What is a Fill in Trading?

Understanding Fills

A fill occurs when your order executes at a specific price and size. Fill quality depends on liquidity, order type, and broker routing. Monitoring fills ensures your real trading costs align with expectations.

Factors Impacting Fills

Market orders prioritize speed but can suffer from slippage. Limit orders prioritize price but risk non-execution. News events, thin liquidity, and platform latency also affect outcome.

Improving Execution

Use ECN brokers with deep liquidity pools, route orders during active sessions, and avoid market orders right before data releases. For large sizes, split orders to minimize market impact.

Metrics to Track

• Average and 95th‑percentile slippage by pair and time of day.
• Fill ratio vs. submitted orders and reasons for rejection.
• Latency from click to confirm; monitor for spikes during news.

If metrics deteriorate, downsize, change sessions, or switch venues. Execution quality is part of edge—treat it like any other system parameter.

Advanced Guidance

Build a repeatable, rules‑based process so decisions are consistent across sessions and instruments. Start from context (higher‑timeframe structure, positioning, macro tone), then define precise triggers and invalidation on execution charts. Track spread and depth so your order type matches conditions. Pre‑compute scenarios (breakout, fakeout, mean‑revert) and map actions for each to reduce hesitation.

Execution Framework

• Plan entries at levels with confluence (structure, momentum, time‑of‑day).
• Place stops beyond the logical invalidation, not arbitrary distances.
• Target at least 2–3R; scale out methodically and trail remainder.
• Avoid thin liquidity windows unless the setup explicitly requires it.
• Record slippage and spreads; poor fills can erase edge.

Review Loop

• Journal setups by session and pair to learn where they excel.
• Tag trades by catalyst (news, trend continuation, range breakout).
• Recalculate expectancy monthly; prune underperforming variants.

Risk Controls

Keep daily loss limits, reduce size after consecutive losses, and pause during regime shifts. Survival enables compounding; treat discipline and execution quality as part of your edge.