In this article:
Overview
We cancel or reject orders for a few common reasons, like not having enough funds, a limit price that's too far from the market price, or a trading halt. Find your reason below to see what you can do.
If you see a rejection message
When we reject an order, you'll usually see a message that starts with "Your order has been rejected because," followed by a reason. Find the reason below to see what you can do.
Add funds or change your order
| Reason in the message | What you can do |
|---|---|
| "you don't have enough funds to cover the cost at the current market price." | Add funds or place a smaller order. See Why we might cancel your market order. |
| "you don't have enough funds to cover the cost at pre-market prices." | Add funds or place a smaller order. |
| "we could not convert the funds for this order." or "there was an error when transferring funds for this order." | Check that you have enough in your Available to trade balance, then try again. If it happens again, contact our support team. |
| "some of your deposited funds are still pending." | Wait for your deposit to finish, or place an order that only uses your Available to trade balance. |
| "your account is under margin." | Add funds or reduce your positions to bring your account back above its margin requirement, then try again. |
| "you don't have enough shares to cover the cost at the current market price." | Check how many shares you have available to sell. You can't sell shares held by another pending order, like a take-profit or stop-loss from a bracket order, until you cancel that order. |
Change the price
| Reason in the message | What you can do |
|---|---|
| "your limit price is too far away from the current market price." | Place a new order with a limit price closer to the current market price. |
| "market fluctuations resulted in a stop price that is invalid." | Place a new order with a new stop price. For a sell order, the stop price must be below the current price. For a buy order, it must be above the current price. |
Change the size
| Reason in the message | What you can do |
|---|---|
| "market fluctuations resulted in a fractional quantity too small to process." or "its value is too low." | Place a new order for a larger amount. |
Change the timing or order type
| Reason in the message | What you can do |
|---|---|
| "it was submitted right at market close." | Place your order again when the market reopens. For eligible US stocks and ETFs, you can also place a limit order in the 24-hour market. |
| "good until cancelled orders aren't supported for over-the-counter securities." | Place your order again with Good for day selected, so it expires at market close. |
Wait and try again
| Reason in the message | What you can do |
|---|---|
| "the security is undergoing a corporate action." | Place your order again once the corporate action is complete. |
| "the security no longer has a valid quote or has become halted." or "the security is currently halted." | Wait for the security to resume trading, then place your order again. The message might mention a fractional order, even if you didn't place one. See General reasons we might cancel an order. |
Account-related
| Reason in the message | What you can do |
|---|---|
| "the status of your USD accounts changed." or "your account's USD support has changed." | Place your order again. If we reject it again, contact our support team. |
| "of your insider or significant shareholder status." | Contact our support team so we can review your account. |
| "it was submitted incorrectly as part of the account liquidation process." or "it was submitted as a result of an incorrect dividend." | You don't need to do anything. Contact our support team if you have questions. |
If you see "There was an issue with your order"
This message covers many different causes.
General reasons we might cancel an order
The following reasons apply to all trading order types:
There was a trading halt placed on the security you were trying to trade
A trading halt happens when an exchange stops the trading of a security for a particular amount of time. During a trading halt, we cancel orders for the halted security.
Your bank rejected a recent deposit
If your bank rejects your deposit, it'll pull back the funds. While this is in progress, you can't place an order, and we automatically cancel any pending orders.
Why we might cancel your market order
You don't have enough funds in the account to cover your trade
If you don't have enough funds to cover the full cost of your trade after a sudden price movement, we'll cancel your order. When you place a market buy, we set aside a little more than the estimated cost in case the price moves before your order fills. If your Available to trade balance is close to the cost, we might cancel your order even though it looks like you have enough.
The market order for an option has low liquidity
If an option doesn't have enough buyers or sellers (low liquidity), your market order might not fill completely or at all, and we'll cancel it.
Why we might cancel your limit order
Your order didn't meet the price limit
For a limit order to fill, the security's price must meet or be better than your set limit price. For a sell order, the market price has to reach your limit price or go higher. For a buy order, it has to reach your limit price or go lower. If the market price doesn't reach your limit price, we'll cancel your order.
There wasn't enough volume at your limit price
When you want to buy a stock, someone in the market must be selling the stock at a price you're willing to pay. If there isn't enough volume for your stock at your limit price, then your order won't be able to fill, and we'll cancel it.
The market didn't reach your limit price for an odd lot
Most securities trade in standard bundles called board lots (usually 100 units). An odd lot is a smaller, non-standard number of shares. If you place a limit order for an odd lot, it only fills if the limit price meets or is better than the National Best Bid and Offer (NBBO). The NBBO is made up of the best available buy and sell prices across all protected markets where the security trades. The NBBO might not always match the data from a single quote provider.
The Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX) and TSX Venture Exchange (TSX-V) consider the order sizes below to be board lots. Anything else is an odd lot.
| Security's last closing price | Standard trading units (board lots) |
|---|---|
| $1 and up | 100 shares |
| $0.10 to less than $1 | 500 shares |
| Less than $0.10 | 1,000 shares |
US exchanges, like NASDAQ and the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE), consider 100 shares to be a board lot regardless of the price.
The security underwent a corporate action or dividend distribution
If a security goes through a corporate action (like a stock split, merger, or spin-off) or pays out a dividend, we might reject or adjust any limit orders you placed before the ex-dividend date. That's the date when the stock starts trading without the value of its next dividend payment. This adjustment accounts for the change in the security's price. For example, if company XYZ pays a dividend of $0.10, we might adjust an open $10 limit order to $9.90. This happens because the company pays dividends from its cash, which lowers its value, and the stock price reflects that.
Why we might cancel your stop-limit order
The market didn't reach your stop price
The market has to reach your stop price before your stop-limit order can fill.
The market didn't reach your limit price
For a stop-limit order to fill, the price of the security must also meet or be better than your set limit price. If the market price doesn't reach your limit price, we'll cancel your order.
There wasn't enough volume at your limit price
When you want to buy a stock, someone in the market must be selling the stock at a price you're willing to pay. If there isn't enough volume for your stock at your limit price, then your order won't be able to fill, and we'll cancel it.
If your order is stuck on Cancelling
When you cancel an order during market hours, it usually shows Cancelling for a few seconds before the cancellation goes through. Cancelling an order is a request, not a guarantee. If your order fills before your cancellation request reaches the market, the trade goes through.
You can't cancel orders for US-listed securities from 9:25 to 9:30 am Eastern Time (ET), the 5 minutes before the market opens.
If your order still shows Cancelling after a few minutes while the market is open, contact our support team.
If your recurring investment didn't go through
Recurring investments work a little differently from one-time orders. To find out why a recurring investment didn't go through or shows as paused, see Set up a recurring investment. If a recurring buy still shows as pending after it went through, see View your account activity and running balance.
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