Why wide price spreads can backfire
Some investors place very high buy orders or very low sell orders after hours to try to increase their chances of matching when the market opens.
⚠️ This strategy carries real risk.
If your order is matched with an order placed after yours, your price becomes the execution (anchor) price, even if other orders exist at more favorable prices.
Bottom line: Only place orders at prices you are genuinely comfortable executing at.
Common misconceptions
“The highest buy always matches with the lowest sell.”
Not exactly. Matching looks across all overlapping buy and sell orders to complete as many matches as possible.
“Widening my price guarantees a match.”
A wider price may increase eligibility to match, but it also carries a risk of locking in a worse execution price.
Best practices
Place orders only at prices you’d be happy executing at.
Be especially cautious with wide prices placed after hours.
How matching actually works
Matching on Arrived’s Secondary Market follows price, then time priority.
1) Price priority: who matches first
Higher buy prices are prioritized over lower buy prices.
Lower sell prices are prioritized over higher sell prices.
Orders must have overlapping prices to be eligible to match.
2) Time priority: what price you get
Once a buy and sell order are paired, the execution (anchor) price is determined by which of the two orders was placed first.
What happens after hours and at market open
Orders placed after hours are queued.
When the trading window opens, our SEC-regulated ATS matches as many overlapping buy and sell orders as possible.
This is not a single-pair model; multiple matches may occur across different price levels at once.
For a deeper technical explanation, review our full matching algorithm