How to place a market order on Kite

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A market order is the simplest order type available on Zerodha Kite: it instructs the exchange to fill the order immediately at the best price available in the order book, without specifying a price limit. Market orders are appropriate when certainty of execution matters more than certainty of price, for example when entering or exiting a position quickly in a liquid, large-cap stock. This guide explains exactly how to place a market order on Kite, what the controls do, and what risks to account for.

When to use a market order

A market order is appropriate in these situations:

  • You need to exit an existing position quickly and the bid-ask spread is narrow.
  • The stock is highly liquid (large-cap index constituent) and slippage is likely to be small.
  • You are executing during peak market hours when the order book is deep.

A market order is less suitable for:

  • Illiquid small-cap or micro-cap stocks where the spread is wide.
  • Large quantities relative to the average daily volume, which may cause significant price impact.
  • Situations where a maximum acceptable price is important (use a limit order instead).

Step-by-step procedure

Log in to Kite

Open kite.zerodha.com or the Kite mobile app and sign in with your Zerodha client ID, password and the six-digit TOTP from your authenticator app.

Locate the scrip in the marketwatch

If the scrip is already in your marketwatch, locate its row. If not, click the Add instrument search bar at the top of the marketwatch and type the company name or NSE/BSE symbol. Click the result to add it.

Open the order ticket

On Kite web, hover over the scrip row. Two buttons appear: a blue B (Buy) and a red S (Sell). Click the appropriate button. On the Kite mobile app, tap the scrip to open the quote screen, then tap Buy or Sell.

Select MARKET as order type

In the order ticket, find the Order type control (a segmented selector or dropdown depending on the interface version). Click or tap MARKET. The Price field immediately greys out because the price is determined by the exchange at the time of matching, not by you.

Choose product code and validity

Product code: Select CNC if you are buying for delivery (shares will be credited to your demat account and held overnight). Select MIS if you are trading intraday and will exit before 3:20 PM IST. For delivery sells from your existing holdings, select CNC.

Validity: The default is DAY, meaning the order is valid until the end of the current trading session. You can select IOC (Immediate or Cancel) if you want the order to attempt an immediate fill and cancel any unfilled portion rather than waiting.

For a market order, DAY and IOC produce nearly identical outcomes in liquid stocks because market orders fill within milliseconds. IOC is typically used by algorithmic traders to avoid accidental partial fills sitting open.

Enter quantity and submit

In the Qty field, enter the number of shares. For a buy order, verify that your available cash (shown in the top bar as Available margin) comfortably covers the estimated value. The estimate uses the LTP at the time of order entry; the actual debit may differ slightly once the order fills.

Click the blue Buy (or red Sell) button. Kite sends the order to the exchange and displays a confirmation toast with the order ID. The order ticket closes.

Verify execution in the Order book

Click Orders in the left navigation (or the Orders tab in the Kite app). For a liquid stock during market hours, the market order status changes to Complete within one to three seconds. Click the completed order row to expand it. The Avg. price field shows the volume-weighted average execution price across all partial fills, if any occurred.

The trade is simultaneously recorded in the Trade book. For a CNC buy, the shares appear in your holdings the next trading day after T+1 settlement.

Understanding slippage

The most important risk specific to market orders is slippage, which is the difference between the LTP shown on screen when you clicked Buy and the actual executed price. Slippage arises because:

  1. There is a small but non-zero network and exchange latency between your click and the matching engine’s action.
  2. Other orders may fill ahead of yours in the order queue, consuming the best available prices.
  3. In a thinly traded stock, the top-of-book ask quantity may be smaller than your order quantity, forcing execution at multiple, progressively higher prices.

For NIFTY 50 constituent stocks during regular trading hours, slippage on a retail-size market order is typically a fraction of a rupee per share. For small-cap stocks with wide spreads, slippage can be substantial.

What can go wrong

  • Order placed at upper circuit. If a stock is at its upper circuit limit, there are no sellers. A market buy order will wait until sellers appear or until day end, at which point it expires. Consider a limit order at the circuit price.
  • Market order during pre-open. During the pre-open session (9:00 AM to 9:15 AM IST), market orders are accepted but are matched at the equilibrium price determined at 9:15 AM. This is not the same as real-time matching.
  • Partial fill. If the order book does not have enough quantity at any price, a market order may partially fill and the remainder is cancelled (IOC) or waits open (DAY). This is rare for large-cap stocks but common for illiquid scrips.
  • Order rejected for illiquid option strikes. In the F&O segment, market orders are not permitted for option strikes with no open interest. Kite will reject the order and prompt you to use a limit order.

References

  1. Zerodha Support, Order types on Kite, support.zerodha.com.
  2. NSE India, Market and limit orders, investor guide, nseindia.com.
  3. SEBI, Investor awareness on order types, SEBI circular, sebi.gov.in.
  4. Zerodha Varsity, Module 1, Chapter 5: Placing orders on Kite, zerodha.com/varsity.

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