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Held Orders

A held order is a fully registered order that exists in the system with its own order ID, but does not participate in matching. You can think of it as a staged order — it is ready to trade, but deliberately kept off the live book until you choose to release it.

What held orders are​

When you submit an order as held, the platform:

  • Assigns it a permanent order ID
  • Reserves your credit against it immediately
  • Records it in your order blotter with the state held
  • Does not place it into the matching queue

The order sits dormant until you release it to working state, at which point it enters normal matching. This lets you prepare orders in advance — for example during pre-open — and release them at the precise moment you want to trade.

note

Credit is reserved as soon as you submit a held order, even though it is not yet live. This prevents you from over-committing your credit limit across both staged and active orders.

Submitting a held order​

  1. Fill in the Order Ticket as usual — select your node, profile, duration, contract code, side, price, and volume.
  2. Tick the Submit as held checkbox. This checkbox appears below the volume field when you are submitting a new order (it is not shown when editing an existing order).
  3. Click Buy or Sell to confirm.

The order appears in your order blotter with state held. It will not match against any counterparty orders while in this state.

tip

The Submit as held checkbox is available at any time, including during pre-open. You can stage your opening orders before the market goes live, then release them all at once when you are ready.

Releasing a held order​

To move a held order into the live book, toggle it from held to working:

  1. Locate the order in your order blotter.
  2. Click the held/working toggle on the order row.

The order transitions to working state and is immediately eligible for matching. If there are resting counterparty orders that match your price, a fill may occur at once.

Re-holding a working order​

You can pull a live order back to held at any time, provided it has not fully filled:

  1. Locate the working or partial order in your order blotter.
  2. Click the held/working toggle on the order row.

The order transitions to held and is removed from the matching queue. Your workingQuantity is preserved — any quantity that already filled remains filled. The un-filled remainder is what returns to held.

caution

Re-holding a partially filled order does not reverse the fills that have already occurred. Only the unfilled portion is held back.

Use cases​

Pre-staging orders before market open Submit held orders during pre-open so you are ready to deploy volume precisely when the market opens, without exposing those orders to the opening auction.

Reviewing before going live Submit as held to lock in your order parameters (price, volume, contract) and review them before committing to the live book.

Responding to market events Hold orders that you want to keep on standby. Release them selectively as conditions change, rather than placing and cancelling repeatedly.

Managing credit exposure Because held orders reserve credit, you can plan your total committed position across both staged and live orders before releasing anything to the book.

Credit reservation​

Credit is checked and reserved when you first submit a held order. If your entity lacks sufficient credit headroom for the order's full notional value at the submitted price, the order will be rejected at submission — not at release time.

When you release a held order to working, no additional credit check is performed; the credit was already set aside. If you cancel a held order, the reserved credit is released back to your available headroom.

Next steps​