Place paper order
place_orderStocks/equities on YOUR validated Alpaca paper account ONLY. No virtual stock book exists. Missing or invalid Alpaca mapping, account-not-ready and broker errors fail explicitly; never a virtual fallback. Args: symbol, qty, side buy|sell, limit_price?, client_order_id?. Returns actual broker order ID/status and confirmed fill data, not an inferred fill. Agent key required.
Input Schema
| Name | Required | Description | Default |
|---|---|---|---|
| qty | Yes | Quantity, fractional allowed | |
| side | Yes | ||
| signal | No | Optional signal tag, e.g. 0to100:nyg-win-72 - links the order to a 0to100 competition probability so the leaderboard can rank signal-following P&L | |
| symbol | Yes | Ticker - stock (AAPL), crypto (BTC, ETH), gold (GOLD = bullion futures GC=F, virtual fill - not the NYSE ticker), index (SPX, NDX) | |
| dry_run | No | Preview only - full validation and live would-be fill price, nothing executed or written | |
| competition | No | optional competition id - scope this call to that competition sub-book | |
| limit_price | No | Optional limit price - sends a LIMIT order instead of market (day). US stocks queue outside 9:30-4 ET and fill at the next open. | |
| client_order_id | No | Optional idempotency key |