Stops or market orders at NFP, which one actually costs less?

[Shadow Trader]

Both get hurt at NFP, just in different ways, and the difference is worth understanding before picking one.

A stop order sitting near price is a dormant market order. The moment the level trades, it becomes a market order into whatever liquidity exists right then. During a release that liquidity is thin and moving, so the fill can land well past the stop level. The slippage gets paid at the worst possible moment, and it nearly always goes against the position.

A market order placed by hand after the spike has started has the same problem plus a delay. Between the click and the fill the quote can move several pips, and on some platforms the order gets requoted or rejected outright. Still, it is a decision made with the knowledge that the move already began, rather than a pre-committed order that fires on the first wick.

The part that gets overlooked is that stops get triggered by the first spike even when that spike reverses within seconds. A market order placed after the dust settles avoids the fake-out entirely, at the cost of a worse entry on the real move.

So the trade-off looks roughly like this. Stops give certainty about being in, with an uncertain price. Market orders after the spike give a known price at the click, with an uncertain fill and a late entry. Neither is cheap, and the broker's execution model changes the numbers a lot.

Which of the two has worked out better for you around NFP, and did it stay the same when you switched brokers?