In general, placing an order doesn't guarantee that it will be filled. There are many reasons for why a market order may legitimately get cancelled, but we've listed some of the more popular ones below.

1) You submitted your market buy order after market-hours (or in the first 15 minutes of the market being open), and the opening market price represented a large price increase.

Whenever you submit a market buy order, it gets translated into a limit buy order with a 5% collar to protect you against any adverse price fluctuations that can occur (especially overnight before markets open). If the 'limit price' (i.e. the last quoted price when you submitted the order + a 5% collar) is not met throughout the next day, then the order will cancel at 4 pm once markets close (see more on limit orders being cancelled here).

Because quotes are delayed by 15 minutes on Trade, market buy orders that are submitted in the first 15 minutes of the stock opening will have the limit price based on the previous day’s closing price for the stock plus the 5% collar.

For example, say you submitted an order for stock XYZ at 5 pm based on the last quoted price of $10.00 per share. This would translate into a limit order with a limit price of $10.50. If the price of XYZ the next day went to $10.51 and stayed above this amount for the remainder of market hours, the order would then get cancelled at market close (4 pm).

If you prefer to have greater control over the limit price for the next day's market open (or during the first 15 minutes of the market being open), you can submit a limit order and set your own limit price! To submit a limit order, you would just need to toggle the 'Market Order' option at the top of the order submission flow in the app.


2) You submitted a market buy order and the limit price (last quoted price + 5% collar) was not met.

As mentioned in 1), whenever you submit a market buy order it gets translated into a limit buy order with a 5% collar. In this instance, it is to protect you against any adverse price fluctuations that can occur during the 15 minutes our quotes are delayed by. If the 'limit price' (i.e. the last quoted price + a 5% collar) is not met throughout the day, then the order will cancel at 4 pm once markets close.

For example, say you submitted an order for stock XYZ at 1 pm based on the quoted price of $10.00 (the price at 12:45 pm). This would translate into a limit order with a limit price of $10.50. If the price of XYZ at 1 pm was actually $10.51 and stayed above this amount for the remainder of market hours, the order would then get cancelled at market close (4 pm).

If you prefer to have greater control over the limit price, you can submit a limit order and set your own limit price! To submit a limit order, you would just need to toggle the 'Market Order' option at the top of the order submission flow in the app.

2) Your market buy order expired because there wasn't sufficient volume to fill your order at your limit price (see 1 and 2).

Remember, submitting an order doesn't guarantee that it will be filled! For each buyer interested in purchasing a stock at a certain price, there must be a seller interested in parting with their stock at that price as well. Since there will be only a finite number of sellers interested in parting with their shares at a particular price, this means there may not be enough for every interested buyer. So, if your market buy order didn't fill despite the limit price (last quoted price + 5% collar) being met, the likely reason is that there just wasn't enough shares being sold at that price.

Market sell orders can also expire at market close if there were no bids when trying to sell the stock.


3) Your market order was for a security that has a Trading Halt placed on it.

Every so often, IIROC will restrict trading for a specific security. If the halted security cannot accept orders, the order would automatically get cancelled. If the halted stock can accept orders, the order will remain open in case trading resumes for the stock during market hours that day. However, if the halt remains in place until markets close, the order will be cancelled at that time as well.

4) You had a recent deposit get rejected by your bank.

Whenever we receive funds from a new deposit request, your bank has about 5 business days to subsequently reject this request and pull the funds back. In this scenario, we may have previously made your funds available to trade with. Once we receive the rejection notice, however, the funds will be withdrawn and sent back to your bank so any outstanding orders will be cancelled.

The quickest way to tell if this is the case with your order is to check your bank account's activities to see if the funds from your deposit have been returned.