Order routes

If you’ve read through our articles on order types and order durations, you might already know that stock trading can sometimes involve a lot of decisions.

There’s one more set of decisions you might need to make, and that is deciding on an order route.

To explain what an order route is, we need to take a bit of a step back to look at how the idea of direct trading has evolved.

In the past, if you wanted to make a trade, you had to conduct your trades through a broker - someone who had the right to buy and sell stocks on a stock exchange. Now though, you have more options for your trade to go directly to the exchange; these are known as order routes (sometimes called ECNs - which is where ECN fees come from).

You can choose a specific order route if you’d like. For your convenience, the default option is Auto.

To change your order route, click the View more options ⇩ button in the Order entry window.

You can then select your Route for U.S. Securities, or your Sub-route for Canadian securities.

What order routes are available at Questrade?

If you’re trading on Questrade Edge series platforms (Questrade mobile app, Edge Web and Edge Desktop) you can specifically select an order route for your order.

The default choice for your order rout is AUTO. Other selections can include options such as (but not limited to) IEX, NYSE, LAMP, ARCA, NASDAQ, MNGD, BATS, EDGA, EDGX and ITG.

The specific order routes available can vary depending on the exchange on which you are trading - there are often more options for US exchanges than Canadian ones.