Buying and Selling by Hand (Manual Mode)

You have learned how to explore a market. Now we will follow what happens when you choose to buy or sell by hand. The goal is to understand the whole process: choose the correct market, review an amount, submit once, and check the result. A button click is one step in that process. The evidence afterward tells you what actually happened.

In this chapter, manual means that you choose and submit the individual action. It does not mean you have turned off every strategy in your account. Paper and Live are a separate choice. You can place a manual request in a practice context, while the controls for automated trading have their own state. Never assume one label answers both questions.

Begin in the Trading workspace and confirm Paper. We will use an example Paper account throughout the demonstration. If you prefer, watch and explain each step without placing an order yourself. Paper uses simulated account activity; this exercise does not require real funds, a new exchange connection, or a move into Live.

On desktop, open Coin Universe using Show coin universe if the panel is hidden. Find the row for the market in the demonstration. Read its name and complete pair before selecting Buy. For example, BTC-USD identifies Bitcoin priced in U.S. dollars. A familiar coin name alone is not enough to confirm that you selected the intended market.

Selecting Buy opens that row's purchase form. This is different from choosing a holding to sell. Selling begins with the particular position in Portfolio and its Sell action. The market list tells you which market you are viewing; the position tells you which holding you are reducing. These are related routes, but they start with different information.

Account context matters on both routes. Before a real request, you would need to know which exchange connection is selected and whether order submission is available. For our exercise, keep the Paper context visible. In a sell dialog, also inspect Owner slash strategy, Account slash connection, and Position ID. Two rows can share a coin symbol and still represent different positions.

A missing or disabled action is information. It may reflect the layout, access, connection capability, or the state of the holding. Do not change accounts or enable Live just to make a button appear. Phone layouts can differ from desktop, so follow the desktop demonstration when the same market panel is not available on your screen.

Before moving on, point to three things: the Paper label, the complete market pair, and the control for the action you intend. Then explain whether you are buying from a market row or selling a specific holding. Being able to say that clearly is your first checkpoint. You should know what you are about to affect before entering any amount.

The most important part of an amount is its unit. Ten dollars and ten coins describe very different requests. Before typing, read the label beside the box. In the current purchase form, you can see Quantity and Amount, marked with a dollar sign. They help you describe the same proposed purchase in two different ways.

Quantity means the amount of the asset. The dollar field is a cash estimate calculated from the row's displayed price. When you change one field, the form updates the other. That is a conversion, not two separate purchases. Still, read both values after you type, because a misplaced decimal point can change the size of the request dramatically.

For a simple illustration, imagine a market displayed at one hundred dollars per coin. Entering twenty dollars would correspond to about zero point two coins. Entering two in the Quantity box would instead describe about two hundred dollars. These are made-up teaching numbers, not current prices or an amount you are being asked to spend.

The form rounds its displayed conversion. More importantly, this buy route submits the resulting asset quantity. The dollar amount helps calculate that quantity from the displayed price; it is not a promise that the final cash cost will stay exactly at the number you typed. Recheck the quantity on the confirmation step, even if you began with a dollar amount.

Use a dollar-quoted pair for this demonstration, because this particular form labels its cash field in dollars. Do not silently reinterpret a dollar sign as another quote currency. In any different account or market context, confirm the full pair and the units the interface actually supports. If they do not make sense together, stop and clarify the mismatch before proceeding.

Next, check the account's available cash. A portfolio's total value includes holdings and is not the same thing as money available for a new purchase. Estimated value, locked money, and reserve-related figures also need their own definitions. We will examine those categories in the next chapter. Here, the useful habit is to check availability instead of treating the largest number as a spending limit.

Selling has a different boundary. The position dialog shows Owned, Available, and Reserved quantities. You may own more units than are currently available to sell. For example, an illustrative position could show one unit owned, zero point eight available, and zero point two reserved. The available amount is the relevant ceiling for a new sale in that dialog.

Before continuing, read your entry aloud as a complete sentence: I am requesting this quantity of this asset in this Paper market. Then compare it with the estimated cash value and the relevant available balance. If you cannot name the unit, you are not ready for the next step. Correcting an entry now is much simpler than untangling an unintended request later.

