An order specifies the operation, size and conditions requested from a provider. A market order seeks execution now; a limit bounds the acceptable price; a stop activates an operation at a threshold. Availability and result depend on the symbol’s execution and filling rules. Reaching a stop does not confirm a future market direction. First decide whether the request opens exposure or closes a specific existing position.

An order name does not specify how much fills

Compare two permitted filling policies for the same market order. Price conditions and volume conditions are separate settings.

Scroll sideways to see the full diagram

An order name does not specify how much fillsA hypothetical purchase request is 12,000 EUR; only 8,000 EUR is available on acceptable terms. FOK fills nothing; IOC fills 8,000 EUR and cancels the remaining 4,000 EUR.Request: 12,000 EURTotal available: only 8,000 EURFOKAll or nothingFilled: 0 EURFull 12,000 unavailable→ no fillIOCAvailable portionFilled: 8,000Remaining: 4,000 EUR→ cancelledSame request size, different result.

An illustrative market order at unchanged quotes. Assume the symbol and server permit both FOK and IOC. The 8,000 EUR includes every available offer meeting the conditions; no further liquidity arrives during processing. No previous position or other operations. MetaQuotes documents FOK and IOC and their dependence on symbol specification.

A hypothetical purchase request is 12,000 EUR; only 8,000 EUR is available on acceptable terms. FOK fills nothing; IOC fills 8,000 EUR and cancels the remaining 4,000 EUR.

For FOK, the full volume may come from several offers, but 8,000 < 12,000 still means insufficient full volume. For IOC, 12,000 − 8,000 = 4,000 EUR is cancelled. After the response, check actual fills and remaining volume; the word market alone does not confirm full execution.

Market order: execution requested now, not guaranteed

A market order requests execution under the instrument's available execution mode. It does not guarantee a fill or a particular price: rejection, unavailable liquidity, partial execution and execution-policy restrictions may apply. Slippage is the difference between a defined reference price and the actual fill; measure it for the broker, instrument and conditions being assessed rather than assuming a typical pip amount.

During volatile releases, quotes can change rapidly, spreads can widen and available liquidity can decrease. For a hypothetical standard EUR/USD lot, fifteen pips of adverse slippage equals USD 150 before other costs. This is arithmetic, not a claim about typical news slippage. Choose order type and execution assumptions from the actual venue's rules.

Limit order — a price equal or better, but no guarantee of a fill

A limit specifies the worst acceptable fill price: a buy no higher and a sell no lower, if execution is possible. Retail forex MT5 normally places Buy Limit below current Ask and Sell Limit above current Bid; exchange modes can allow marketable limits. Touching a line on a Bid-only chart does not prove a buy condition or sufficient executable size.

Take hypothetical EUR/USD Ask 1.0865 and Buy Limit 1.0842. If a complete fill occurs at 1.0842, that entry is 23 pips below the saved Ask, with pip 0.0001. The example does not predict a pullback or rebound. If executable Ask never meets the limit, or permitted size is unavailable, the order may remain unfilled or fill only partly under its rules. A missed trade is part of the comparison, not an automatic price advantage.

Stop order: a trigger, not confirmation of a trend

In retail forex MT5, Buy Stop activates when Ask reaches or passes a higher trigger; Sell Stop uses Bid at a lower trigger. Ordinary stops can execute at a price different from that level. A limit instead bounds the execution price if filled. These instructions can express a trading plan, but neither proves that a breakout will continue or a pullback will reverse.

For example, assume current EUR/USD Ask is below 1.0883 and a Buy Stop has been accepted at 1.0883. Reaching the Ask trigger initiates buying under the symbol’s rules; a fill at 1.0886 would be three adverse pips relative to that trigger, with pip 0.0001. The request could also fail under its conditions. Read the response and actual volume rather than treating the first displayed price as a promised complete fill.

MT5 also lists Buy Stop Limit and Sell Stop Limit. Activation places a limit at a separately specified level, so price control can come at the cost of no fill. In a hypothetical retail-forex Buy Stop Limit, stop Ask 1.1010 and buy limit 1.1008 activate a Buy Limit when Ask passes 1.1010; they do not authorise buying at any higher price. Check the symbol’s allowed order types and level distances. Other venues may impose different stop-limit placement rules.

Stop loss and take profit — two protective orders you must not forget

A stop loss is an automated exit instruction. In a hypothetical long EUR/USD trade entered at 1.0850 with stop 1.0820, the applicable bid trigger initiates closing under the broker's rules. A fill at 1.0815 would add five pips to the planned loss. That is an illustrative adverse fill, not a verified typical calm-day amount.

Take Profit attached to an MT5 position is a closing condition, checked against Bid for a forex long and Ask for a short. It is not necessarily a separately placed Sell Limit: on a hedging account, an independent opposite order can open another position rather than close the first. In a hypothetical long entered at 1.0850 with TP 1.0940, exact execution would give 90 pips before costs, but reaching a chart line alone does not confirm that execution.

Hypothetical long: 100,000 EUR, pip 0.0001, USD account; exact entry and exit fills assumed, no other costs
Long EUR/USD entry1.0850
Assumed SL trigger1.0820 — 30 pips of risk
Assumed TP trigger1.0940 — 90 pips of potential gain
Planned reward-to-risk ratio3:1 in this model, not a universal strategy minimum
Price result if the full close fills exactly at SLloss of 30 pips, or 300 USD on a standard lot
Price result if the full close fills exactly at TPgain of 90 pips, or 900 USD on a standard lot

The stop loss versus take profit — when to use which guide explains the two closing conditions. A written exit plan may use a fixed target, a trailing rule or another documented method. Neither a stop nor the addition of a take profit guarantees an edge, a maximum loss or that the position can be left unattended.

