Good-'Til-Cancelled (GTC)
Good-'Til-Cancelled, usually written GTC, is an instruction you attach to an order that tells your broker how long the order should stay open. It falls under a category called "time in force," which is just the set of rules for when an unfilled order dies versus keeps waiting in the market.
When you place a GTC order, you're saying: leave this order sitting on the books until it either fills completely, I cancel it myself, or some outer limit set by the broker kicks in. This is different from a "day order," which quietly disappears at the close of trading if it hasn't been filled, forcing you to re-enter it the next day if you still want it.
The nuance that trips people up is that "cancelled" doesn't mean "forever." Brokers almost universally impose their own maximum lifespan on GTC orders, after which the order is automatically purged from the system even though you never cancelled it and it never filled. That outer limit, and how it's counted (calendar days versus trading days), varies by broker and can change, so it's not a fixed, universal number you can assume applies everywhere.
Another wrinkle: a GTC order can still be affected by corporate actions (like a stock split or a big dividend) or by exchange rules while it's outstanding, and some brokers will cancel or adjust GTC orders around events like earnings releases or when a stock is halted. So "good until cancelled" is really "good until cancelled, filled, or the broker's cleanup rules say otherwise."
This term depends on a rule or threshold that changes over time, so no specific figure is quoted here. The claim that GTC orders auto-expire after exactly 120 calendar days is a broker-specific policy, not a universal rule, and may be outdated or inaccurate for any given broker. Verify the current expiration period (and whether it's counted in calendar or trading days) directly against the specific broker's current order-handling disclosures rather than stating a single figure as if it applies industry-wide.
Day traders generally avoid GTC on active positions because leaving a stale order live overnight or over a weekend can get it filled unexpectedly at a price you no longer want, especially after news moves the stock; GTC is more relevant to swing or longer-term orders like a standing stop-loss or limit entry you're willing to let ride for days.
Say you place a GTC limit order to buy 100 shares of a stock at $42.00 when it's currently trading at $44.50. The order sits unfilled for eleven days while the stock drifts between $43 and $45. On the twelfth day the stock drops sharply to $41.80, your order fills at $42.00, and it's removed from the books — you never had to re-enter it each morning the way you would with a day order.
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