Limit or market - LMT and MKT orders, every session
Every BUY and SHORT goes as a limit order or a market order, and the LMT and MKT tick decides which. Most of the time, the answer is LMT. LMT, the standard, sends a limit order priced through the market by your entry offset.
In this video
The 30-second version
The same topic in thirty seconds, made for a phone screen.
Both videos use AutoScanTrade Lite in paper mode with made-up symbols and prices.
Read the transcript
Two order types
Every BUY and SHORT goes as a limit order or a market order, and the LMT and MKT tick decides which. Most of the time, the answer is LMT. Here is why.
LMT: through the market
LMT, the standard, sends a limit order priced through the market by your entry offset. So it fills like a market order, but never worse than the price plus the offset. And it works in every session: premarket, market hours and after hours.
MKT: regular hours only
MKT sends a true market order. Market orders only work in regular hours, from half past nine to four, New York time. Outside those hours the click is refused, and the desk tells you why, showing regular hours in your own local time. The tick turns amber while that is the case.
The same checks
Both types go through the same checks on the order path: the risk limits when live, the refusal on a halted stock, and the other safety checks. Choosing MKT never skips a check.
Exits use limits too
Exits are sent as limits priced through the market by your exit offset, so a stop can fire in the premarket as well as in market hours. Set both offsets in the MANUAL TRADING window. If an exit does not fill, the desk re-prices it one offset deeper. It does this a limited number of times, and logs each attempt as an EXIT CHASE.
In practice
Small caps move fast and spreads can be wide, so a limit through the market gives you speed, with a ceiling on what you pay. And because it works in every session, the same habit works at seven in the morning and at four in the afternoon.