Partial fill

A partial fill happens when only part of an order's quantity is executed, usually because a limit order sits at a price where not enough volume is available, or because a large market order is split across price levels and an exchange reports the pieces separately.

Why it matters

A partially filled entry leaves you with a smaller position than planned while the rest of the order is still resting on the book; if the remainder fills later, your average price changes and any stop or target sized for the full quantity is now wrong. A partially filled exit is the more dangerous case: a take-profit that closes half the size looks like a closed trade in a naive system, and the remaining half is left running without anyone tracking it.

How AlgoVesta handles it

AlgoVesta sizes protective orders from the quantity the venue actually reports, not from the quantity requested. For market entries on crypto exchanges the fill is normally immediate and complete; the confirmed quantity and average price are what get recorded. Take-profit orders on futures are placed as reduce-only orders, so a partial exit can never open an opposite position, and when a target closes part of the size the remaining quantity stays under the original stop, or under a stop moved to entry if that rule is on. A position that the exchange reports as still open is treated as open even if a take-profit has filled, and closed trades are reconciled against the exchange's own trade history so a partial exit is not mistaken for a full one. On MetaTrader 5, multi-target signals are opened as separate positions per target, which avoids partial closes on a single ticket. See multi-target signal and crypto automation.

Example

A long of 0.5 ETH has three take-profit orders of 0.25, 0.15 and 0.10. TP1 fills, closing 0.25 ETH. The exchange still reports an open position of 0.25 ETH; AlgoVesta keeps the trade open, shows the realised profit of the first slice, and leaves the stop covering the remaining 0.25 ETH. Only when the position quantity reaches zero, or the stop fills, is the trade recorded as closed.

Common mistakes

• Treating the first take-profit fill as the end of the trade and stopping to monitor the remainder.
• Placing a stop for the requested size when the entry only partially filled, which makes the stop larger than the position on some venues and rejected on others.
• Using limit entries in thin pairs and assuming they filled because the order was accepted.
• Ignoring exchange minimum sizes when splitting exits; a slice below the minimum cannot be placed.