OCO Order

An OCO (one-cancels-the-other) order links two working orders together so that when one fills, the broker automatically cancels the other. In futures trading, the most common OCO pair is a take-profit limit order and a stop-loss order, both placed on the opposite side of an open position. If price reaches the take profit first, the stop cancels; if price reaches the stop first, the take profit cancels.

The defining feature of a true OCO is that the cancellation happens at the broker, not in a trader's head or a spreadsheet. Once both legs are live, exactly one of them can ever fill — the position can't end up double-closed or left with a dangling order on the losing side.

Futures accounts move fast, and a leveraged position without both a defined exit and a defined stop is exposed to a full session's worth of adverse movement. OCO orders let a trader set both boundaries once and walk away, instead of manually cancelling the other leg the instant one fills — a race that's easy to lose during a fast tape.

For prop firm traders specifically, OCO pairs are also how most accounts stay inside daily loss limits without constant supervision: the stop leg is the mechanical backstop, and because it's broker-enforced rather than manually watched, it fires even if the trader steps away from the screen.

MimikTrader watches the leader account's order stream for a take-profit and stop-loss pair placed against the same position and, once both legs are detected, replicates the pair to followers as a native OCO order at the broker — so the same one-fills-cancels-the-other behavior applies on every follower account, not just the leader's.