Trailing stop — a stop that follows the price

A trailing mechanism updates SL in the favourable direction according to its configured distance and activation rules. In a hypothetical forex long entered at 1.0850, a successfully updated SL of 1.0910 would correspond to 60 pips of price gain if the whole close actually fills there. The update and the fill are different events; an ordinary trailing stop does not guarantee that closing price.

MetaTrader’s standard desktop trailing stop runs in the terminal. If the terminal stops running, new trailing updates cease, while the last successfully placed server SL remains. A provider or add-on can implement different mechanics, so verify where yours runs. The how a trailing stop works and when it kills your profit article explains the effect of distance and updates. Choose the distance from explicit plan assumptions and instrument observations; this article establishes no universal distance formula.

OCO — two entry scenarios in a single setup

OCO links instructions so that execution of one cancels the other according to that implementation. Distinguish linked entry orders from a position’s attached stop and limit-close. Two independent orders are not OCO, and a manually sent cancellation can arrive after the other order has already executed.

In a hypothetical entry setup, accepted Buy Stop 1.0883 and Sell Stop 1.0847 are linked by a documented OCO function. If the buy executes and the sell is successfully cancelled before it can execute, only the buy changes exposure. The result is conditional on the implementation’s handling of fills and cancellations; do not assume that two tickets or a fast reversal cannot create a different result. Check both order states and current positions.

MT5’s standard order-type list has no standalone OCO type. Providers and add-ons may supply linkage with their own rules: Dukascopy documents linked entry orders, while IG’s cited help page says it does not offer OCO to open and treats an attached stop plus limit-close as OCO. Check the actual product, location of the automation and response behaviour; broker brand or an ECN label does not establish native support.

GTC versus day order — how long your order lives

Time in force is separate from order type and filling policy. Day applies to the current trading day under the service’s rules; it is not automatically midnight in your local time. GTC means continued validity until cancelled, subject to the symbol’s order-handling rules. MT5 can also support specified time or date. Check available expiry settings and whether daily rules affect pending orders or attached SL/TP.

Review expiry against the time horizon of the plan. A day order can expire before a later opportunity; a forgotten GTC can activate after its original reason has disappeared. Neither setting is inherently reserved for one trading style. After cancellation or expiry, confirm the history and any resulting exposure before assuming the request no longer matters.

Part filled — what happened to the remainder?

The current position and remaining order are separate objects. MT5 rules describe IOC, which cancels the unfilled remainder, and RETURN, which keeps processing it. Availability depends on order type and execution mode. RETURN for immediate execution is unavailable in Market Execution; pending orders have a separate RETURN submission rule. Do not transfer one case’s restriction to the other.

Part filled — what happened to the remainder?

Part filled — what happened to the remainder?Fictional 1-lot request: 0.40 filled. IOC cancels the 0.60 remainder; permitted RETURN continues processing it.Requested 1.00one modelFilled 0.40current resultIOC: 0.60cancelled remainderRETURN: 0.60possible fill
These are alternative permitted policies, not successive stages of one order.

Assumptions: no prior position, one 1.00-lot buy instruction, first accepted fill 0.40. IOC leaves 0.40 exposure and cancels the unfilled 0.60. In a separate permitted RETURN scenario, that 0.40 does not end the investigation: a later 0.60 fill could make the total 1.00. Fill prices need not match. If cancellation of the remainder was requested, inspect the reply and history instead of assuming the click succeeded.

Exercise: a 0.40-lot position and an active 0.60 remainder exist. What quantity needs monitoring?

Currently 0.40, potentially 1.00 if the remainder fills. Do not call the first visible fill the final quantity. This checks quantity; margin, prices and risk need separate calculations.

For multiple position closures, see checking Close all results.

Separately, inspect protection expiry at a day change and required position closing order. These are different properties from volume filling policy.

Which order when — a checklist of what to do before you click

Before sending an order, check its type, size, trigger, expiry and execution conditions against the written plan. Rehearse changes on a demo account so the mechanics are familiar before using real funds.

  1. Separate urgency from a guarantee. Market seeks execution now under the available mode; it can still be rejected or partially filled. Limit bounds the price if execution occurs but may miss the trade. Compare the acceptable price and needed volume rather than assuming a planned limit is almost always cheaper.
  2. Match the trigger to the intended operation. For retail forex MT5, Buy Limit uses Ask at or below the limit and Buy Stop uses Ask at or above the stop. Use Bid for the corresponding sell conditions. Reaching the threshold is a mechanical event, not a confirmation that the forecast is correct.
  3. Define the stop level and position size together. Choose the intended invalidation rule before entry, account for volatility and execution risk, and size the position accordingly. A chart does not reveal whether specific algorithms can see or target your individual stop.
  4. Distinguish exits from new exposure. Attach the intended SL/TP to the correct position where supported. On hedging accounts, a new opposite pending order need not close the existing trade. Check the position identifier and actual result; a take profit is one possible exit rule, not a substitute for monitoring service availability and changes.
  5. Choose expiry and fill policy deliberately. Time in force controls how long a request remains valid; FOK and IOC instead control acceptable volume handling. A fixed 30–60-second wait after news does not guarantee normal spreads or executable prices. Verify the conditions that the plan requires before submitting.

Use alerts as information, not orders. The price alerts in MetaTrader 5 guide covers platform notifications. An alert does not reserve a price, guarantee two minutes of warning or execute a trade. Read the response after each operation and reconcile it with positions and history. The what slippage is and how a stop-loss order is executed guides explain execution-price differences and conditional exits.