. Set your position size and manage your risk
5. Place your trade and monitor your position

You can place a limit order on your CFD trading account.

There are two types of limit order – open and close. You can place a limit order to open a trade if you haven’t taken a position, and a close order to terminate an open position.

You’ll also need to determine if you want the order to stay open until it reaches its expiry, or if it should fall away on a certain date that you specify.

How to place a limit entry order on a CFD trading account

1. Open an account or practise with a demo account
2. Open the ‘order’ tab on your deal ticket
3. Choose your price level
4. Decide between ‘good till cancelled’ or ‘good till date’
5. Place the order

Market order vs limit order summed up

• A market order is an instruction to a broker to execute a trade immediately at the best available price
• A limit order is an instruction to a broker to place a trade at a specific price or better than the current market value
• Market orders are a good strategy for highly liquid markets – and when you’d like an immediate fill on a trade
• Limit orders work when you believe the market will reach a specific value and you are willing to wait for that level before trading

¹ 24/7 excludes the hours from 6am to 4pm on Saturdays (Singapore Time), and 20 minutes just before the weekday market opens on Monday morning.
² CFDs are leveraged products. CFD trading may not be suitable for everyone and can result in losses that exceed your deposits, so please ensure that you fully understand the risks involved.