What is an AMO or After Market Order?

An AMO, or After Market Order, is an order you can place after the regular trading session ends, which the broker holds and forwards to the exchange when the next session’s pre-open or opening session begins. It’s useful for reacting to news that comes out after market hours, like quarterly results or a corporate announcement, without waiting for the next morning to place the order manually. The catch is that AMOs aren’t guaranteed to execute at the price you set, since the stock can open significantly higher or lower than the previous close, especially after major news, and the opening price is determined by the pre-open session’s price discovery process, not by your AMO price alone. You use AMOs mainly for stocks you’re confident about directionally, and you set a limit price rather than a market order type when the news is significant enough that you expect a large opening gap.