Welcome to Module 2. Module 1 taught you how markets work. Now you get the controls.

Let’s start with a trip to a street market. You spot a pair of sneakers you love. You have three ways to buy them.

Option one: you walk up and say, “I’ll take them, whatever the price.” You get the sneakers right now, but you might pay more than you hoped.

Option two: you tell the seller, “Call me if the price drops to $80.” You’ll pay $80 or less, but if the price never drops, you walk home barefoot.

Option three: you say, “If other buyers start snapping these up and the price hits $120, buy them for me.” You’re betting the popularity will keep growing, and you want in once the rush begins.

Congratulations. You now know the three main order types in trading: the market order, the limit order and the stop order. Traders who confuse them pay for the mistake in slippage, missed trades and the occasional expensive surprise.

By the end of this lesson, you’ll know when each order fills, why a limit order gives you price control but no guarantee, why a stop order becomes a market order once triggered, and which order to use in which situation.

A Quick Recap: Bid and Ask

Remember Chapter 2 of Module 1? Every pair has two prices.

The ask is where you buy. The bid is where you sell.

Keep this in mind for the whole lesson. On MetaTrader 5, buy orders trigger off the ask price, and sell orders trigger off the bid. Forget this, and you’ll wonder why your order filled “before the price got there.”

Part 1: The Market Order

A market order says: “Fill me now, at the best price available.” Click Buy, and you get the current ask. Click Sell, and you get the current bid. Done.

Market orders give you certainty of execution. Your trade opens within a fraction of a second on a liquid pair like EUR/USD. What they don’t give you is certainty of price.

Suppose EUR/USD shows 1.0850 bid and 1.0851 ask. You click Buy. In the split second between your click and the fill, the price moves, and you get 1.0852. The one pip difference is called slippage.

On a quiet afternoon, slippage is tiny or zero. During a big news release, prices jump so fast a slippage of several pips is normal. Slippage works both ways, by the way. Sometimes you get a better price than the one you clicked.

When should you use a market order?

When getting into the trade matters more than the exact price. When the market is liquid and spreads are tight. When you need to exit a losing trade fast. Waiting for a better price on a loser is how small losses grow up into big ones.

Part 2: Pending Orders, the Set and Forget Tools

A pending order is an instruction to open a trade later, only if the price reaches a level you choose. You set the order, walk away, and the platform watches the chart for you.

MetaTrader 5 offers four main pending orders:
Buy Limit: buy below the current price
Sell Limit: sell above the current price
Buy Stop: buy above the current price
Sell Stop: sell below the current price

Wait. Buy above the current price? Why would anyone pay more on purpose? Hold the thought for two minutes. Here’s a memory trick first. Limit orders wait for a better price. Stop orders chase momentum.

A Buy Limit buys cheaper than now. A Sell Limit sells higher than now. Both aim for a better deal. A Buy Stop buys only after the price rises. A Sell Stop sells only after the price falls. Both jump in once the market proves a direction.

Part 3: Limit Orders, Price Control With No Guarantee

A limit order says: “Fill me at this price or better, and not a pip worse.”

Example. EUR/USD trades at 1.0850. Your analysis shows strong support at 1.0820, where buyers stepped in three times last week. You don’t want to buy at 1.0850. You want to buy at the discount.

So you place a Buy Limit at 1.0820. If the ask drops to 1.0820, your order fills at 1.0820 or better. You got the price you planned. Lovely. But here’s the catch. Suppose the price drops to 1.0821, one pip short, and then rockets to 1.0950. Your order never fills. You were right about the direction, right about the support, and you still made zero. Painful? Yes. Traders call this “missing the move.”

A limit order trades certainty of execution for control of price. You name the price. The market decides whether to show up.

Sell Limits work the same way in reverse, selling at resistance above the current price.

Use limit orders when:
You expect price to pull back to a level before moving your way.
You’d rather miss the trade than pay a worse price.
You want to buy support or sell resistance.

Part 4: Stop Orders, Momentum With a Catch

Now back to the question. Why would anyone buy above the current price?

Because sometimes a break above a level tells you something. Suppose EUR/USD has bounced off resistance at 1.0880 four times this week. Many traders believe a clean break above 1.0880 signals fresh buying. You don’t want to buy at 1.0850 and hope. You want to buy only after the market proves the breakout.

So you place a Buy Stop at 1.0885.

