Why would you ever do a market order anyway? Just put your limit order in at a price that factors in the maximum slippage you want. All exchanges should be performing best execution.
I think you and OP are talking about two mostly different things. “Market order” is an overloaded term. One definition is a specific order type that instructs the exchange at whatever price is immediately available. The other is an order that’s priced to immediately execute without resting in the book.
By definition all of the former are contained in the latter category. But not vice versa, with the set difference being “marketable limit orders”. That is orders with instructions to not trade beyond a set price, but where that price is set wide enough that we expect the order to cross the market and fill at arrival.
I think what you’re saying is why use a pure market order instead of a marketable limit. And there I mostly agree with you. There’s not much argument besides convenience of not having to fill in the limit price.
But in terms of market impact, marketable limits are no different than market orders. In fact to everyone else, they look identical in the data feed.
This post is correct. Also in addition, there is a factor I did not really cover which is the round trip time between you and the exchange. During that time the best bid/ask can move away from you, and even though you sent a marketable/aggressive order, it may now not be aggressive. The examples here are in a perfect world, but in reality it's a bit more complicated!
I used to do limit orders - try to save some money by buying a stock when it's at lowest during the day.
Then I read a book by Fischer called "Common Stocks, Uncommon Profits"which suggested that when you have a long investment horizon, say 5-10 years, and you have done the research to have the confidence, a limit order gives you no real benefit.
Say a stock is $100 today. In 5-7 years you expect it to be $500, the benefits of doing a limit order are less significant.
There are also costs associated with placing non-marketable limit orders[1], and nasdaq has found that after factoring in the costs/benefits into account, the overall cost is pretty much the same. In that case you might as well place a market order and save yourself the time.
>the “benefits” of waiting increase roughly in line with the risks of not getting a fill. That seems to indicate the market is especially efficient at pricing liquidity.
For someone buying ETF's monthly or something similar this is mostly correct. Your 100 share order is unlikely to move the market, and the time you spent trying to passively set up the order, and then babysit it is unlikely to be worth the time investment.
In crypto markets the difference between maker and taker fees can sometimes make it worth waiting, but you need to keep in mind that every minute you spend not having made the trade, is price risk that you are exposed to. And saving 5bps on fees might lead to you losing 50bps in price movement.
