What happens if the stock price increases after placing a market order with insufficient funds?


Here's the scenario:

  • Say I have $1000 in my brokerage account available for trade
  • I want to buy stock xyz selling for $100
  • I go to the order page and put 10 shares market order
  • Preview page shows $1000 order amount and I submit the order
  • Before the order is filled, the price is changes to $110

What happens next? I can think of 3 possibilities:

  1. Fidelity cancels the order
  2. The order is filled partially for 9 shares (plus fractions?)
  3. The order is filled for the 10 shares but now my account is down $100 and I need to fund it

Basically, what happens if a market order costs more than available funds to trade in an account?


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