🧾Orders & Execution · 7 terms

Orders & Execution

The gap between the trade you intended and the trade you got. Most of it is decided here, before anything else goes right or wrong.

Price or certainty — you get one

A market order guarantees execution and guarantees nothing about price. A limit order guarantees price and guarantees nothing about execution. Every other order type on this page is built from those two, and the choice between them is the same trade-off every time.

In a liquid contract the difference is small enough to ignore. It stops being small exactly when it matters most: at the open, on a news spike, in an illiquid strike, or on the day you most need to get out. That difference is slippage, and it is the cost that never appears on a brokerage statement as a line item while consistently exceeding the ones that do.

The arithmetic is worth doing once. A strategy that trades daily and loses a few basis points per side to slippage gives up a meaningful part of a year's return to it. Traders who track everything else and not this are usually mystified by the gap between their backtest and their account.

Exits, which is where the order type actually matters

A stop-loss is an instruction to exit if price reaches a level. Two things about it are routinely misunderstood. First, a stop-loss market order will fill at whatever is available when triggered, which in a gap can be far from the level — the stop defines when you exit, not at what price. Second, a stop-loss limit order can fail to fill at all in exactly that scenario, leaving the position open in the situation the stop existed for. Neither is a defect; they are the same market-versus-limit trade-off, showing up at the worst possible moment.

A trailing stop moves the level as the trade goes your way, converting an open profit into a floor. Bracket and cover orders attach the stop and target at entry, which is mostly a discipline device: it makes the exit a decision taken while calm rather than one taken while watching the position move.

GTT and GTC orders persist across sessions rather than expiring at the close, which suits position trades and is unnecessary for intraday work.

One rule that survives everything

Decide the exit before the entry. Not because it improves the odds of any single trade, but because the moment after entering is the worst moment available to think about it — the position is moving, the reasoning that justified it feels fragile, and the decision gets made on the state of the profit-and-loss number rather than on the market.

Bracket orders exist because enough people learned this the expensive way.

All 7 terms in Orders & Execution

Alphabetical, each with a worked example. Every one of these is searchable from the glossary index.

Bracket / Cover Order

Intraday order types that bundle an entry with an automatic stop-loss (and target). They enforce risk discipline and often grant extra leverage.

e.g. A bracket order: buy at ₹500, auto stop-loss ₹490, auto target ₹520 — all three legs placed at once.

GTT / GTC Order

'Good Till Triggered/Cancelled' — a long-dated resting order that stays active for weeks until your price condition is met, instead of expiring at day-end.

e.g. Set a GTT to buy TCS at ₹3,600; it waits for weeks and fires only if the price ever hits your level.

Limit Order

An order to trade only at a specified price or better. Guarantees price but not execution — it may never fill if the market doesn't reach it.

e.g. Place a buy limit at ₹248 with the stock at ₹250 → it only fills if the price dips to ₹248 or lower.

Market Order

An order to buy/sell immediately at the best available price. Guarantees execution but not price — risky in illiquid or fast markets.

e.g. You place a market buy expecting ₹250 but, in a fast move, it fills at ₹250.90 — instant, but not the price you saw.

Slippage

The difference between the price you expected and the price you actually got. Worse in fast-moving or illiquid markets.

e.g. You aimed to sell at ₹300 but the market order filled at ₹299.40 → ₹0.60 of slippage.

Stop-Loss (SL)

A resting order that triggers once price hits a set level, used to cap losses (or protect profits). SL-M triggers a market order; SL-L triggers a limit order.

e.g. Bought at ₹500; set a stop-loss at ₹485 → if it falls to 485 the sell fires, capping the loss at ~₹15.

Trailing Stop

A stop-loss that automatically follows price in your favour, locking in gains while giving the trade room to run.

e.g. A ₹10 trailing stop: buy at ₹500, price runs to ₹540, the stop trails up to ₹530 — locking in profit if it reverses.

Where you'll see these on ScalperSense