Hello everyone!
I’m not sure what happened here. But I placed an OCO. And the buy order was triggered. However, it entered at a price different from what I typed in. My entry price is the solid yellow line (1.32), and Ally opened my position at the dotted yellow line (1.31)
Has this happened to anyone before? I called and the agent told me that the platform is getting me a better price.
This doesn’t make sense to me. Does anyone understand this?
Hi - the devil is in the detail, and that can result from the trade software platform being not so perfect in explaining what it means. An OCO is a one cancels other, so it would be useful to know what other order was cancelled when this one was committed. If you think about it by comparison, let’s say I am a shop keeper and you come to me and ask me to sell you an item for $1.32. I say “I’ll sell you one for $1.31”. Are you going to insist on paying me $1.32?
Well done - this is why it is advised to trade on a demo account with the broker you intend to use. I made a lot of these mistakes five years ago by trading a live account before having the patience of understanding the basics by using a demo account. Now I am far more cautious. If you are maintaining a trading log or journal, write this up as a misunderstanding of what a OCO means to broker Ally, and only trade again when you are absolutely sure what THEIR rules are regarding placing orders, which may not coincide what you think they mean. I hope this helps.
This is a demo account, by the way. Sorry I didn’t specify that.
My sell order is the solid yellow line towards the bottom of the range.
I thought an OCO just means if I place two orders, then whichever is triggered first, the other will cancel.
I didn’t know that on Ally it means their system will decide what price is best for me.
If I said “buy at 1.32” their system shouldn’t open a position for me at 1.31
So, I wanted to go live with Ally, but now I’m not so sure.
I liked their variety of orders, but now I feel like their system is full of surprises. I don’t want to keep finding out about how their system makes arbitrary decisions, becaue it would have cost me money at no fault to my strategy.
By the way, the chart above is IG, not Ally. I use IG charts because I think they’re easier to read and are also more user-friendly.
So, to me this kind of surprise order seems a bit confusing.
I don’t know exactly when the system will decide when to get me the “best” price.
How far will the best price be from my original price?
This seems a bit sneaky to me. Any thoughts on whethernor not it’s kind of sneaky?
Not sure I understand exactly where and what your orders were but a 29pip discrepancy seems suspect. I was going to comment on the fact that you’re using IG charts to place orders with a different broker whose prices may vary from that of IG. But even so this seems to be strange to me.
I would look for a different broker.
Yes i use charts from a different broker, and I understand that they will never be exactly the same.
But I do expect them to be similar. However, even a different chart doesn’t explain to me why my position was executed differently than I ordered.
I’ll continue to demo with them, but I am unsure about going live with them.
Hi Dushimes,
Did you think about the logic that I proposed above, that underlies the function of Ally’s ordering system? I agree with you that you meant to place an order IF and ONLY IF the price of the underlying reached 1.32, and not before. But if that is not what Ally means by their order system, and you have read all their educational material concerning placing limit trades, what will make any other broker any better? Best to get to the bottom of them explaining to you by example what their system does to your limit trade requests, than to go to another broker with the same or a different problem?
@Mondeoman, I believe his order was a buy order therefore it cannot be a limit order if it is above price. It has to have been a Stop Market order. All order types should work similarly for all brokers. Brokers cannot change the rules on you. 
I did call them, but I suppose I should call again and get to the bottom of it.
Ok. Best price for me. I could ask how EXACTLY does that work? Who determines what the best price is for me? How is that calculated?
Perhaps these are questions i could ask.
Also I asked if they have any orders that execute exactly as I write them. He said “no”.
@dushimes That advisor on the other end of the line may be a newbie. A market order is one that executes exactly as you write it, so I don’t understand why he would have said “no”. To be honest with you I think I can count on one hand the number of times I have put in a limit order in the past five years, so I think @QuadPip answer may lead you closer to the truth. I will try to find some link to literature about limit and stop orders and provide it here if I find it.
To be honest, I never thought about subtle differences like this between brokers. This whole thing surprised me. I really like the orders available on Ally. You can trail out, set trail stops, etc. You can’t do any of that on IG. But IG’s charts are very user-friendly.
But I think I will encounter some problem or other with any broker I go to. I’m checking out Ally’s site.
https://invest.ally.com/forex/faq_allyinvestforexdesktop.php#order_types
So here’s a pic from their FAQ list. It’s interesting, but it doesn’t say anything about their platform choosing the best price for me when setting OCOs.
@Mondeoman I guess the devil really is in the detail. I’ll just have to settle this over the phone, I think. I’m gonna try to get a better understanding of how their orders work. I can’t keep getting surprised like this.
