A trading process automatically requests a short term option having a term of less than a minute, and sometimes less than a second, from a market process. The trading process and the market process both operate on a platform. The market process requests a platform service to set a timer to measure the expiration time of the short term option, and to notify the market process and the trading process at the expiration of the short term option. The short term option is particularly useful for a list of orders that must be executed, if at all, at a guaranteed price; in which case, the platform may adjust the expiration time of the short term options associated with the orders in the list to ensure that the orders in the list can be executed at particular respective prices.