Make up your mind before you put in a trade, because it's often not easy or even possible to cancel. There are orders for canceling, but they are no g...
Make up your mind before you put in a trade,
because it's often not easy or even possible to cancel. There are orders for canceling, but they are no good if your order has already been filled. Sometimes it's been filled even though you haven't yet received the report.
If you change your mind about order and wish to cancel it, you can do so using what's called a straight cancel or straight can.
Brokers refer to canning an order.
However, it's important to realize this is not necessarily easy or possible.
In an open outcry trading floor pit market, your original order may already be filled. You may not have confirmation of it yet, due to a delay in the reporting back to you, but if it's been filled you cannot cancel it. Then it is subject to being "too late to cancel."
The pit clerk has to keypunch the data into a computer before it's sent to you.
Market orders cannot be canceled after it reaches the exchange floor.
Orders can take several minutes to be reported. Electronic markets tend to fill orders immediately, and report the fill immediately. Your only chance of canceling an order is if you had problems with your trading platform or connecting with the Internet, and they didn't get the order.
If you simply wish to change an order, you can do a cancel/replace. Then you are canceling an existing order and replacing it with a similar but different one.
In an open outcry trading pit, it's possible the first order has already been filled, but the fill wasn't reported, so without doing a cancel/replace a trader can wind up being doubled filled. That is, both orders may be filled.
However, most orders are simple market, limit or stop loss orders.
It's best to think long and hard before making your order in the first place, and making sure you tell it correctly to your broker, or enter it correctly into your electronic platform, to avoid trying to change your mind and your trade after it's already begun.
And you must be able to communicate effectively with your broker. This generally means being clear and complete, using typical and common vocabulary. If you want to buy two contracts of December Corn at the current market price, say, "I want to buy two contracts of December Corn at the market."
Don't just say, "Get me some corn contracts," then hang up.
Sounds silly, but brokers can tell you that some of the clients force them to read their minds. And sometimes they fail, and the clients lose money and blame the broker for their own failing.
Let the broker confirm the order with you, so you're sure both of you understand what you want.
