Trading Concept
Slippage
The difference between the expected price of a trade and the actual execution price, typically caused by market movement or thin liquidity.
Slippage is the gap between what the strategy expected to pay and what it actually paid. A market order that expects to buy at $100 but fills at $100.15 has $0.15 of slippage. On a single trade, this is negligible. Across thousands of trades, it compounds into a material drag on performance.
Slippage has two main causes: latency (the market moved between signal and execution) and liquidity (the order consumed the available depth at the target price). Large orders on thin books experience more slippage. Fast-moving markets create more latency-based slippage.
The botwir3 adapter configuration includes a rate limit setting that controls request frequency. The gate checks proposed positions against configured constraints, but slippage occurs during execution — after the gate approves and the adapter submits. The ledger records the proposed price and the actual fill price, making slippage measurable in the audit trail.