I am a newbie to this so please bear with me. The question I have is last night I placed a limit buy order for a small parcel of QID @ $53.18 (last Friday's closing price). This morning QID opens at $53.15 and then moves up to $53.18 then further on upwards. Yet, my order is not filled. I questioned my online broker and he says other balanced market orders were filled first. This doesn't seem to make sense to me. Is this the MMs at work? Last week I had a similar situation with my limit buy order not being filled even though the intraday low price was the same as my limit order. Are limit orders second priority to market orders?
Yes, limit orders take back seat to market orders. Also, The bid price might have been 53.15, the ask may have been above the 53.18 you wanted the shares at. And, even if the ask was at 53.18, the MM only has to offer 100 shares at that price, so if someone else got them at 53.18, the MM can move the price up and you miss your fill. Happens all the time.
Yes, Another reason I usually no longer use limit orders. Of course I trade futures so there isn't a big slippage issue.