Slippage

Slippage occurs when the actual execution price of a trade differs from the expected price. It happens because prices move between the moment you decide to trade and the moment the order is filled. Slippage is typically worse during high-volatility events, low-liquidity periods, and with larger order sizes.

How Slippage Affects Trading

Slippage can be positive (filled at a better price) or negative (filled at a worse price). In practice, negative slippage is more common because fast-moving markets tend to move against your order. A backtested strategy must account for expected slippage, typically 0.5-2 pips per trade for major forex pairs.

Slippage is proportionally more damaging to high-frequency strategies. A scalping strategy targeting 5 pips per trade loses 20% of its edge from just 1 pip of slippage. Swing trading strategies targeting 100+ pips are barely affected. This is why shorter-timeframe strategies need tighter execution quality.

Algorithmic traders minimize slippage by trading during peak liquidity, using limit orders instead of market orders, avoiding news events, and monitoring real-time spread data. The /v1/sessions endpoint helps identify optimal execution windows with maximum liquidity.

Access via API

Know which sessions are active to trade during peak liquidity and minimize slippage.