Perhaps the most important consideration, regardless of account type, is the liquidity conditions at the quoted or displayed buy and sell price. Liquidity is the ease at which a trader can get in and out of a position at the quoted price and without having to move down the order book to achieve a fill at the next best price.

Obtaining a worse price because the volume offered by a market maker or a liquidity provider to transact at the quoted price is lacking is called ‘slippage’ and will result in the trader paying a wider spread.

This happens far more frequently than many would believe, especially by smaller brokers running a zero-spread model. Where traders looking for a fill-in 0.1 of a lot of or greater may see their actual fill on the transaction wholly different from the price quoted on the platform.

In most cases, a trader will not reconcile the difference, but this slippage will add up as a cost on the portfolio, especially for traders transacting in size, which speaks to a lack of transparency in pricing and can damage the trust a client holds for their broker.