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SmartTrade: Limit, Market, and Conditional orders explained
SmartTrade: Limit, Market, and Conditional orders explained

Learn what is the difference in these types of orders and decide which one is better to use

Updated over a week ago

There are 3 main types of orders:

Limit Orders

When you choose this type, the order will be placed right into the exchange's order book. If this order is placed correctly then the execution of it will be fully completed at the specified price. This type of order is better if you trade on pairs with low liquidity and want to avoid big spreads. Thus, this type of order is perfect for big-sized orders.


Market Orders

If you choose the Market Order type, you will need to choose the price type:

  • Bid - the price should reach the best BUY price (usually, it's green and on the bottom of the order book).

  • Ask - the price should reach the best SELL price (usually, it's red and on the top of the order book).

  • Last - the Take profit order will be executed if the conditional will be traded.

To learn more about these price types, please head to this article:

If you choose the Market Order type to open the trade, the initial order (to start the trade) will be executed at the market price instantly, so you are not able to change the price. But if the Market Order is chosen for Take Profit, then this order will be executed at the market price right after the specified price level is reached. Here you can enter the price where the Market Order will be executed.


Conditional Order

These are interesting types of orders, as you need to set the conditional price first, which will trigger the order to be placed or executed. So the order is not placed beforehand and is not triggered immediately after you create a SmartTrade. Thus, the funds are not locked in the orders and are free to use. This means that you will have to carefully and thoroughly track your balance!

For example, using Conditional orders to buy coins. You can place as many orders as you want and your funds will not be blocked there. You can trade in semi-automated mode, setting up Take Profit and Stop Losses to exit the trades.

You can also manually use QFL strategy in SmartTrades.

There are two types of this order.

1. Conditional Limit Order:

The main idea of this type is to place a limit order (described above) only if the price reaches a specified price level. Before this level is reached, the limit order is not placed

So there are two prices - Trigger price and Order price. You need to specify a trigger price when the order should be placed. Order price is where the Limit order will be placed when the condition is met.

WARNING!

It is not recommended to set the same Trigger price and the Order price or place them very close to each other. This may cause confusion and even loss because the placed limit order may not be executed.

Let's assume you want to BUY coins with Cond. Limit order. You place the same Trigger and Order prices. After the condition is met, the BUY order will be placed at the Trigger price, but the coin's price quickly reverted and went higher again. Thus, your BUY order will be placed but remain unfilled.

The same is true with the SELL order (Stop Loss). The price can pass the Trigger level (240 on the screenshot below) too fast - by the time the Limit Sell order is placed, the price can already be lower than this level, so the Sell Order is placed at 240 and remains unfilled:

To prevent the limit order from being stuck:

  • Set the order price just a bit higher than the conditional price for buy orders.

  • Set the order price just a bit lower than the conditional price for sell orders.

2. Conditional Market Order

This works the same way as the Conditional Limit order, but with only one difference - it executes the order at the market rate as soon as the price reaches the condition (trigger) level. Also, it behaves exactly the same as Market Order when you use it to start the SmartTrade.

This type of order is perfect if you use Trailing buy or Trailing Stop Loss features.

Here you can choose the price type to consider - ASK, BID or LAST.

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