Market Order. Placing a market order means that you will buy at your brokers current "ask" price, or sell at your brokers current "bid" price, whatever that price currently is. For example, suppose you are buying EURUSD. The current market, as quoted by your broker or on GCI's "Dealing Rates" window, is .9152/56. This means that your broker is willing to buy EURUSD from you at .9152, and sell it to you at .9156. To place a market order to buy
Click on the rate (Sell or Buy) field within the order record or right click anywhere within the order record and then choose Market order command from pop-up menu. The Amount input screen will appear:
Enter desired amount measured in lots and press OK. New order marked with letter ‘I’ (Initiate) will appear on the Trader’s Orders window. Dealer now is able to confirm operation or to reject it due to market movement.
Stop Order. Initiating a trade with a stop order means that you will only have a position if the market moves in the direction you are anticipating. For example, if USDJPY is currently 128.50 and you believe it will move higher, you could place a "buy stop" at 128.60. This means that the order will only be filled if the market moves up to 128.60. The advantage is that if you are wrong and the market moves straight down, you will not have bought (because 128.60 will never have been reached). The disadvantage is that 128.60 is clearly a less attractive rate at which to buy than 128.50. Initiating a trade with a Stop order is usually appropriate if you wish to trade only with strong market momentum in a particular direction.
On the GCI system, you can enter a trade with a stop order by right-clicking on the appropriate currency rate in the "Dealing Rates" window, and then selecting "Entry Stop" from the pop up menu. You can then input the order size and price.
Limit Order. A Limit order is an order to buy below the current price, or sell above the current price. For example, if EURUSD is trading at .9152/56 and you believe the market will rise, you could place a limit order to buy at .9145. If filled, this will give you a long position in EURUSD at .9145, which is 11 pips better than if you had just bought EURUSD with a market order. The disadvantage of this Limit order is that if EURUSD moves straight up from .9152/56, your limit at .9145 will never be filled and you will miss out on the profit opportunity even though your view on the direction of EURUSD was correct. Entering a trade with a Limit order is usually appropriate if you believe that the market will remain in a range before moving in your anticipated direction, allowing the order to be filled first.
On the GCI system, you can enter a trade with a limit order by right-clicking on the appropriate currency rate in the "Dealing Rates" window, and then selecting "Entry Limit" from the pop up menu. You can then input the order size and price.