Review is where you turn a rough intention into a specific request. In the purchase form, the first Confirm button opens a second view headed Confirm Purchase. It shows the quantity, the asset name or symbol, and a total cost. You have reached a review step. The button that sends the purchase is labeled Yes, Buy Now.

Start your review with the action: buy. Then check the asset and quantity. If the confirmation uses a short name, remember the complete pair you verified on the market row. Finally, check the Paper context again. A clear review connects these details instead of relying on a single familiar name or a green button.

The displayed total is calculated from quantity and the row's price. It helps you catch an entry error, but it is not a final receipt. This form does not present a full itemized fee and slippage breakdown. Do not describe an unseen fee as zero or assume that a preview happening behind the scenes has produced an itemized quote you have reviewed.

The distinction matters because a displayed price and an execution price can differ. In Live, a market request seeks execution at available market conditions rather than reserving the number you saw earlier. Paper follows the app's simulation rules and delayed market context. A successful practice result does not establish the price, timing, or costs you would receive from a real exchange.

If another screen shows a fee estimate or execution warning, read it where it appears. An estimate is still an estimate. Fees are charges associated with activity; the spread is the gap between available buying and selling prices. We do not need to predict either number to understand the control. We need to avoid mistaking a simple displayed total for a guaranteed all-in result.

Compare the proposed purchase with the cash available in the same context. If your balance changed while the form was open, or another action is unresolved, pause the review. A valid-looking entry can still be rejected when the server checks it. The review step helps you inspect your intention; it does not remove every condition that execution must satisfy.

If something is wrong, use Cancel and reopen the correct row when you are ready. Do not press Yes, Buy Now just to see whether the next screen offers another chance. On this route, that is the submitting action. Canceling before submission lets you reconsider the form; closing a screen after submission is not the same as canceling a request already sent.

Your final review can be brief but complete: Paper, the intended pair, buy, this quantity, and this estimated value. Then ask whether anything is uncertain about the account, balance, or a previous request. If the answer is yes, resolve that first. There is no reward in this lesson for moving quickly. The useful skill is knowing exactly what your next click means.

We are ready to follow one Paper purchase. In the demonstration, the selected market, quantity, and account have already been checked. If you are watching only, follow the request with us. If you are practicing in your own Paper account, use the controls and available balance you actually have. Do not change to Live to match a demonstration.

On Confirm Purchase, select Yes, Buy Now once. That sends the requested asset quantity for validation and handling. The app checks the request and attempts the purchase. The time between clicking and receiving a response is not evidence that an order failed. A quiet screen can simply mean that the work has not finished or that the response has not arrived.

The current buy form does not show a dedicated, reliable progress stage for every request, and its submit button is not a promise of duplicate-click protection. Keep your hands off the button after the first click. Do not double-click, press it again in another tab, or change the amount and submit a replacement while the first result is unknown.

Our animation will show a request traveling to the service and a response returning. That is an explanation of the process, not an extra status panel you must find in the app. In an actual session, use the visible response and the account records. A teaching animation should help you understand what to check, not create confidence that a hidden step has succeeded.

On the current successful-response path, the purchase form closes and the app asks its account views to refresh. That is your cue to inspect the result. It is not a reason to assume every requested unit is now owned. We still need to find the resulting position and recorded activity in the same Paper context.

If an error appears, read and note it promptly. The buy form's error message can disappear after a short time. Capture the relevant wording and the time of the attempt without sharing private account details. A message about validation, funds, or access points to a different next step from a connection that simply stopped responding.

If the response remains uncertain, stop making new requests. Check Portfolio and Transactions for the same pair and approximate time. A missing update might be a delay; a closed form might follow a response whose details you have not yet examined. Neither observation alone is a complete answer. We will work through recovery carefully on the final page.

For now, the successful pattern is simple: review once, submit once, wait, then verify. Record the quantity you requested so you have something precise to compare with the outcome. That small note turns the next screen from a collection of changing numbers into a question you can answer: what changed because of this request?

A request describes what you asked for. A fill describes an amount that actually executed. Keeping those ideas separate is one of the most useful habits in the app. We have sent an example Paper buy. Now we will check the evidence instead of judging success by whether a dialog disappeared or a number briefly flashed on screen.

