What happens to an alert that fires at 3 a.m.? How the market-hours queue works

When a signal arrives while its market is closed, we don't send it to your broker. It waits in a queue and goes out at the next open. Brokers handle overnight orders very differently: some hold them, some reject them and some let them expire. The queue gives every broker the same, predictable behaviour.

When each market is open

All times are US Eastern.

One real signal, before the open

This is a real signal on our demo account, which trades on the built-in paper account. On Thursday, Oct 22, 2026, the "AAPL Momentum" strategy received a buy at 8:49:11 a.m. ET, 41 minutes before the stock market opened.

1. 8:49:11 a.m.: the alert arrives

   The webhook accepted the signal in 14 ms, and Auto Submit approved it 213 ms later. The market was closed, so instead of sending the order, the trade was marked Queued with the open time it's waiting for.

   

2. Before the open: it waits, and you can cancel it

   On the Trades page the row says "Market closed: sends at the open, Thu 9:30 AM ET", with a Cancel button. Nothing has reached the broker yet.

   

3. 9:30 a.m.: the open

   At 9:30:16 a.m. the queue released the trade. It reached the paper account 1.5 seconds later and filled at 9:30:17 a.m.: 14 shares at $345.71, a $4,839.94 position. The subscription sizes by 5% of equity: 5% of the account's roughly $100,000 is about $5,000, and $5,000 ÷ $345.71 is 14.46 shares, rounded down to 14. Total time from alert to fill: 41 minutes 6 seconds, almost all of it waiting for the open.

   

The settings that change the wait

• Entry and exit extended hours. Turn them on and stock signals are released at 4:00 a.m. instead of 9:30 a.m., and still run until 8:00 p.m. Exits use the exit setting, everything else uses the entry setting. Options and crypto ignore them.
• Trading window. If the subscription's own trading window would skip the signal anyway, it's skipped straight away instead of waiting to be skipped at the open.
• Manual Submit. An order waiting for your approval and an order waiting for the market are separate. Approving it overnight puts it in the queue. It doesn't send it early.

What never waits

• cancel pulls resting orders and breakeven moves a stored stop, so both work any time.
• Crypto trades 24/7.
• Fire Panel options orders don't queue at all. A manual options order is refused while the options market is closed, so you never leave a hand-placed contract order waiting overnight.

Frequently asked questions