Glossary
Good-Til-Canceled (GTC)
An instruction that keeps an order alive across sessions until it fills or is canceled, instead of expiring at the close.
This is a duration rather than a type of order. Every order ticket asks two separate questions: what kind of order this is, and how long it should stay alive. A limit order can be a day order or good-til-canceled, and the choice changes nothing about the price the order will accept.
A day order expires at the close of the session it was entered in, and an unfilled one is simply gone the next morning. Good-til-canceled survives, so a limit order at a price the stock has not reached can sit there for weeks. Brokers cap that survival at a limit of their own, commonly between ninety days and six months, and each broker sets its own limit, and publish the number in their order documentation.
What a resting order does not do is read the news. An order left alive for a month can fill on a morning the company reported something the person who placed it has not seen yet, at the price they named back when the situation was a different one.
Learn this properly
Lesson 3: How Buying a Stock Actually WorksBrokerage accounts, what happens in the seconds after you press the button, and order types explained without the jargon.
Related terms
- Limit OrderAn instruction to trade only at a stated price or better, which may go unfilled if that price is never reached.
- Market OrderAn instruction to trade immediately at whatever price is currently available, rather than at a price you name.
- Stop OrderA dormant instruction that becomes a live order only if the price crosses a level set in advance.
- Market HoursThe regular session when US exchanges are open: 9:30am to 4:00pm Eastern, Monday to Friday, minus market holidays.
Get the free weekly market digest
The week's biggest movers, every Sunday. No spam.