Key takeaways
- Slippage is any difference between expected and filled price; it can help you or hurt you.
- Requotes belong to instant execution, where the server offers a new price you can accept or decline.
- Fast markets, thin liquidity, large size, latency and gaps are the main causes.
- Stop orders are the most exposed because they become market orders when triggered.
- Liquid hours, limit orders, sensible deviation limits and a fill log reduce the impact and make it measurable.
You click buy at 1.0850 and the trade opens at 1.0853. Nothing is broken: the price you see is the last quote, and the price you get is what the market offers at the instant your order arrives. The gap is slippage, and a rejected or repriced order is a requote. Both are normal features of execution, and both can be managed.
Slippage versus requotes
Slippage is the difference between the price you expected and the price at which the order actually filled. It can be negative (worse for you), zero, or positive (better for you). Honest execution lets positive slippage happen as well as negative.
A requote is different: the broker's server declines to fill at your requested price and sends back a new one, which you can accept or refuse. Requotes belong to instant-execution models, where the order is sent at a specific price and must be approved. Most modern retail platforms use market execution instead, where you accept the best available price and the fill comes back with whatever price it got, so a requote is replaced by a plain fill with slippage.
| Feature | Slippage | Requote |
|---|---|---|
| What happens | Order fills at a different price | Order is held and a new price is offered |
| Who decides | Market conditions at fill time | The dealing or execution server |
| Your choice | Limit the tolerated deviation or use a limit order | Accept or reject the new price |
| Typical setting | Maximum deviation or slippage field | More common on instant-execution accounts |
What causes a worse fill
- Fast markets. During a data release or a surprise headline, quotes can move many pips within a second. By the time your order reaches the liquidity provider, the price you clicked is gone.
- Thin liquidity. At rollover, in the Asian lull on exotic pairs, or on bank holidays, there are fewer resting orders, so each unit of size moves the price more.
- Order size. A large order may consume several price levels, so only part of it fills at the best price.
- Latency. Delay between your device, your broker's server and the liquidity provider gives the market time to move. A long round trip hurts scalpers most.
- Gaps. When a market reopens after a weekend, the first available price may be far from Friday's close, and stops fill at that new price.
- Order type. Stop orders and stop-losses become market orders when triggered, so they are the most exposed to slippage. Limit orders cannot slip against you, but they can miss.
A worked example of size and depth
Imagine a buy order for 5 standard lots of EUR/USD while the visible depth at the ask is, illustratively: 2 lots at 1.0850, 2 lots at 1.0851 and 1 lot at 1.0852. The order sweeps all three levels. The average fill is (2 x 1.0850 + 2 x 1.0851 + 1 x 1.0852) / 5 = 1.08508.
Compared with the 1.0850 on screen, that is 0.8 pips of slippage. At about 10 USD per pip per lot, 5 lots carry 50 USD per pip, so 0.8 pips costs roughly 40 USD. Spread and commission are on top. Small retail orders rarely sweep multiple levels, but the principle explains why costs rise with size and fall in deep markets.
These figures are illustrative only, to show the shape of the pattern. Real numbers depend on your broker, platform and the specific event.
Ways to reduce the damage
A practical execution checklist
- Avoid the exact minute of the release. If you cannot avoid trading around scheduled news, accept that spread and slippage will both widen, and reduce size to compensate.Tip: Waiting five to fifteen minutes often brings back more normal conditions.
- Trade liquid pairs in liquid hours. Majors during the London and New York overlap offer the deepest books. Exotics at the close of the New York day do not.
- Use limit orders where price matters. A limit order caps your price. Its cost is the chance of not being filled.
- Set a maximum deviation. On MetaTrader-style platforms the deviation field sets how many points of difference you tolerate for a market order. Too tight and orders get rejected; too loose and you accept anything.
- Check latency. A virtual private server near your broker's data centre can shorten the route for automated strategies. For manual traders it matters less than avoiding news minutes.
- Keep a fill log. Record requested price, executed price and time for each trade over a month. Patterns show up quickly, and so does evidence if you later need to question your broker.
Frequently asked questions
Is slippage a sign my broker is dishonest?
Not by itself. Some slippage is inherent to any market. Concern arises when it is consistently one-sided, or when requotes and rejections cluster at the moments you most need a fill.
Does a guaranteed stop remove slippage?
A guaranteed stop fills at your chosen level even through a gap, but typically for a fee or a wider spread, and not every account or regulator allows it. Check the terms before relying on one.
What does a deviation of 10 points mean?
On five-digit platforms, 10 points is 1 pip. The platform will reject a market order if the fill price would differ from your requested one by more than that.
Do ECN accounts avoid slippage?
No. Raw-spread accounts route orders to liquidity providers, where depth and speed still matter. They tend to show more transparent slippage but cannot eliminate it.