Deviation settings: finding the sweet spot
Posted: Fri Oct 30, 2026 8:40 am
Requotes used to be the villain of retail forex. Click buy, get a popup offering a worse price. Modern platforms handle it differently, with a deviation or slippage tolerance setting that decides how far from the clicked price a fill is allowed to land.
Set to zero, the order fills only at the exact price. Sounds great, but the rejection rate climbs in fast markets. Set too high, and nearly any price is accepted.
For a 3 to 5 pip style on majors, a deviation of 1 to 2 pips tends to balance fills against protection. Exotics need more room. During news, some traders flip to a different setting entirely.
The right number only comes from trial. Run a week at one setting, log the rejections and the average slippage, then change it and repeat. A boring spreadsheet beats guessing.
Another detail: some brokers ignore the deviation setting entirely and apply their own execution rules. Asking support directly, or testing with small size and logging the results, reveals whether the setting actually does anything on that account.
What deviation is currently set, and has changing it ever made a visible difference?
Set to zero, the order fills only at the exact price. Sounds great, but the rejection rate climbs in fast markets. Set too high, and nearly any price is accepted.
For a 3 to 5 pip style on majors, a deviation of 1 to 2 pips tends to balance fills against protection. Exotics need more room. During news, some traders flip to a different setting entirely.
The right number only comes from trial. Run a week at one setting, log the rejections and the average slippage, then change it and repeat. A boring spreadsheet beats guessing.
Another detail: some brokers ignore the deviation setting entirely and apply their own execution rules. Asking support directly, or testing with small size and logging the results, reveals whether the setting actually does anything on that account.
What deviation is currently set, and has changing it ever made a visible difference?