Market Order

A market order is an instruction to buy or sell an asset that executes against the best available prices in the current order book.

Unlike a limit order, a market order generally does not specify an exact execution price. Its primary objective is immediate execution against available liquidity.

How a market order executes

A market buy order is matched against available sell offers, starting with the most favorable available price. If the order is large, it can consume liquidity across multiple price levels.

As a result, the average execution price can differ from the price displayed immediately before the order was submitted. This is known as slippage.

When market orders are used

Market orders are useful when immediate execution is more important than controlling the exact execution price. On markets with limited liquidity, however, a large market order can move through several price levels and produce significant slippage.