How To Place A Buy Limit Order From The Chart

Placing a Limit order instructs TC2000 to buy or sell a certain amount of a stock at a specified price or better. This order type is often used when price is the primary and fill is a secondary concern.  A limit order is not guaranteed to fill but if it fills it will be at the stated price or better. The simplest way to place a Buy Limit order in TC2000 is using the on-chart order ticket.

1. Click the Buy button at the bottom of the price pane to open the Buy order menu

2. Select Buy {Sym}...

This places the On-Chart Order Ticket at the left of the chart with the fields pre-filled based on the user-defined default buy ticket. If no changes are desired, simply click Buy {Sym} and confirm to place the order.

3. Make Edits to the Order ticket

The on-chart order ticket contains these fields which can be edited on the fly:

  1. Order Type
  2. Order (limit) basis
  3. Order price spinner
  4. Qty
  5. Duration (GTC)
  6. More
  7. OCA
  8. Estimated cost of trade
  9. Toggle to large order ticket
  10. Buy button
  11. OTA dropdown arrow
  12. Live Bid & Ask

4. Click and drag the Limit order price to adjust the limit price

In the on-chart order ticket, the spinner next to the limit basis field can also be used to adjust limit price.

As the limit price line moves, the P&L Zones to the right of the chart reflect potential profit or loss from the limit price.

5. Select order type

If the order ticket does not say "Limit", click the drop down and choose Limit from the menu.

6. Choose the Limit basis

Using the various fields in the menu, the Limit basis can be set on:

  1. The Ask (or an offset above/below the Ask);
  2. The Midpoint between the Bid & Ask;
  3. The Bid (or an offset above/below the Bid);
  4. A specific price
  5. "Step-to" order menu

Note: the offset spinner is used to set the offset values above or below the Bid/Ask.

The limit basis can be set on either Dollar value or Percentage.

7. Set Quantity

Click the Qty button to choose the desired quantity for the order. Quantity can be set on any one of these four basis:

  • Number of shares--the actual number of shares desired
  • Dollar Value--a dollar amount (the program will select the closest number of shares to that dollar value)
  • Percent of Buying Power--some percent of the available buying power in the account
  • Percent of Cash--some percent of the available cash in the account

The typing fields for Shares or Dollars allow user-defined values not shown on the tables.

8. Set the Duration

The time-in-force field is used to choose the duration, either GTC (good-til-cancelled) or Day (good for the current trading session only).

9. Add the order to an existing OCA (one-cancels-all) or create a new OCA group with any outstanding order.

By clicking the OCA button and selecting any order from the list, an OCA group is created. (This step is optional and only used if an order dependency is desired.)

10. Attach a stop or target to the order (optional)

Attach to the order a Stop/Trailing Stop order or a Profit target.

Select a Stop and Target to create a bracket order.

The OTA ticket is pre-filled with the user-defined values for a bracket order.

11. Click the Buy {Sym} button

12. Confirm to place order

The trading tools work on either a LIVE brokerage account or a PAPER (simulated) trading account. Live market trading requires an account with TC2000 Brokerage. Click Here for more.