Canceled Order

Most of the time a submitted buy or sell order in the stock market can be canceled. It could be rejected or canceled by a brokerage firm if, for example, you placed a buy stop order that is below the current market price, or a sell stop order price has already been reached. Or perhaps you placed an order with a broker that does not handle the stock you are interested in buying.

However, any market order for let's say 200 shares of Never Cancel Inc. is executed immediately, so it would be next to impossible to cancel. But a limit order such as "buy 100 shares of Never Cancel Inc. when it hits $20 a share," should give you time to cancel either online or through a broker.

There is also such a thing as "Fill or Kill" orders. Let's say you wanted to buy 500 shares of a stock but only 400 shares are available at the price you wanted. Since the entire order can't be completed, it will be canceled. To add to the list, there are one-cancels-the-other orders (OCO). Johnny Trader thinks Take a Chance On Me Inc. might break out and go up above the current price range of $25 to $50, but also wants to protect himself on the off chance he is wrong. So he places an OCO with a buy limit of $52 and a sell limit for $23. If the stock hits $52 the buy order goes through and the sell order is canceled. And alternatively, if it goes down to $23 the sell order is executed and the buy order canceled.