Intro to Stock Trading

All-or-None Orders

An all or none stock trades allow you to tell your broker that you only want an order filled if they can buy, or sell, all of the shares you instructed them to trade. This is important for strategies such as selling covered calls.

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At times, however, you may want to place an order at a single price. This can be an efficient way to place your order while ensuring a minimum amount of bookkeeping; always a consideration if you are managing a larger portfolio with several hundreds of thousands, or millions, of dollars in equities. The solution is to place an all-or-none trade. All-or-none trades essentially tell your broker that you do not want your trade executed unless he can do so in a single transaction. The minimum qualification for an all-or-none trade is three round lots or more (300 shares).

Besides the usual caveats, there are some additional considerations before placing an all-or-none order:

• Your all-or-none order will not be executed if there are not enough shares available in a single transaction to cover it.
• All-or-none orders are not placed until all of the orders ahead of it with no special conditions are executed.
• All-or-none orders can only be applied in conjunction with a limit order; market orders are not eligible. (You can get the same result by simply placing a limit order 10 cents above or below the current market price.)

• The 12 Types of Trades You Can Place with a Broker
• Market Orders
• Limit Orders
• All-or-None Orders
• Stop Order and Stop Limit Orders
• Selling Short and Buy to Cover Orders (Continued)
• Day and GTC Orders and Extended Hours Trading
• Trailing Stop Orders
• Bracketed Orders
• Summary of Stock Trades