The average amount of time for completion of an order. It is the average time between order receipt and order execution (delivery) at an exchange, taking into consideration the weighted average of all orders. The speed of execution corresponds to multiple factors, mainly including market liquidity– that is, the speed that an order can execute without impacting to the underlying market price. Depending on the market or exchange where trading takes place, if orders, for example, take more than 1 second (or milliseconds) to execute, trades would experience slippage because prices tend to change before an order is executed.

It is also known as an average speed.