# Entries: marketable limits, offsets and partial fills

> How a Scalpel buy is priced and filled: the marketable limit, the buy offset, partial fills, and why a buy is refused when the market is closed or halted.

Source: https://scalpeltrade.com/guides/entries-and-fills
Guide 4.4, Placing trades. Intermediate, 7 min read.
Checked with Scalpel 1.12.8 on 2026-10-15. By Scalpel Team.

**In short:**

Every Scalpel buy is a marketable limit: a limit order priced at the ask plus your **Buy offset** (10 cents by default), so it fills straight away against what is offered but never pays more than that cap. Anything the book cannot fill up to the limit keeps working at the limit as a partial fill, until it fills, you cancel it with `Ctrl`+`Q`, or you sell out. Buys and sells are blocked while the US market is closed (before 04:00 or after 20:00 ET, weekends and holidays), and buys while the stock is halted.

A [marketable limit](https://scalpeltrade.com/guides/glossary#marketable-limit) is how momentum traders get in fast without handing the market a blank cheque. A plain market order on a thin small-cap can fill dollars above where you pressed; a limit right at the ask can miss the move entirely. The ask plus a few cents is the middle ground, and outside regular hours it is the only kind of order the exchanges accept anyway.

**Before you start:**

- Scalpel connected with Level 2 data on the symbol ([guide 1.6](https://scalpeltrade.com/guides/ibkr-market-data-for-day-trading)).
- A buy preset set up ([guide 4.1](https://scalpeltrade.com/guides/sizing-presets)).

## How a buy is priced

When you press a buy key or button, Scalpel does this in one go:

1. Takes the **best ask** on the focused desk's book.
2. Works out the share count from your preset at that ask ([guide 4.1](https://scalpeltrade.com/guides/sizing-presets)), rounded down.
3. Checks the order against your caps and, in SIM, your cash ([guide 7.2](https://scalpeltrade.com/guides/fat-finger-and-position-caps)), and against a daily-loss lock ([guide 7.1](https://scalpeltrade.com/guides/daily-loss-limit)).
4. Sends a limit order at **ask + Buy offset**, rounded to the cent.

Worked example: ABCD offers 245 shares at 5.71, 1,000 at 5.72 and 2,000 at 5.73. You press **Risk $200** with a 30c stop: 666 shares, limit 5.71 + 0.10 = **5.81**. The order takes the 245 at 5.71 and 421 at 5.72, an average of about 5.716. It never touches a price above 5.81.

The offset is your slippage budget, not a price you pay: you fill at the prices on the book, up to the limit.

## Set the offsets

The buy and sell offsets are on the order bar (**Offset** steppers, 10c a click, never below 0) and in **Settings > Trading** as **Buy offset (c)** and **Sell offset (c)**. Both places change the same saved value, for every desk.

*Screenshot: Settings, Trading: Buy offset (c) and Sell offset (c), 10 by default, and Extended-hours fills, on by default.*

| Offset | Good for | The catch |
|---|---|---|
| 0c | Paying no more than the ask you saw | Misses the fill when the ask lifts as you press, leaving a partial or nothing |
| 5c to 10c (default 10c) | Most $2 to $20 momentum stocks | You can pay up to that much over the ask on a thin book |
| 15c to 30c | Fast breakouts on pricier stocks | A large order can walk deep into the book |

**Tip.**

The offset is in cents, not percent, so the same 10c is 5% of a $2 stock and 0.5% of a $20 one. Drop it to 3c to 5c if you mostly trade under $3.

## Partial fills

If the book runs out before your limit, you get what was there and the rest keeps working at the limit, like a real resting order.

- **In SIM**, the fill is worked out against the displayed Level 2 book. The unfilled rest then fills from new trades printing on the tape at or under your limit, at those prices ([guide 6.1](https://scalpeltrade.com/guides/paper-trading-sim)).
- **In LIVE**, Interactive Brokers works the rest of the real order at your limit.

The Orders tab shows a working buy as **Partial**, with the average fill so far. Your stop and take-profit arm on the first fill. When more shares fill, the levels stay exactly where they are (including a stop you dragged); only your average moves, so breakeven ([guide 5.3](https://scalpeltrade.com/guides/breakeven-and-trailing-stops)) then means the new average. Adding shares with a second buy works the same way.

*Screenshot: The Orders tab: a 1,000 share buy reading Partial at a 5.72 average so far. Times are New York time. Demo data.*

The rest stops working when:

- you press `Ctrl`+`Q` or the **Cancel** button (shown on the order bar while you hold a position);
- you sell out: **Sell full** (`Ctrl`+`Z`), **Flatten All** (`Esc`) or an auto-flatten cancels the working buy first, in SIM and LIVE alike;
- in SIM, you sell any of that symbol (a scale-out too), or the stop fires.

