Directed Order

Burgers! Fries! Imagine you’re the captain of a vessel...a pirate, maybe...and you call out to your crew, “Aye aye men, off to the Fountain of Money via the Indian Ocean!” That’s kind of what a directed order is, except you’re ordering the route of a securities trade to your broker or dealer (and you’re not a pirate anymore...sorry).

A directed order is “directed” since the investor is directing their order routing to a certain place, like to a certain stock exchange where the prices on that stock are a tad bit better (for now), for instance. It's for long-term and average Joe investors, where an order executed isn’t that big of a deal, so you’ll only find active traders directing the flow of their orders.