Requotes in Trading: What They Are and How to Avoid Them

Understanding the Requote Phenomenon

Every trader eventually encounters a frustrating scenario: you spot the perfect entry, click the buy button, and instead of instant execution, a message appears informing you that the price has changed. This situation is known as a requote — a broker's notification that your requested price is no longer available, along with an offer to execute at a different price. To understand this topic more deeply, I recommend studying market order.

The mechanism behind requotes stems from the inherent time gap between order submission and execution. When you send a trading request, it travels through your internet connection to the broker's server, gets processed by their system, and is then routed to liquidity providers. This entire journey takes anywhere from a few milliseconds to a full second. During this brief window, market prices can shift significantly, especially in fast-moving conditions.

Financial markets operate as continuous ecosystems where millions of participants worldwide execute trades simultaneously. Economic releases influence investor sentiment, algorithmic systems process thousands of transactions per second, and geopolitical events trigger instant price reactions. In this environment, asset prices — whether currency pairs, stocks, or cryptocurrencies — remain in constant flux. Volatility measures the intensity of these price movements and directly correlates with requote probability.

Brokers cannot guarantee execution at prices that no longer exist in the market. Instead of filling your order at an outdated quote, they send a requote notification with the current available price. You then decide whether to accept the new terms or cancel the trade entirely. This key distinction separates requotes from slippage, where orders execute automatically at different prices without requesting confirmation.

Primary Causes of Requotes

Identifying the root causes empowers traders to develop effective strategies for reducing requote frequency. Several key factors contribute to this common trading challenge.

Economic data releases create prime conditions for requotes. Employment reports, central bank interest rate decisions, inflation figures, and GDP announcements can move prices by dozens of pips within seconds. During these events, order flow surges dramatically while prices shift faster than execution systems can process requests. Traders attempting to enter positions during such moments frequently encounter requotes as brokers struggle to match orders with available liquidity.

Technical infrastructure plays a crucial role in execution quality. Your internet connection speed directly affects data transmission time. Unstable WiFi or mobile connections with high latency increase the delay between clicking the order button and the broker receiving your request. Every additional millisecond raises the probability of price changes before execution. Experienced traders address this challenge by renting VPS servers located near their broker's data centers, reducing transmission time to near-instantaneous levels.

Broker business models significantly impact execution quality. A fundamental difference exists between Dealing Desk brokers and those offering direct market access. Dealing Desk brokers process client orders internally, often acting as counterparties to trades. This creates potential conflicts of interest — your profit might represent their loss. Such brokers may delay execution or offer less favorable requotes during adverse price movements. ECN brokers route orders directly to the interbank market, where major financial institutions provide execution. This model eliminates the inherent conflict between broker and client interests.

Liquidity determines market depth and the ability to fill large orders without significant price impact. Major currency pairs like EUR/USD and GBP/USD feature massive liquidity with daily volumes measured in trillions of dollars. Requotes occur less frequently on these instruments because counterparties are always available. Exotic pairs or small-cap stocks trade in much thinner volumes, increasing the likelihood that requested prices become unavailable before execution completes.

Impact of Requotes on Trading Performance

The consequences of frequent requotes extend beyond mere inconvenience. They affect financial results, psychological state, and overall trading system effectiveness.

From a financial perspective, each requote potentially represents a missed opportunity or deteriorated entry conditions. Consider this scenario: technical analysis signals a reversal pattern forming, you submit a buy order, but receive a requote five pips higher than your intended entry. Accepting the new price reduces your potential profit and worsens your risk-to-reward ratio. Declining the trade means completely missing the opportunity while watching the market move in your anticipated direction.

Scalpers and intraday traders working with small target moves face particular vulnerability. A strategy designed to capture 10-15 pip movements becomes unprofitable when entries consistently worsen by 4-5 pips due to requotes. The cumulative effect over a month of active trading can amount to substantial sums.

Psychological impact deserves equal attention. A series of requotes triggers frustration and can provoke emotional decision-making. Traders begin rushing entries, accepting unfavorable prices, or entering positions without proper justification. This behavior contradicts disciplined trading principles and typically leads to increased losses.

Effective Strategies for Reducing Requotes

Completely eliminating requotes is impossible — they represent a natural aspect of market mechanics. However, a thoughtful approach significantly reduces their frequency and minimizes their impact on trading results.

