How a Trade Actually Works
Follow a single order from your screen to the exchange and back into your account.
Lessons
- The Anatomy of a Single TradeTrace one buy order end to end — broker, exchange, clearing, settlement, depository.
- How Buyers and Sellers Get MatchedThe order book and the price-time priority rule that decides who trades with whom.
- Bid, Ask & the SpreadThe two prices that always exist at once, and why the gap between them is a hidden cost.
- Liquidity: Can You Actually Get Out?Why a stock you can buy easily but cannot sell easily is a trap, and how to spot it.
- Settlement: When the Shares Are Really YoursThe T+1 cycle — why the shares and money do not change hands the instant you trade.
- Clearing Corporations & Why Trades Don’t FailThe invisible counterparty that guarantees your trade settles even if the other side defaults.