Risk with using GTC orders?

S

sheepsucker

Hi,

I trade in relatively thinly traded options so it can take some days for me to get filled. Therefore I sometimes place a GTC order and have it active for a couple of days waiting for a fill.

Last week I had a GTC order active to sell PUT options in stock XYZ for a limit price of 0.10.

There was news for XYZ, the stock gapped down substantially and the option was trading in the range 0.5-0.9 for the whole day.

Luckily I was filled at 0.8 so it was a profitable trade for me. But had I been filled at my Limit price of 0.1 it would have been a loss.

When these events resulting in big gaps happen. Do you usually get filled at where the market is trading or can you be filled at a substantially worse price? And is it therefore too risky to have GTC orders active?

Broker is IB and routing was SMART, dont know if that matters.

Thanks for any tips from more experienced option traders.
 
Quote from sheepsucker:

Hi,

I trade in relatively thinly traded options so it can take some days for me to get filled. Therefore I sometimes place a GTC order and have it active for a couple of days waiting for a fill.

Last week I had a GTC order active to sell PUT options in stock XYZ for a limit price of 0.10.

There was news for XYZ, the stock gapped down substantially and the option was trading in the range 0.5-0.9 for the whole day.

Luckily I was filled at 0.8 so it was a profitable trade for me. But had I been filled at my Limit price of 0.1 it would have been a loss.

When these events resulting in big gaps happen. Do you usually get filled at where the market is trading or can you be filled at a substantially worse price? And is it therefore too risky to have GTC orders active?

Broker is IB and routing was SMART, dont know if that matters.

Thanks for any tips from more experienced option traders.
More...

It does matter which broker you use and if you use a smart or DMA route. Most broker's platforms don't handle option GTC the way you think. Most cancel the order at the end of the day and renter the next day, so you will not keep your position on the book of a single exchange. You have to ask.
 
Ok tnx.
In this particular case of a big gap against the order it looks like it could even be an advantage to not be first in line.
 
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