Orders, Trades, Transactions, Fills and Positions — Confused?

At least once a year in a financial institution, developers, architects, managers, trade support, trading staff end up in a meeting where someone says “What do you mean by x” where x in [Order, Trade, Transaction, Fill, Position, etc]. It’s not that the attendees have a lack of understanding, it’s just that many improvements to workflows require specifics to ensure everyone is singing to the same hymn sheet.

Let’s go through (my) terminology for each in the context of a bond trade and then talk about complexities as you…