An electronic trading system is configured to create speculative orders based on real orders. The speculative order differs from the real order by the price, quantity, or the type of financial instrument. The match engine chooses one or more speculative orders in an attempt to predict the next real order. Even though processing multiple trades at the same time is impossible, the use of speculative orders can permit the match engine to perform the calculations involved with the trade and generate the messages associated with the trade ahead of time. If the prediction was correct and the next order received by the match engine corresponds to one of the speculative orders, some of the matching activity has already been performed. This in effect, allows the match engine to process trades more efficiently and increases the total trading volume that can be handled by the electronic trading system.