Below are the three most common reasons why your trade was not successful: 1) ‘Bid’ or ‘ask’ price did not reach your specified target The most likely reason why your trade did not execute is because the applicable market price has not reached the price you specified. Depending on your chart settings, the chart you are viewing may not be showing the type of price applicable to your trade. Many of the charts on our trading platform use the average price, meaning an average between the ‘bid’ and ‘ask’ prices, so they don’t take into consideration the spread. The spread is the difference between the actual buy and sell price of a financial product at any given time. A long (buy) trade will open at the ‘ask’ and close at the ‘bid’ price. A short (sell) trade will open at the ‘bid’ and close at the ‘ask’ price. To verify the actual traded prices, you can add a ‘bid’ or ‘ask’ price overlay to the chart on our trading platform by clicking on ‘Add Study’ at the lower left of the chart and selecting the 'Price Overlay'. There you will be able to select either the high or low, ‘bid’ or ‘ask’ price overlay. This will show you the price that triggers a trade. Note: the MT4 platform only shows the ‘bid’ price. To see the historical ‘low/high’, ‘ask/bid’, you will need to go to the OANDA trading platform and follow the steps mentioned above. 2) Insufficient funds On your trade ticket (new order window), you can type in the size of the trade you wish to open so that you can see the margin needed to open that trade. If you are placing a market order, our platform will tell you right away if you do not have sufficient margin (available funds) to place the trade. If you are trying to place an entry order, our platform will not stop you from placing the order if you do not have the current margin (available funds) necessary but the order will fail to execute if you have not increased the available funds on your account when the pre-specified entry price is reached. 3) Take profit or stop loss was set too close to your order price The third reason your order likely did not trigger is because your take profit or stop loss order was set too close to your order price. A valid take profit and stop loss order must be placed further away than the current spread on the financial instrument that you are trading. As the spread can increase during news events or when the market is volatile, we recommend your take profit and stop loss orders are set at a point further away than the maximum spread for the instrument that you are trading. Review our recent OANDA spreads to determine your take profit and stop loss order levels. Click on 'maximum', located towards the right hand side of the spread chart shown below, to review recent spreads on your nominated instrument.