Trading and Orders

The TimeInForce property determines how long an order should remain open if it doesn't fill. This property doesn't apply to market orders since they usually fill immediately. Time in force is useful to automatically cancel old trades. The following table describes the available TimeInForce options:

By default, orders remain open until they are canceled (TimeInForce.GoodTilCanceled). To update the value, set the DefaultOrderProperties.TimeInForce before you place an order or pass an orderProperties argument to the order method.

// Set a Limit Order to be good until market close
DefaultOrderProperties.TimeInForce = TimeInForce.Day;
LimitOrder("IBM", 100, 120);

// Set a Limit Order to be good until noon
LimitOrder("IBM", 100, 120, orderProperties: new OrderProperties 
{
    TimeInForce = TimeInForce.GoodTilDate(new DateTime(2019, 6, 19, 12, 0, 0))
});

# Set a Limit Order to be good until market close
self.DefaultOrderProperties.TimeInForce = TimeInForce.Day
self.LimitOrder("IBM", 100, 120)

# Set a Limit Order to be good until noon
order_properties = OrderProperties()
order_properties.TimeInForce = TimeInForce.GoodTilDate(datetime(2019, 6, 19, 12, 0, 0))
self.LimitOrder("IBM", 100, 120, orderProperties=order_properties)

If you trade a market that's open 24 hours a day with daily data, TimeInForce.Day won't work because the order cancels at the market close time but your algorithm receives daily data at midnight.

Market on open (MOO) and market on close (MOC) orders don't support the GoodTilDate time in force. If you submit a MOO or MOC order with the GoodTilDate time in force, LEAN automatically adjusts the time in force to be GoodTilCanceled.

The brokerage you use may not support all of the TimeInForce options. To see the options that your brokerage supports, see the Orders section of the brokerage model documentation.

Some brokerages support additional order properties so you can customize how your orders execute. Some examples include the following order properties:

• Financial Advisor group orders
• An OutsideRegularTradingHours property to let orders fill during pre-market and post-market trading hours
• A PostOnly property to force an order to only add liquidity to a market
• A Hidden property to make an order not show on the order book
• A ReduceOnly property to signal the order must only decrease your position size
• FeeInBase and FeeInQuote properties to set which currency you pay fees in for a Crypto trade

To view the order properties your brokerage supports, see the Orders section of the brokerage model documentation.

You can tag orders to aid your strategy development. Tags can be any string of up to 100 characters. Tags aren't part of the OrderProperties object, but they are a property of the Order class you can set. To set an order tag, pass it as an argument when you create the order or use the order update methods.

// Tag an order on creation
var ticket = LimitOrder("SPY", 100, 221.05, tag: "Original tag");

// Update the tag with UpdateTag
ticket.UpdateTag("Updated tag");

// Update the tag with UpdateOrderFields
ticket.Update(new() { Tag = "Another tag" });

 # Tag an order on creation
ticket = self.LimitOrder("SPY", 100, 221.05, "Original tag")

# Update the tag with UpdateTag
ticket.UpdateTag("Updated tag")

# Update the tag with UpdateOrderFields
update_settings = UpdateOrderFields()
update_settings.Tag = "Another tag"
ticket.Update(update_settings)