I almost always get filled between the bid/ask on highly liquid ETFs and stocks - and usually very quickly. It can be a little harder if you're trading spreads, but it doesn't sound like you'll be doing that. Also, it may depend on your broker, as someone mentioned.
How do you trade spreads? Do you leg in? I find the price leaves me behind so often when I do that I quit doing it that way.
I buy both legs at the same time on TOS. They automatically put the price between the bid/ask. I do have to adjust it sometimes depending on the market and how badly I want the trade. I mainly sell put/call verticals or buy diagonals.
I tried to trade vertical spreads on SPX in an IB paper account but never get filled, even when selecting "market". Is this normal? I wanted to get familiar with trading vertical spreads on tws before trading real money.
It's not normal for me on TOS, but I don't know about IB. Maybe it's because it's an index. I trade SPY.
Yeah, a half-hour to get filled at market doesn't make sense; unless it's just a delay due to paper trading.