TradeStation Help

Order Bar Buttons and Fields

The upper area of the Order Bar contains the fields where you enter information about your order, such as symbol, order type, and route. The lower area of the Order Bar contains the buttons that you use to actually place an order, such as Buy and Buy to Cover.  

Fields used to enter your order information:

• Symbol - Displays the symbol for which you are placing an order. As you enter the first few characters of the symbol name, the smart symbol lookup drop-down list allows you to select the desired symbol. Or, you may click symbol lookup to find a symbol.
• # or $ - Specifies whether the Quantity field refers to the number of share/contracts or a dollar amount.
• Quantity - The amount of a specific symbol that you want to buy or sell specified either in shares/contracts or dollar amount. You can use the or buttons to increase or decrease the quantity by a specific increment.
• P (Position) - Fills the Quantity box with the entire available position for the selected symbol.
• Limit Price - The limit price for the transaction. You can use the buttons to increase or decrease the limit price by a specific increment. You can also use the Auto button (see below) to select a limit price based on a specified offset from the bid or ask.
• Stop Price - The stop price for Stop Limit and Stop Market orders. You can use the buttons to increase or decrease the stop price by a specific increment. You can also use the Auto button (see below) to select a stop price based on a specified offset from the bid or ask.
• Order Type - The type of order that you are placing. The available order types are Limit, Market, Stop Market, and Stop Limit. See Order Types for more information. Certain order routes may have limitations on the types of orders accepted.
• Route - The path of execution for an order. You can select the Intelligent order route, an ECN, or a Market Maker. Certain order routes may have limitations on the Advanced settings that you may use.
• Duration - The length of time that your order will remain valid in the market. For details on the durations available, see Order Bar Durations for Equities. The available durations may change depending on the selected order route. In addition, certain Advanced settings are not available for certain durations.
• Account No. - The account that you want to use in settlement of your order.

Buttons used to place your Equities and electronic Futures orders

• Sends a buy order.
• Sends an order to cover a short position. This is only available when the Enable Short Selling check box is selected. See Setting Order Entry Preferences for details on how to enable.
• Sends a sell order.
• Sends an order to sell short. This is only available when the Enable Short Selling check box is selected. See Setting Order Bar Preferences for details on how to enable short selling.

Buttons used to place Options orders

• Sends a buy to open order.

• Sends a buy to close order.

• Sends a sell to open order.

• Sends a sell to close order.

•  Selects the spread for a given order type (Options only).

Buttons are used to assist with orders

• Allows you to use the Auto Price feature for either limit prices or stop prices. With the Auto Price feature, you can quickly place limit and/or orders that join, improve, split, or shave the inside market (based on best bid or ask) without having to calculate a price. in addition, two other auto features let you hit/take or hit/take increment. For more information, see Auto Price.
•  Allows you to select from OCO (Order Cancels Order) and OSO (Order Sends Order) templates, including the ability to create your own custom OCO/OSO orders. For more information, see About OCO/OSO Orders.
•  Allows you to stage (save) orders that can be placed at a later time.
• Displays a drop-down list that allows you to cancel an individual open order, all open orders for a specific symbol, or all open orders as well as view all open orders.
• Sets the Quantity, Order Type, Route, and Duration fields back to their default values. You can set these default values in the Order Bar Preferences dialog. For more information, see Setting Order Entry Preferences.
• Allows you to enable and disable the Order Bar for trading.
• Displays the Advanced settings for orders such as If Touched and Trailing Stop. See About Advanced Orders for a complete list of the Advanced order settings. Certain Advanced settings are not available with certain route, duration, price and quantity combinations.

• Allows you to quickly transfer a Limit or Stop price to the order bar. For more information, see About the Bid, Last, Ask Buttons.