What is slippage?

Slippage is a factor when trading any financial market. Slippage occurs when the market gaps over prices or when available liquidity at a given price is taken by other orders. Market gaps normally occur during fast moving markets when a price can jump several pips without trading at prices in between. Similarly, each price has an available liquidity. For instance, if the price is 50 and there is 2M available at 50, then a 3M order will get slipped, since 3M is more than the 2M available at the price of 50.

In all financial markets, stop orders are treated as resting orders which, when triggered, are sent to the market to execute at the best available price, rather than at a “guaranteed” price. Some slippage is generally to be expected.