Pending order
Instead of trading at the current price, a pending order waits: a buy stop triggers when price rises to its level, a sell stop when price falls to it; limit orders do the reverse, buying dips and selling rallies. Once triggered, they become market orders.
Automated strategies lean heavily on pending orders because they let the broker execute the plan even between the robot's decisions. Their weak point is the same as any stop: the trigger price is guaranteed, the fill price is not.
Covered in depth in Lesson 01: What an Expert Advisor actually is — and what it isn't.
Related terms
- Stop loss — An order that closes a position automatically at a predefined worse price, capping the loss on a trade.
- Range breakout — A strategy family that marks a price range during quiet hours and trades the move when price escapes it.
- Slippage — The difference between the price an order requested and the price it actually filled at.
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