Return to Portfolio in the same Paper context. Find the complete pair and inspect the position quantity. If you already held that asset, compare the new amount with the amount before the request. Do not expect every buy to create a separate visible row. An existing position may be updated, so the change in quantity matters more than the number of rows.

Keep the position's identity in view. Where owner, strategy, or account information is available, use it to distinguish holdings that share a symbol. A manual purchase and a strategy-owned holding should not be treated as the same position just because both show the name Bitcoin. When you later sell, you will need the specific holding, not a guess based on its name.

Next, open Transactions and look for the relevant recorded activity. Check the mode, filters, pair, buy direction, time, and quantity where shown. Compare any displayed execution price, value, and fees with the record itself. Do not fill in a missing field from memory or copy the earlier price estimate into your notes as though it were a confirmed execution price.

Suppose our illustrative request was for zero point two units. If the recorded result confirms zero point two and the matching holding increases by that amount, the two views agree about the quantity. If only zero point one is confirmed, that is the amount you can account for so far. A partial outcome means some of the requested amount executed, not that the rest must eventually follow.

You may encounter words such as accepted or pending in an order result. Accepted means the request was received for handling; it does not prove a fill. Pending means confirmation is still outstanding. A rejection means the request was not approved as submitted. Read the actual status available in that workflow rather than assuming every screen displays the same order-status table.

A confirmed execution and a refreshed account display can also arrive at different times. If the app says internal accounting is still pending, wait for the records to settle before starting another sale. If an order ended, inspect the filled amount: ended does not necessarily mean filled in full. The purpose of checking both activity and holdings is to catch these differences.

Finish your review with a short record of what you know: the request, the confirmed quantity, the matching position, and anything still unresolved. If the evidence does not agree, label the result uncertain and investigate. You do not need to force every attempt into success or failure immediately. A precise description of what is known is more useful than an early conclusion.

Now we will reduce one position. In Portfolio, find the exact holding from the demonstration and open its Sell action. Confirm that the dialog says Paper simulated order. Read the asset, Owner slash strategy, Account slash connection, and Position ID. These details define which holding the request affects. The same symbol elsewhere in the portfolio is not automatically included.

Before choosing an amount, read Owned, Available, and Reserved. The quantity field begins with the available amount, and the percentage controls offer twenty-five, fifty, seventy-five, and one hundred percent. Those percentages are based on the amount available for this position. One hundred percent does not mean every unit of that asset in every account or strategy.

Here is a useful example. Imagine one unit owned, with zero point eight available and zero point two reserved. Selecting fifty percent chooses zero point four units. Selecting one hundred percent chooses zero point eight. The reserved portion is not added just because the button says one hundred percent. Read the resulting quantity in the field before moving on.

You can also enter a quantity directly. It must be positive and no greater than the available amount. The dialog shows Estimated proceeds and Remaining to help you review the proposed change. Remaining is a preview based on subtracting the requested quantity from what is owned. It is not proof that the sale has happened, and the proceeds are not a guaranteed final cash result.

Select Review sale to reach the confirmation step. Read the quantity, asset, estimated proceeds, and the note about execution, fees, spread, and price movement. Use Back if you need to revise an unsubmitted request. When the review is correct, Place sell order sends the request. This is the point where an intended change becomes an action for the service to handle.

While the sale is being processed, wait for the response. The current sell workflow keeps a saved request and displays its Request ID. If the outcome is unresolved, use Check status slash retry same request when available. That control follows the saved request and amount. It is different from creating a new sale for whatever quantity appears on a stale portfolio screen.

Read the outcome literally. Filled, confirmed by the server is different from accepted, pending confirmation, or internal accounting still pending. A finished recovery can also report that the order ended without selling the entire requested amount. The button labeled Finish confirmed recovery completes the confirmed recovery flow; it is not a button to sell the remainder or place another order.

Finally, check the matching transaction and refreshed position. In a simple example with zero point two units owned and available, a confirmed sale of zero point zero five would leave zero point one five, assuming no other activity. Your screen may differ. Use its records to establish the remaining quantity, and remember that closing one position does not by itself pause an automated strategy that could trade again.

