GLOSSARY · AUTOMATION
What is latency?
Latency is the delay between a trading decision and its execution at the broker, comprising network time, platform processing and the broker's own handling.
What it means
For retail automated trading the total is typically tens to low hundreds of milliseconds. Whether that matters depends entirely on the strategy: a system entering on a bar close has effectively unlimited time, while one trying to capture a fast reaction does not.
Why it matters
Latency contributes to slippage but is not the same thing. Slippage is the price difference; latency is one of its causes, alongside spread widening and thin liquidity at the moment of execution.
What this changes in practice
It is heavily marketed by VPS providers and is genuinely the less important of the two benefits they offer. For a strategy scanning every ten seconds and entering on confirmed structure, the difference between 5ms and 50ms is not measurable in the results — uptime is what changes outcomes.
Related terms
- VPSA VPS is a rented always-on Windows machine in a data centre, used to run MetaTrader and its Exp…
- SlippageSlippage is the difference between the price a trade was expected to execute at and the price it…
- ECN accountAn ECN account routes orders to an electronic network of liquidity providers rather than filling…
- RequoteA requote is a broker response offering a different price than the one requested, asking the tra…
Educational information only, not financial advice. Trading leveraged products carries substantial risk of loss. Last updated 2026-08-11.