Broker selection deserves careful analysis. Research reviews on independent forums and professional communities. Examine claimed execution speeds and slippage statistics. Regulated brokers holding licenses from reputable authorities — FCA, ASIC, CySEC — must adhere to fair execution standards. Test platforms on demo accounts during high volatility periods to assess real-world system behavior before committing capital.

Pending orders serve as effective tools against requotes. When setting limit or stop orders, you predetermine the exact execution price. Once the market reaches your specified level, the order activates automatically without requiring confirmation. This approach proves especially valuable for trading around key support and resistance levels where precise entry matters most.

Technical optimization encompasses several aspects. Use wired ethernet connections instead of wireless — this reduces latency and eliminates interference. Check your ping to the broker's server: values exceeding 100 milliseconds signal the need for improvements. For serious trading, consider renting a VPS in the same data center housing your broker's servers. Many providers offer trading-optimized servers with sub-millisecond latency for monthly fees starting around fifteen dollars.

Planning trades around the economic calendar helps avoid the riskiest periods. High-impact events — rate decisions, employment reports, GDP data — create volatility spikes. Refrain from opening new positions ten minutes before and after such releases. If news trading forms part of your strategy, increase the acceptable price deviation range in your terminal settings and reduce position sizes accordingly.

Session timing also affects requote probability. Maximum liquidity occurs during the European and American session overlap. During these hours, spreads narrow to their tightest levels, and market depth accommodates rapid execution of large orders. Night hours and holiday periods feature reduced activity and elevated requote risk. Asian session trading of European pairs, for instance, often encounters wider spreads and more frequent execution issues.

The Broker's Role in Order Execution Quality

Brokerage firms serve as intermediaries between traders and financial markets. Their technology, business model, and liquidity provider relationships directly determine execution quality.

Market makers create internal markets for their clients, quoting buy and sell prices while earning from the spread. This model creates potential conflicts: client profits may translate to broker losses. Some firms use requotes to protect their positions during sharp market movements. I also recommend studying scalping for the full picture.

Brokers with direct market access route client orders to liquidity pools comprised of major banks. They earn commissions on each trade rather than profiting from client losses, aligning their interests with yours. Top-tier brokers maintain relationships with dozens of prime banks, ensuring deep order books even during turbulent conditions.

Technical infrastructure includes servers positioned near major financial hubs — London, New York, Tokyo. Modern firms invest in server colocation directly within exchange facilities, reducing processing time to fractions of milliseconds. Look for specific execution statistics rather than vague claims of fast execution.

Adapting Your Trading Strategy to Requotes

Accepting requotes as part of market reality enables a constructive approach to this phenomenon. Rather than fighting the inevitable, traders learn to adapt their strategies accordingly.

Define acceptable price deviation ranges in advance. If your strategy allows entering trades two or three pips worse than planned without critically damaging risk-reward ratios, configure automatic requote acceptance within these limits. Most trading platforms provide this option in order execution settings.

Requotes can serve as market condition indicators. Receiving price confirmation requests more frequently signals elevated volatility or liquidity problems. Use this information to adjust your trading plan: reduce position sizes, widen stops, or temporarily pause trading until conditions normalize.

Trading automation partially addresses requote challenges. Trading robots can instantly respond to new price offers according to predetermined parameters. Algorithms accept requotes within defined limits or reject trades exceeding acceptable deviation. This eliminates emotional components and accelerates decision-making.

Conclusion

Requotes represent natural consequences of market dynamics and the technical realities of order execution. They do not constitute insurmountable obstacles to profitable trading but require conscious approaches and intelligent strategy adaptation.

Selecting a reliable broker with quality infrastructure creates the foundation for comfortable trading. Using pending orders, optimizing your technical setup, and planning trades around the economic calendar allow you to minimize requote frequency. Understanding the mechanisms behind their occurrence helps maintain emotional balance and make well-considered decisions even when facing execution challenges. To consolidate this material, also study the Forex market.

Every experienced trader has navigated the adaptation period to market realities. Requotes are merely one of many factors requiring consideration when building trading systems. A systematic approach, discipline, and continuous skill improvement enable you to transform a potential problem into a manageable element of the trading process. Rather than viewing requotes as failures, treat them as part of the normal market landscape that successful traders learn to navigate effectively.

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