Selling one position and requesting sales across a portfolio have very different scope. This page explains the wider controls using a demonstration. You do not need to sell your whole Paper portfolio to complete the lesson. The skill is to understand what would be requested, which positions are included, and what evidence would show that the separate actions succeeded.

In the desktop summary, Potential Cash Realize opens the portfolio-wide sale review when available. The amount is an estimate, not cash already in your account. Opening the review does not submit the sales. Inspect the positions listed below the estimate, including each owner or strategy, account or connection, position identity, and available quantity.

Each row creates its own sell request. Holdings with the same symbol but different owners are not combined into one anonymous balance. If a position cannot be identified or the list cannot be loaded correctly, the app can block submission. That is a reason to refresh and reconcile the information, not a reason to guess which holding a total must represent.

The two choices are labeled Sell all and continue trading, and Sell all and pause trading. The first requests the reviewed sales without requesting a trading pause. It does not turn an already paused system back on simply because the word continue appears. If automation is running and remains allowed to trade, closing positions does not prevent later activity.

The second choice requests the reviewed sales and also requests a trading pause. These are separate operations. The current flow handles the position requests and then asks for the pause. Do not picture one instant switch that guarantees every holding disappears and all activity stops together. You must inspect both the position outcomes and the pause confirmation.

One position might fill while another is not confirmed. A request might be accepted without a confirmed fill, or accounting may still need to catch up. A pause can fail independently of the sales. Read each row's result and any overall message. Trading pause confirmed is useful evidence about the pause; it does not certify that every sell request filled completely.

If a retry is offered within the same portfolio review, it follows the existing plan of requests rather than treating the portfolio as a fresh, unrelated batch. Still, inspect unresolved rows and records before taking another action. Closing and reopening a review is not a substitute for knowing what the earlier requests did. Keep the request details needed to follow up.

Your summary should answer two questions separately: which quantities were actually sold, and is trading confirmed paused or still able to continue? Then compare the refreshed positions and cash with the recorded activity. All in a button label describes the requested scope, not a guaranteed outcome. That distinction lets you supervise a broad action without assuming that one response tells the whole story.

A problem is easier to handle when you name it accurately. Insufficient funds, unavailable access, and an uncertain response are different situations. They should not all lead to another click. Start by staying in the same Paper context and recording what you attempted: the pair, action, quantity, approximate time, and any request or error information the app provides.

For insufficient funds, compare the requested amount with cash available in that context. Check that you did not enter a coin quantity when you intended a dollar value. Other holdings, reservations, or activity may explain why the balance differs from your expectation. Do not switch to Live or change account settings just to make a practice request pass.

For denied access or an unavailable trading action, read the actual message. A visible market does not establish permission to submit an order, and access to account information does not automatically include trading capability. Return to the connection and access checks from the earlier chapter if needed. Do not work around a disabled control or assume that reconnecting will safely resolve an already submitted request.

For a timeout or a lost connection, treat the outcome as unknown until you have evidence. The service may have received the request even though the response did not reach your screen. Check the same account's holdings and transactions, allow time for updates, and compare the quantity and time with your notes. An empty or stale view by itself does not prove that nothing happened.

The current buy route does not have the same saved-request recovery control as the position sell dialog. Do not invent a fresh buy to test whether the earlier one worked. If you cannot reconcile it, stop and use the app's support route with the relevant non-secret details. An unresolved request is a reason to investigate, not a reason to increase the number of requests.

For a saved position sale, return to the original login, mode, account, and position. Use Check status slash retry same request when the dialog offers it. Reopening the saved flow does not automatically send another order. Do not clear browser storage to erase the saved request or switch identities to bypass a recovery block. Resolve the existing request before considering another sale.

Finish with a complete Paper review, either from your own confirmed practice or from the demonstration. Identify the starting context and pair. Explain the requested buy quantity, show the resulting evidence, then follow a sale from that specific position through its confirmed result. Check what remains and whether automation was changed. Use example problem screens rather than deliberately creating failed or duplicate trades.

You have completed this chapter when you can explain the request and the evidence in plain language. I chose this market, asked for this amount, received this result, and checked these records. If anything is unresolved, say exactly what still needs confirmation. Next, Understanding Your Cash will help you read locked, tradable, and reserve-related figures so the account totals become just as clear as the actions you now know how to review.