How does trading work in Practice Accounts?
Practice account quotes, trades, and positions will be based on delayed quotation when the delayed data feed becomes available after market opens (a delay of 15-20 minutes or more) or previous day closing price until the delayed quotes become available.
Practice Accounts will reflect the flat rate $9.99 commissions for equities and $9.99 plus $1.25 per contract for options, whereas for actual accounts clients must qualify for this flat rate pricing based on minimum balance or number of trades. Other than these flat rate commissions, all fees and charges applicable to Scotia iTRADE accounts, including maintenance/administration fees, will not be reflected in the Practice Account.
Equity and Option orders are filled in full and the bid/ask quantity is not considered. The market quantity available will not be checked against the bid/ask size in executing Practice Account orders, thus there will be no partial fills. For equities and options, buy and sell orders are executed on the ask and bid price, respectively. If the bid or ask quote is not available, the order will be executed on the last trading price. Some trades may be filled at the last trade price or previous day closing price instead of the bid or ask price. The execution for mutual funds orders will be based on the last available price prior to the date of order entry. All options will auto exercise on expiry.
Canadian holiday calendar will be followed to determine the settlement date for US and Canadian transactions. Practice Accounts use a simplified calculation to compute the Buying Power and may be different from Scotia iTRADE accounts. For trade execution, the intention is to provide an experience similar to that of actual accounts. However, there may be situations where delays or rejections for Practice Account orders may occur as a result of capacity issues.