• A market order is an instruction to buy or sell a security immediately at the current price.
  • A limit order is an instruction to buy or sell only at the price specified by the investor.
  • Market orders are best used to buy or sell large cap stocks, futures or ETFs.
  • A limit order is preferable when buying or selling a weakly traded or highly volatile asset.
  • A market order is the most common type of transaction made in the stock markets. This is the default choice on most online broker transaction pages.