What is One Cancels The Other (OCO)
A one cancels the other (OCO) is a pair of conditional orders stipulating that if one order executes, then the other order is automatically canceled.
OCO often combines a stop order with a limit order on an automated trading platform. When either the stop or limit price is reached and the order executed, the other order or group of orders automatically gets canceled. Experienced traders use OCO orders to mitigate risk or to enter the market.
How to create OCO
OCO connection may be created between any Limit, Stop (Stop-Market), and Smart orders.
1. The OCO order is available only for spot trading and it can be accessed on the Trading page. To create an OCO order, head to the trading widget and select the Stop or Limit tab.
2. When setting up a new order it will be to connect it to an already existing order.
📑 Note: In case there are no Open orders that meet the requirements - there won’t be an option to connect this new order with any other order.
3. Confirm placement of the new order. This order will be placed just like a regular order, but now it is connected to the selected order via the OCO option.
View and manage your open orders connected with OCO
Once you connect orders with the OCO option, they will be tagged as "OCO" in the Open Orders tab. If you had any SL or TP enabled on any of those orders, you will be able to modify them at any time and it won't disrupt your OCO connection.
This connection is also visible on the chart when any of those orders is selected. As always, you can move them freely and change their position on the chart, with no impact on your OCO connection.
❗ Warning: If any of your orders get canceled (manually or automatically) then the OCO connection will be removed and the other order remains open.
Situations when OCO order can be used
The use of OCO order is limitless and you can create an infinite combination of orders connected to each other. At Bitsgap, we strongly recommend using OCO orders in the following strategies: Stop Loss and Take Profit, Buy More, and Exit or Averaging Down.
Stop Loss and Take Profit
The most common use for the OCO order is to set up stop-loss and take profit combination when you have an available base currency on your account. To do so, we would need to combine 2 Sell orders of different types.
The Take Profit order should be Limit. This will place your coins in the order book to be filled by the market. This order will reserve your funds in trades.
The Stop-Loss order should be Stop (Stop-Market). The Stop-Market will allow you to guarantee exit at the best price available. This order will not reserve your funds in trades.
If the Take Profit order is filled, then the Stop Loss order gets canceled, and vice versa.
📑 Note: The order in which orders are placed doesn't affect the final outcome. If your Stop Loss (Stop order) triggers first, the system will cancel the Limit order (because we need to release funds from the order book), and then fill the Stop order.
Buy More
If you are interested in increasing the amount of the base currency when the price is low or when the price rally starts, then the Buy More strategy combined with the OCO option would be a great fit for you. The idea behind this method is to either purchase coins at the lowest price possible or when the resistance breakthrough happens - both options will provide a benefit from momentum effect or trend reversal.
The Buy Dip order should be Limit to purchase more coins if the price goes down.
The Buy on Breakthrough should be a Stop order if the price goes up.
If the price will break the key resistance and continue the uptrend, then we will cancel the Limit order on the bottom to release funds to use for the Stop Buy order.
📑 Note: Both orders have different prices, so it is important to make sure that you will have enough of the quote currency on your balance if the Stop order is hit.
Exit or Averaging Down
The other strategy works around eliminating your coins at the acceptable price or averaging the purchase price down, which will allow you to sell coins afterwards at a cheaper price. To do so, we would need to combine 2 Limit orders on Buy and Sell sides.
The Exit order should be a Limit sell order which will sell all your coins at the desired price.
The Averaging Down order should be a Limit buy order which will increase the number of coins you are holding and decrease your average purchase price.
If the price goes down a executes the Limit buy order, then the top sell order gets automatically canceled which will allow you to set up a new sell order for a cheaper price. Alternatively, if your sell order gets filled, then the system will cancel the bottom buy order because we don't need to buy and average this coin anymore.
These were the 3 most popular uses of OCO orders and how to set them up. However, as mentioned before there are no limits and you can use this feature to create your own profitable strategy.