Resting order

A market order fills straight away. Anything else waits: a limit order rests until the market reaches its price, a stop rests until the market reaches its trigger. While it waits it’s “resting”, or “working”, and it shows up under your open orders.

Say you hold 50 shares of a stock at $40 and set a stop at $37. That stop rests. If the stock never falls to $37, it rests forever (or until the close, for a day order). If the stock drops through $37, it triggers, becomes a market sell, and fills at whatever the market is by then — which might be $36.80, not $37.

On the paper account resting orders are worked the same way, every few seconds, whether or not your engine is running — just as a real brokerage fills your resting stop while your bot is asleep.