Below is a general overview of the online facilities available with regards to placing an order, i.e. buying or selling a security. We have used shares as an example, as this is the most common.

Placing an Order

• You specify the share you want to buy or sell and either the number you want to trade or the total value of the shares you want to trade. Some accounts may allow you to specify the settlement period.



• If the account allows you to trade in real time you will be given a price quote of the shares along with the costs that this trade will incur, including commission, stamp duty and levy amount where applicable. The information you previously entered should also be displayed, i.e. whether you want to buy or sell, the share to be traded and the quantity. If you are buying, the settlement date should also be given.
  
  You will then be given a limited time period in which to confirm your order, usually 10 or 15 seconds.
  
  If the account does not allow real time trading, the information above will still be displayed but the price quote will not be guaranteed, so you should be given the option to specify a limit and a time period which states your criteria for transacting. This prevents you buying or selling shares at a price dramatically different to that displayed on screen. When you consider some online share dealers may not execute your trade for a number of minutes or possibly even hours, specifying a limit can be critical.



• The final step in placing an order is to confirm it. Once confirmed, the order cannot be reversed.

List Of Orders

You are presented with a list of executed and pending orders, typically showing the order number, trade date and time, settlement date, transaction type (buy or sell), the share traded, the quantity and the price.

Order Details

Information is given with regards to an individual order. In additional to the information listed above, the commission, stamp duty and levy costs may also be displayed along with any accrued interest and the settlement period.

Virtual Order

The functionality is the same as 'Placing an Order', but the transactions are not real. This allows you to see in advance what the costs of a trade would be, and in some cases you are able to confirm the trade hypothetically in order to test your share dealing skills, before committing any real money.