Time in force – better control over execution
The specifiers mentioned previously are normally called time in force conditions, although, as you will see a bit later in this chapter, for some of them, it is not really obvious or intuitive.
Important disambiguation
More often than not, these execution method specifiers are referred to as the type of order. This can be found not only in some brokers’ documentation but also in books on trading, and even academic research. So, be very careful when you encounter type of order or time in force in any documentation, and make sure you understand what exactly the author had in mind: the type of order as such (market, limit, stop, etc.), the time during which it is valid, or how the order should be executed liquidity-wise!
In the following subsections, we will consider different order specifiers in detail.
Immediate or cancel
An Immediate-or-Cancel (IOC) instruction attached to a market order means: I want to buy...