Wall St order rejections

If your Wall St order isn’t going through, here are some common reasons why – and how you can fix it.

Minimum investment required for Wall St securities

There’s a minimum order size of US$10 for trades on Wall St.

Exceeds maximum order size

The maximum order size is 20,000 shares per trade.

Placing a limit order for a fractional amount of shares

Limit orders can only be placed for whole shares. If you hold a fractional amount, it can’t be included in a limit order.

For example, if you own 2.5 shares of TSLA, you can place a limit sell for up to 2 shares. The remaining 0.5 share would need to be sold using a market order.

Order is outside the price band

Your order may fall outside the allowable price range. Exchanges automatically reject orders placed too far from the current market price. Some common cases include:

• Limit orders placed outside market hours can be cancelled at market open if the price is too far from the current value

• Stop and stop sell orders must be at least 5 cents above or below the market price, respectively

Ex-dividend date

Pending orders are cleared at the end of the market session before a stock’s ex-dividend date. This helps protect investors, as dividend announcements can impact decision-making.

You can check a stock’s ex-dividend status by going to: Search ticker > Distributions > Ex date

Placing a market order outside trading hours

Market orders must be placed during Wall St trading hours, as they require live trading to execute at the best available price.

If the market is closed, try placing a limit order instead. It’ll stay in the queue and execute when your chosen price is met during trading hours.

Using a limit sell and stop sell at the same time

You can’t place a limit sell and a stop sell order for the same parcel of shares at once. For example, if you own 100 shares and place both types of orders for 100 shares, you're essentially instructing us to sell 200.

Instead, you can:

• Cancel any active orders that no longer apply

• Place just one of the two orders

• Split your position – e.g. a limit sell for 50 shares and a stop sell for the other 50

Trading halt in place

Wall St uses several types of trading halts, including regulatory halts, news pending halts and Limit Up–Limit Down (LULD) volatility halts.

If a stock is halted, only limit orders can be placed – and they’ll remain pending until the halt is lifted.

You’ll see a trading halt notification on the stock’s ticker page. For more detail, check the company’s investor relations site.

End of day expiry

If the order isn’t fully executed by market close, it will automatically expire and be removed from the order book. No further action is needed – but if you still want to buy or sell that security, you’ll need to place a new order the next trading day.