Order types
Every order answers two questions: what price, and how long. Get those two right and you control exactly how your bet goes in.
Name your price, or take what's there
The big choice is limit vs market.
A limit order sets your price. It fills at that price or better, and if nobody's there to match yet, it rests in the book and waits. You control the price. You don't control whether, or when, it fills.
A market order takes whatever's on offer right now. It fills instantly, but the price is whatever the book gives you, which in a thin market can land a few cents worse than you'd like.
Rule of thumb: limit when price matters more than speed, market when you just want in or out now.
Orders fill in pieces
An order doesn't have to fill all at once. If only part of it can match, that part trades and the rest keeps resting at your price until it fills or you cancel it.
Matching goes best price first, and at the same price, first in line first. A better price jumps the queue, and among equal prices, the earliest order fills first.
What happens to your order
Once it's in, an order lands in one of three places.
Place order
│
├─ Matches now ─────────────▶ Filled (shares + escrow)
│
├─ Matches part ───────────▶ Partially filled
│ └─ remainder rests
│
└─ No match ───────────────▶ Resting (funds reserved)
└─ you cancel ▶ funds releasedA resting order isn't stuck. It sits at your price until someone meets it, and you can cancel any time to free the funds.
How long an order lives
You decide how long a resting order sticks around:
- Good-til-cancelled (the default) stays until it fills or you pull it.
- Day expires at the end of the day if it hasn't filled.
- Good-til-time expires at a moment you set.
Want it now or not at all? Two more:
- Immediate-or-cancel fills whatever it can this instant, then cancels the rest.
- Fill-or-kill fills the whole thing at once, or cancels completely. No partials.
Two prices, one dollar
The two sides of a market split a single dollar between them.
Trade one side and Kohana re-prices the other to match, automatically. It can't drift into nonsense like Yes and No together costing more than a dollar. You place one order, the balancing is handled for you.