Trading & signals glossary
What are pending orders in trading?
A pending order doesn’t fill at the current price. It waits until price reaches a level you set in advance. Buy limit and sell limit orders wait for a better price than the current one; buy stop and sell stop orders wait for price to break through a level. If price never gets there, the order never fills.
How it works
Buy limit: buy cheaper than now, if price drops to your level. Sell limit: sell higher than now, if price rises to it.
Buy stop: buy higher than now, if price rallies and breaks the level. Sell stop: sell lower than now, if price drops and breaks it.
Lots of signals give an entry zone instead of a single price. In practice that’s a pending order: it only triggers if price trades into the zone.
Example: a buy limit on gold
- Gold is trading at 4,210 and the signal says “buy limit 4,200, stop 4,190.”
- The order sits and waits. If gold drops to 4,200, you’re filled; if not, nothing happens.
- If gold runs straight to 4,240 without touching 4,200, the signal never triggered: no win, no loss.
- A channel that posts it as “+400 pips” is counting a trade nobody could have opened.
Our data · Verpips
What we measure in signal channels
- 42%
- of signals use a pending entry or zone
- 14%
- of those never trigger
- 228
- pending signals that never triggered
of signals use a pending entry or an entry zone
of those are never triggered
Of the 3,866 signals we measured, 1,640 (42%) use a pending entry or an entry zone instead of a market order. Of those, 228 (14%) never triggered: price never reached the entry. We track them separately, with no result.
Verpips data as of Oct 7, 2026, measured against the real price. See how we measure and the channel directory.
Types and variations
- Buy limit
- Buy if price drops to a level.
- Sell limit
- Sell if price rises to a level.
- Buy stop
- Buy if price rallies through a level.
- Sell stop
- Sell if price drops through a level.
Why it matters when choosing a signal channel
A pending signal that never triggered is neither a winner nor a loser. If a channel counts it as a win because “price went our way,” its track record can’t be reproduced by anyone who actually followed it.
Common traps
- Counting a signal that never triggered as a win.
- Measuring from the best price in the entry zone, which price barely tagged.
- Deleting or editing pending signals that triggered and went wrong.
Key takeaways
- ✓Limit orders wait for a better price; stop orders wait for a breakout.
- ✓If price doesn’t get there, the order doesn’t fill.
- ✓An entry zone works like a pending order.
- ✓A signal that never triggered doesn’t count, for better or worse.
FAQ: pending orders (buy limit, sell stop…)
What’s the difference between a buy limit and a buy stop?
A buy limit buys if price drops to your level (cheaper); a buy stop buys if price rallies and breaks it (higher).
What happens if a pending order never triggers?
Nothing: the trade never opens. It doesn’t win or lose, and it shouldn’t count toward a channel’s results.
Do pending orders expire?
Depends on how you place them: good-till-canceled orders stay until you cancel them; others expire at a set time or date.
Channel by channel
See these numbers for each channel, not as an average.
With a free account you see each channel’s result in R, its drawdown, and what it announced versus what actually happened.