Pending order - Weekend

Hey Guys,

can you tell if market closes on weekend, will my pending order automatically cancel or stay there? I am using MT5 web trader.

also, is there a way to create pending order on weekends?

Thanks
Sal

Yes. Every broker and every platform that I’m familiar with preserves pending orders over the weekend, but those pending orders cannot be executed until the retail forex market reopens after the weekend.

It depends on your broker and on his platform. In the U.S., Oanda’s FxTrade platform allows pending orders to be placed, modified, or removed (but not executed) over the weekend.

Here’s what Oanda says –

United States

OANDA’s hours of operation coincide with the global financial markets. Trading is available from Sunday approximately 5 p.m. to Friday 5 p.m., New York time.

If you decide to leave trades open over the weekend:

• You cannot close existing positions or open new positions when markets are closed (but you can place or modify Entry Orders, Stop Loss, Take Profit and Trailing Stop orders).

• Spreads (the difference between the bid price and the ask price) typically widen at 4:00 p.m. Friday, to reflect decreased liquidity in the global markets. These widened spreads could trigger stop-loss orders or margin closeouts when a position is opened at this time.

• Market prices may significantly change or “gap” when trading resumes on Sunday. This change could trigger Entry Orders, which are executed at the current market rate. For example, if the market rate moves against you, a stop-loss order may be closed at a rate different from your stop-loss rate – resulting in additional losses.



Oanda operates worldwide, and their policies in other countries may be different from those outlined above.

Also, I don’t know whether the same weekend policies apply to Oanda’s MT4 platform. (As far as I know, Oanda does not offer MT5.)

Do not assume that your broker has the same policies as those listed above. Contact your own broker for the correct answers to your questions.

2 Likes

Thanks. It helps!!! I’ll try pending order on MT5 web. but i’ll hate if stop loss executes at wrong price causing me more loss. does this happen frequently?

Then, why leave pending orders sitting there over the weekend?

You can simply jot down the pending orders you want to place, hold them until the market reopens on Sunday, and then – if the market isn’t going crazy at the opening – place your pending orders at that time.

Large price gaps and/or large transient price spikes on the weekly opening are rare, but not unheard-of. When such gaps or spikes do occur, triggering pending orders which you would otherwise not have wanted to be triggered, they can ruin your Sunday evening.

But, when discussing large gaps or spikes, the operative word is large.

For a short-term trader – an intraday trader for example – a 25-pip or 50-pip gap or spike on the weekly open might cause real harm. But, for a swing trader, or position trader, who is trading much larger price moves, with much larger profit-targets and stop-losses, 25 or 50 pips might be no more than a normal fluctuation in price.

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I am a day trader, so yes, bad trigger of stop loss can ruin my day or even week as I am newbie. so, I think it’s a good advice to wait for market to open and then place your order…if I am awake that time which is a problem sometimes.