5. Order Entry

Entering an order in Fortex-eSignal™ is simple and speedy. There are four major ways to enter orders:

1) Point & Click in the Level I Quote Window;

2) Point & Click on a position in the Portfolio Window;

3) Point & Click in the Level II Window;

4) Type in your order from the Order Entry Box

Figure 5.1 is an Fortex Floating Order Entry box. You may bring it up from the main menu Trade -> Order Entry.

Figure 5.1

1) Point & Click in the Level I Quote Window

If you have a stock symbol quoted on your Level I quote screen, you can simply double-click on the Bid Price cell and get a sell order filled into the order entry box with the inside market bid price. You may also double-click on the Ask Price or Last Price cell and get a buy order filled in with the inside market ask price.

Let’s use Figure 5.2 as an example. When you double-click on the Last field 24.31 of the QQQ quote, the floating order entry box pops up with Buy 100 shares of QQQ at 24.31 Limit filled in and designated to your default Route and Account. To submit the order, you just need to hit the [Enter] key or click on the [Enter] button.

Figure 5.2

2) Point & Click on a position in the Portfolio Window

To close out a position, you just need to simply point and click on such position in the Portfolio Window. The floating order entry box will self-populate with all the corresponding information and you just need to hit [Enter] to submit the trade.

Let’s use Figure 5.3 as an example. If you would like to cover your 1000 shares short position in MSFT at the current market price 51.98, just simply point and click on that row. The floating order entry box will pop up as BUY 1000 shares of MSFT at 51.98 Limit to ARCA. Hit [Enter] to submit the order.

Figure 5.3

3) Point & Click in the Level II Window

Please read Chapter 7 Level II.

4) Type in your orders

You can type in your orders from the floating order entry box. Fortex-eSignal™ is designed to have the minimal keystrokes for order entry. To understand how to maneuver in these order entry boxes effectively, it is important to understand the function and design of each field.

Action

B=Buy (blue) S=Sell (red) T=Short (yellow)

First, you need click on one of the three different action buttons or type in the hotkey listed above to specify an action. As you enter, the color of the button and the frame of the box will change accordingly to you action. This design is to raise your awareness of action being taken. Another set of hotkeys is Alt+B, Alt+S, and Alt+T. This set of hotkeys bring the cursor back from anywhere in the Order Entry window to the Action field.

Qty - Quantity

Sym - Symbol

Type - Order Type

Use “L” for limit order, “M” for market order, “S” for stop market order, and “S” again for stop limit order. If you type in a number in the price field, the order type is automatically set to limit order. To enter a market order, please leave the price field blank. To enter a stop limit order, you must fill in the stop limit price in field “StpLmt”.

Route

Fortex-eSignal™ can dynamically tell whether a symbol being entered is a Listed issue or an NASDAQ issue. For Listed issues, trades will be routed to NYSE, AMEX and other listed exchanges accordingly. For NASDAQ issues, trades will go to SNET, SOES and ECNs such as REDI, ARCA, ISLD, and INCA depending on your broker-dealer’s connectivity. Type “R” for REDI, “A” for ARCA, “I” for ISLD, “”II”” for INCA, “S” for SNET and “SS” for SOES, etc.

TIF - Time in Force

For the time in force field, we only provide Day Order for the current release.

Fill - AON || PART

We only provide Partial Fill option for the current release. No All or None available yet.

MMID – Market Maker Preference ID

Check the field and filled in the MMID when necessary.

Stop - Stop Price for Stop Limit Orders

When entering a stop limit order, please specify your stop price here. For any other type of orders, please leave it blank.

Acct - Account

You can choose different accounts to place trades.

Refresh

To refresh the order entry box, click on the [Refresh] button or type Alt-R.

Enter

To submit an Order, click on the [Enter] button or hit Enter, or Alt-E.

Example

To buy 1000 shares of INTC at 45, you type “B1000INTC45[Enter]”.

To sell 500 shares of MSFT at 68, you type “S500MSFT68[Enter]”.

You do not have to type any Tab key to go to the next field because Fortex-eSignal™ is intelligent enough to recognize the content your are typing and automatically tab over to the right field for you. No Tab Key Needed.