Trade Number

What is Trade Number in stock markets and when is it generated?

The Trade Number on the stock exchange refers to the unique ID that is generated by the exchange, when a trade is executed on a submitted order. This number is useful in checking the authenticity of the transactions directly on the Stock Exchange website.

Example: Suppose you submit a Buy order. When the exchange receives the order, it will first allot a unique Order number and timestamp to the order. Then it will immediately look for a seller to match your order. If a seller is found and a trade is executed, then a unique Trade ID is generated.

If there are no sellers at your price, then the order gets added to the Order Book on the exchange and it remains pending till someone matches the order.

How are orders and trades executed

Let us look at a simplified flow of a sell order submitted on the exchange, to understand how the whole flow works.

order number and trade number on stock exchange

Step 1: Investor places a sell order with their Stock Broker
Step 2: Broker submits the order on the Stock Exchange
(Order number and Order time is generated by the exchange at this step)
Step 3: Broker confirms to you that the order has been placed
..
(Wait till someone buys the securities at your requested price)
..
Step 4: Someone matches your order and buys the securities from you
(Trade Number and Trade Time is generated by the exchange at this step)
Step 5: Broker sends the confirmation to you that the order has been executed

Multiple trades on one order

When an order has been successfully submitted on the exchange, it is not necessary that the whole order is executed in one shot. There could be multiple trades happening on the same order.

Example: Suppose you place an order to sell 1,000 shares at INR 50.
A trader buys 250 shares at 10:00:05 AM
Another trader buys 400 shares at 10:00:10 AM
And another trader buys the 350 shares at 10:07:00 AM

Now in this case, the investor has submitted only one order (for which, they will receive 1 order ID). But three trades have actually happened. Therefore, the exchange will generate three unique trade IDs in this case against one order. Sometimes, an order can remain pending for many hours and have multiple trades before it gets fully executed.

So if the investors are not sure about the execution of their order, they can check if a Trade Number and time stamp have been generated from the exchange. So, having a valid trade ID + a time stamp is a confirmation that a trade has been executed on the exchange.

Trade Number of Stock Broker

Some stock brokers also generate their own, internal trade ID and order ID. And the Brokers might be displaying their own IDs on their platforms, when the order is executed. Investors should be careful and know the difference between this internal ID and the Trade Number on stock exchange.

Validity of a trade

Checking the validity of the order on the Exchange website is very useful in some cases, when your stock broker might not be showing proper data on their website. A very common scenario that regular traders might have noticed, is the execution of a trade, even when the price shown on the chart is different.

Example: Suppose you submit a Sell order at INR 50 and you are continuously watching the price charts. It could happen that the highest price hit on the chart is INR 49.9, but your trade gets executed at INR 50. And then the price starts moving downwards.

Now in this case, a trader might claim it to be a fraudulent transaction as the chart never displays a price above INR 49.9, but the trade got executed at INR 50.
In reality, the price on the exchange could have even increased to INR 50.1, for example. But the Stock Broker might not have captured this value in the price chart, as the movement could have happened only for a fraction of a second. This problem occurs because the Stock Brokers usually display 1 Tick per 1 second. (But the trades are happening in fractions of seconds)

Checking on Stock Exchange website

Therefore, to check the validity of a trade in such cases, the investor can go to the Stock Exchange website and search using their Order Number or the Trade Number.
The trades can be checked using these links:

Note: The orders can be checked through the exchange website on the next day. It is only possible to view the past data for few days, from the current date.

The investors can get the Order ID and the Trade ID from their stock broker website or the Contract Note that is sent at the end of the day.

Disclaimer

  • This page is for education purpose only
  • Some information could be outdated / inaccurate
  • Investors should always consult with certified advisors and experts before taking final decision
  • Some images and screenshots on this page might not be owned by FinLib

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