What is market order?

What it means

A market order trades certainty of execution for uncertainty of price. You are telling the broker to fill you now, whatever the current book looks like, which means the order will almost always be executed but not necessarily at the number you saw on screen when you clicked.

Why it matters

The gap between the price you expected and the price you received is slippage, and it is a function of how fast the market is moving and how deep the book is at that moment. On a quiet afternoon the difference is usually invisible. During a news release it can be substantial.

What this changes in practice

Automated systems on gold almost always use market orders rather than limit orders, and the reason is structural: the setups worth trading on XAUUSD are usually confirmed by a move that has already started, so an order waiting patiently at a better price is an order that watches the trade leave without it. Our own engine places market entries with `sl=0, tp=0` and attaches protection immediately afterwards, because the broker requires it — see why that matters.