Are Market Orders Executed Against Other Market Orders?

Do electronic exchanges such as CME execute multiple orders at the same time for a single market, or is every order that comes into the exchange for a given market executed one at a time? For example, if CME can execute multiple market orders simultaneously, then it is possible that a new market BUY order be executed against a market SELL order that was just received but not processed. However, if CME only executes 1 order at a time, then a market order will always be executed against a LIMIT order that is sitting on the order book.

1 Like

Hello @rburton Thank you for your question:

it is our understanding:

that a market order will be executed against resting orders. if there are no resting orders than the unfilled portion of the market order will either be canceled or will become a resting order.

Thank you,
Matt Z
Optimus Futures