Welcome to Additional Orders, the unit that layers four extra instructions onto the basic order types from the last unit. Each one answers a single question the exam tests relentlessly: how long does the order live, or how completely must it fill? A basic order says what to trade; these qualifiers say for how long and how strictly. Get the trap for each one straight and the questions become reasoning, not memorization.
Exam Weight: Part 1 spans ~71% of the exam across Chapters 1-7 combined; the National Futures Association (NFA) does not publish per-unit weights.
Video Resources
What You'll Learn
In this unit, you'll cover:
- Good Till Canceled (GTC): An open order that keeps working across sessions until it fills or the customer cancels it, and how it differs from the default day order that dies at the end of its own session
- Fill-or-Kill (FOK): An order that must fill immediately and in full or be canceled outright, and how it differs from immediate-or-cancel (which allows partial fills) and all-or-none (which can wait)
- Market on Close (MOC): A market order timed to the end of the session, why it guarantees participation in the close but not a specific price, and why the fill can differ from the official settlement price
- One Cancels the Other (OCO): Two linked orders where filling one automatically cancels the other, and how traders use the pair to bracket a position with a profit target and a protective stop
Why This Matters
Series 3 candidates place and manage orders for clients whose positions can turn on how an order is timed or qualified, so knowing exactly what each instruction guarantees is core to explaining risk. Two ideas run through the whole unit:
- A time-in-force qualifier controls how long an order lives (GTC keeps working across days; the default day order expires at the close of its session)
- A contingency qualifier controls how completely an order must fill (FOK demands immediate and entire; a look-alike may allow partials or may wait)
Watch one signature theme the whole way through: several of these orders are one condition away from a look-alike, so the exam pairs them to see whether you can name the exact difference. GTC versus a day order, and FOK versus immediate-or-cancel versus all-or-none, are the two comparisons the questions lean on most.
Let's start with the order that keeps working the longest: the GTC order.