Market-On-Close (MOC) Order

Market-On-Close (MOC) is an order to be executed as a Market Order (i.e. to buy/sell at the market price) as close as possible to the market close.
Hence, the order will be executed at the market closing price (which may differ with exchanges), or as near as possible to the closing price.

For this order, the broker normally set a time deadline for MOC order submission for that day, which is well before the closing of the trading day. After this MOC submission time deadline, the broker will not accept any more MOC order, and the traders also cannot cancel the submitted MOC order for that day.

As with market order, while Market-On-Close (MOC) order guarantees an execution, it cannot guarantee the price at which your order will be filled.

MOC order is useful when traders find that the closing price of a certain security has historically proven to be the best price of the day (i.e. the closing price is the highest for sell order, or lowest for buy order) and then decided to buy/sell at or near the closing price, whatever the price is.

In option trading, one possible use of this order is for options sellers who want to close their expiring option positions at the last minute of expiration day in order to maximize profit by letting the remaining last cent of option’s time value to decay before closing the position.

For the list of other types of order, go to: Types of Orders in Trading.

Related Topics:
* FREE Trading Educational Resources You Should Not Miss
* Getting Started Trading
* Options Trading Basic – Part 1
* Options Trading Basic – Part 2