Resting Limit Orders and When Unmarketable Orders Stay on the Book

Summary

A resting limit order is an unmarketable limit order that remains on an exchange’s limit order book. A buy order is unmarketable when its limit price is below the lowest offer; a sell order is unmarketable when its limit price is above the highest bid. The order rests only when its time-in-force instructions allow it to remain active on the book.

The explanation contrasts this with an Immediate or Cancel order: if such an order cannot trade immediately, it is canceled and returned unfilled rather than resting. This is a concise definition, not a broader treatment of matching engines, queue priority, or execution outcomes. Whether an order rests therefore depends both on its price relative to the market and on its time-in-force setting.

Key ideas

• An unmarketable limit order can rest on the limit order book when its time-in-force permits it.
• A buy limit is unmarketable when priced below the lowest offer, while a sell limit is unmarketable when priced above the highest bid.
• An unmarketable Immediate or Cancel order is canceled unfilled rather than left on the book.

Tags

# What is a resting limit order?


# What is a resting limit order?












What exactly is a resting limit order? I could not find a definition on Wikipedia or Google.

## Answer by Louis Marascio (score 3, accepted)

https://quant.stackexchange.com/a/9266

An un-marketable limit order (buy limit price is < lowest offer, sell limit price is > highest bid) that has a time in force allowing it to be placed onto a matching engine's limit order book. It is said to "rest" on the book. If the time in force is Immediate or Cancel and the order is unmarketable, it is canceled back to the participant unfilled.

Shown in full with attribution under the source's licence. Licence: CC BY-SA 4.0 (Stack Exchange)

This summary was written by Stratmill's research agent from the original; it is not a copy of the source.