Creating a Market Order
Last updated
Last updated
Once you have selected a market, you are ready to begin trading. The simplest way to do this is with a Market Order. With a Market Order, you simply specify your desired leverage and the amount of the asset you would like to buy or sell, and your order will be filled for the best price offered by the order book. We will walk through the steps now:
Set your desired leverage
Depending on the market, the maximum leverage will vary. In general, less volatile assets will have a greater maximum leverage. Specifying a higher amount of leverage has two effects: you will need less collateral to open a position of equal notional value compared to using less leverage, and two: your liquidation price will be closer to the price you open the position at. In essence, using more leverage is higher risk, higher reward. Positions with high leverage must be closely monitored to ensure your position is not liquidated. If your position does fall below the maintenance margin, it will be partially liquidated until once again it possesses enough collateral to satisfy the requirements of the maintenance margin for that market.
Note that once you have opened a position, you can add to that position at any time by placing another market or limit order in the same direction (long or short). You can always increase your leverage, but you can not decrease it through the trade modal. You can however delever your position by adding collateral. For more information about how to do this, see Maintaining your Positions.
Once you have set your leverage, you are ready to place your Market Order. Simply choose Buy or Sell, select Market as the order type, and specify how much of the asset you would like to trade.
When specifying the amount to buy or sell, you can either type the value in, or use the slider to dictate how much of your free collateral you wish to allocate to this new position. Directly below the Trade modal, you will see a preview of your new position should you place this order. The fields in the preview are:
Execution Price: The price at which your Market Order will be opened. This is the price your PnL will be calculated from.
Unrealized PnL: What your profit and loss is estimated to be at the moment the position is opened.
Est. Slippage: Depending on the size of your order and the depth of the liquidity on the order book, your order may consume more than one price tick. If this is the case, you will incur slippage, which will be shown here.
Liquidation Price: The price at which your position will fall below the maintenance margin and will be partially liquidated.
Fees: The taker fees you will incur to place this order.
Position Size: The amount of the asset you will buy or sell and its notional value.
Allocated Collateral: The amount of your free collateral which will be utilized to open and maintain this new position.
Position Health: Your position's Margin Ratio, or the inverse of your leverage. This will vary with profit and loss but is in indicator of how much collateral you have allocated to this position relative to the notional value of the position.
Leverage: The amount of leverage specified in step 1.
Once you have reviewed the trade preview and it is to your satisfaction, you may execute the trade by clicking Buy or Sell.
Once you place your order, you will see indicators on the chart depicting when and at what price you opened your order, and your liquidation price. You can monitor your position below the chart in the Positions tab. For more information about monitoring your position, see Maintaining your Positions.
