Assuming you mean US equities, I believe (although Iâm not 100% sure, so youâd better wait to see if anyone else confirms or refutes what I write!) the issue relates to market fragmentation.
Unless you specify a particular venue, a US equity trade may be executed at NYSE, at AMEX, at NASDAQ, at any of the regional exchanges, on any of the ECNs, in a dark pool, or internally by your broker (and I am confident Iâll have omitted some other execution possibilities, too).
Often, low cost broker commission plans are dependent on you not specifying the venue; this gives the broker the option to choose where to execute your orders in a way that best suits your broker.
Owing to the myriad possibilities open to the broker, the broker might want to execute your entry order here, your target order elsewhere, and your stop order yet somewhere else. In this instance they canât confidently offer you OCO (as it would mean an executed/cancelled order in one venue having to cancel another order in another venue before that other order was unintentionally executed also).
I think itâs something like that ...
I suspect brokers offering OCO is more common in futures trading.