In LIVE, a scale-out (1/2, 1/4) leaves a working buy alone, so cancel it yourself with `Ctrl`+`Q` if you do not want it.

**Careful.**

A working partial can keep buying after you have mentally moved on, adding shares on a pullback. If you do not want the rest, cancel it as soon as you see **Partial**.

## When the market is closed

Scalpel trades the pre-market (from 04:00 ET), regular hours and after-hours (to 20:00 ET; 17:00 on early-close days). Outside those hours, at weekends and on market holidays, there is no real liquidity, so entries and exits are blocked:

- the order bar's buttons are greyed out, buys, sells, **B/E** and **Trail** alike;
- a buy or sell hotkey shows **Market closed - orders disabled**;
- the breakeven, trailing and cancel hotkeys (`B`, `Shift`+`T`, `Ctrl`+`Q`) still work;
- **Flatten All** (`Esc`) is never blocked, so you can always ask to get out. Its toast says what happens next: in LIVE, IBKR may hold the sells until the pre-market opens at 4:00 ET; in SIM they fill at the last prices Scalpel saw ([guide 4.5](https://scalpeltrade.com/guides/scale-out-and-flatten)).

*Screenshot: The market closed: every order bar button greyed out, and the toast a buy key raises. Demo data.*

**Extended-hours fills** in **Settings > Trading** (on by default) decides whether your LIVE **buys** may fill outside regular hours. Turn it off and Interactive Brokers only fills your LIVE entries between 09:30 and 16:00 ET. Exits are not affected: stops, targets, sells and Flatten All always go out allowed to fill outside regular hours. SIM ignores the switch. See [guide 13.13](https://scalpeltrade.com/guides/fix-order-bar-greyed-out) if the bar is grey when you think it should not be.

## Halted stocks

While a stock is halted, its desk shows a **HALTED** banner, the buy buttons are grey, and a buy key is refused with **ABCD is halted: buys are blocked until it resumes** and the voice "Rejected.". A halted stock usually reopens with a gap, so no entry may queue up for the reopen. Sells and Flatten All are not blocked, but nothing trades until the halt lifts.

## Why an entry can be refused

Each refusal shows as a red toast and the voice says "Rejected.":

| Message | Why | Fix |
|---|---|---|
| **No market data yet** | The desk has no book yet | Wait for Level 2 to fill in |
| **No ask to price against** | The book has no offers | Wait for offers to show |
| **ABCD is halted: buys are blocked until it resumes** | Trading in the stock is halted | Wait for the halt to lift |
| **Order size resolves to zero shares** | The preset sizes to under one share | Raise the risk or tighten the stop |
| **Order exceeds the fat-finger cap ($...)** | The order is over your fat-finger cap | [Guide 7.2](https://scalpeltrade.com/guides/fat-finger-and-position-caps) |
| **Position would exceed the max ($...)** | It would take the symbol past your max position | Guide 7.2 |
| **Insufficient buying power: order $... exceeds free cash $...** | SIM is a cash account | Smaller size, or raise SIM start in Settings > Risk |
| **Risk locked: ...** | The daily loss limit has tripped | [Guide 7.1](https://scalpeltrade.com/guides/daily-loss-limit) |
| **No liquidity for ...** | SIM: nothing on the book up to your limit | Raise the offset, or wait |

A LIVE order can also be refused by Interactive Brokers itself, for example for buying power; see [guide 13.5](https://scalpeltrade.com/guides/fix-order-rejected). If the intel dilution guard is on and the stock has a fresh dilution flag, the first press only warns and you press again within 4 seconds to confirm ([guide 9.7](https://scalpeltrade.com/guides/dilution-entry-guard)).

**Note.**

No order type removes the risk of a fast stock. A marketable limit caps what you pay, but in a thin pre-market book a stock can move several percent between your press and your fill, and it can move against you just as fast. Practise in SIM first; most people who trade this way lose money.

## Questions

**What is a marketable limit order?**

A limit order priced at or through the other side of the book, so it fills at once like a market order but with a cap. Scalpel buys at the ask plus your buy offset, 10 cents by default.

**Why did my order only partly fill?**

There was not enough size offered up to your limit. The rest keeps working at the limit: it shows as Partial in the Orders tab and fills as sellers arrive, until you cancel with Ctrl+Q or sell out.

**Why can't I trade at night or at the weekend?**

Scalpel blocks orders outside 04:00 to 20:00 ET on trading days, when there is no real liquidity. Stop management (B, Shift+T) and cancel still work.

**Can I trade the pre-market with Scalpel?**

Yes. Pre-market from 04:00 ET is open for orders. LIVE buys may fill outside regular hours while Extended-hours fills is on in Settings > Trading, which is the default, and exits always may.

**Does the buy offset change my fill price?**

Only as a cap. You fill at the prices offered on the book, starting at the ask; the offset is the most above the ask you allow.