If the ask rises to 1.0885, the order triggers. If the breakout never happens, you never enter. If the order fills, you’ve paid 35 pips above the current price for confirmation.

Now the critical detail. When a stop order triggers, the order becomes a market order. The platform fills you at the next available price, and the next available price is not always your price.

On a calm day, a Buy Stop at 1.0885 fills at 1.0885 or 1.0886. No drama.

On a news day, the story changes. Suppose you hold a Sell Stop at 1.0800 when the US jobs report comes out. The dollar surges, and EUR/USD drops from 1.0812 to 1.0785 in a single jump. The bid never trades at 1.0800. Your order triggers and fills at 1.0785, 15 pips worse than you planned.

Did the platform cheat you? No. A stop order guarantees a trigger, not a price. The same thing happens with weekend gaps, which we covered in Module 1, Chapter 4.

Use stop orders when:

You trade breakouts and want confirmation first.
You want to enter only if the market moves in a specific direction.
You accept a less precise price in exchange for a guaranteed trigger.

Pop Quiz

EUR/USD trades at 1.0850. Match each plan to an order.

Plan A: You want to sell if the price rallies to resistance at 1.0900.
Plan B: You want to buy if the price breaks above 1.0900.
Plan C: You want to buy if the price dips to support at 1.0800.
Plan D: You want to sell if the price breaks below 1.0800.

Answers: A is a Sell Limit. B is a Buy Stop. C is a Buy Limit. D is a Sell Stop. Four out of four? Top marks. Two out of four? Read the memory trick again.

Part 5: The Orders You Already Use Without Knowing

Here’s a fun twist. Two tools you’ll use on almost every trade are pending orders in disguise.

A stop loss is a stop order. You buy EUR/USD at 1.0850 and set a stop loss at 1.0830. If the bid falls to 1.0830, a sell order triggers and closes your trade. Since the stop loss is a stop order, the slippage rules apply. In a fast market, your stop loss sometimes fills below 1.0830.

A take profit is a limit order. Set a take profit at 1.0900, and the platform sells at 1.0900 or better once the bid gets there. No slippage against you.

Why does this matter? Because when you plan risk for a prop challenge, you plan around your stop loss. A stop loss at 20 pips risks $100 on 0.5 lots in normal conditions. During a news spike, the same stop fills at 30 pips, and your loss becomes $150. Plan for the bad fill, not only the perfect one.

Order Expiry: How Long Your Order Waits

Every pending order on MT5 carries an expiry setting:
Good till cancelled: the order waits until the price hits your level or you delete the order. Today: the order expires at the end of the trading day. Specified: the order expires at a date and time you choose.

A forgotten “good till cancelled” order is one of the sneakiest dangers in trading. You place a Buy Stop on Monday, change your mind on Tuesday, forget to delete the order, and on Friday a news spike fills a trade you no longer want. Review your pending orders every day.

Why This Matters on a Moneta Funded Account

Pending orders and prop rules interact in ways beginners don’t expect.

A forgotten pending order fills while you sleep and adds a position to your account. If the trade goes wrong before you wake up, the loss still counts toward your daily loss limit. Stop orders filled during news carry slippage, and slippage counts too. On a $10,000 Instant Funding account with a $300 daily limit, a few bad fills add up fast. News rules differ between accounts. Instant Funding Pro allows news trading. Check the rules on your own account before you leave pending orders open around big releases.

Your Order Cheat Sheet

Market order: fills now, price not guaranteed. Buy Limit and Sell Limit: better price or no fill. Buy Stop and Sell Stop: trigger on momentum, then fill at the next available price. Stop loss: a stop order, exposed to slippage. Take profit: a limit order, filled at your price or better.

Up Next: Chapter 2

Stay tuned, because the next chapter tackles the two orders you’ll place on every single trade: the stop loss and the take profit. Knowing how they work is step one. Knowing where to put them is where most traders go wrong. You’ll learn why a stop loss belongs where your trade idea is proven wrong, not at a random round number, how to set a take profit with a sensible reward-to-risk ratio; and why a stop placed too tight gets hit by normal market noise. Good placement is the difference between a strategy which survives and one which bleeds slowly. See you in class.

Disclaimer: This content is for educational purposes only and does not constitute financial advice. Trading forex and CFDs involves significant risk of loss. Figures used in examples are for illustration only. Order types, execution and expiry options vary by platform and account. Moneta Funded accounts use simulated capital for evaluation purposes.