Order Types
Market, limit, stop — each answers a different question: certainty of fill vs certainty of price.
Placing TradesBeginner 6 min read· Lesson 1 of 11 in Stock Market Basics
Market orders
'Fill me NOW at whatever the best available price is.' Guaranteed execution, unguaranteed price — fine for liquid large-caps, dangerous in thin names where you can pay far above the last print.
Limit orders
'Fill me only at my price or better.' Guaranteed price, unguaranteed execution — the stock can run away without you. The professional default: you decide the price, the market decides the timing.
Stop orders
A stop (loss) becomes a MARKET order when price touches the trigger — certain exit, possibly at a gapped-down price. A stop-LIMIT becomes a limit order instead — price-protected, but can fail to fill in a crash, leaving you holding. Know which failure mode you're choosing.
Practice here
The platform's virtual Trading page fills at last close (simplified), but every stop-loss you set in the Backtest panel behaves like a real stop — watch exit_reason to see them trigger.