Order Book - Overview
The FXSSI Order Book tool is an advanced instrument that offers comprehensive market sentiment analysis for Forex traders.
This online indicator displays open trades and pending orders of retail traders as a two histograms. The left side of the histogram shows all pending orders, including Take Profits and Stop Losses, while the right side shows the currently open trades of market participants.
This tool is better for detailed Order Book analysis compared to the Order Book Snapshots. It offers more in-depth ways to look at the snapshots, like zooming in, adjusting scale, and viewing dynamic ratio bars.
Additional articles you should read before you start trading with Order Book tool:
- Order Book Guide – (Series of five articles);
- Sentiment Strategy: Beginner’s Guide;
- Stereotypes of the Market Crowd Behavior.
How to Read an Order Book Histogram
The Order Book is essentially a visual tool that shows the current trading activities in the Forex market. This includes information on active trades, pending orders, and Stop orders. Each of these trades is aggregated and shown at various price levels in the form of a histogram.
To fully cover all the trades, we divide them into two groups, which form two separate histograms: the left one and the right one. In the following picture, you can see the various orders that make up the snapshot of the Order Book.
Quadrants
For simpler understanding, we’ve divided the histogram into quadrants.
- Sell Limit, Take Profit (Buy);
- Buy Stop, Stop Loss (Sell);
- Sell Stop, Stop Loss (Buy);
- Buy Limit, Take Profit (Sell);
- Profit Buyers;
- Loss Buyers;
- Loss Sellers;
- Profit Buyers.
The green line marked with a price on the OrderBook snapshot shows the current market price at the time the snapshot was taken.
Ratio bars
Beneath the histograms, you can find ratio bars that provide additional information.
- Percentage ratio between pending buy and sell orders.
- Percentage ratio between buy and sell positions that are still in the market.
- Ratio of Profit vs Losing trades.
These bars dynamically change as you navigate through the snapshots or use the scale on the left side of the tool.
Order Book Interface
Lets look at the interface of the Order Book tool.
Scale. This panel helps you analyze specific sections of the Order Book. You can pick a part to look at by using the arrows on the panel or by clicking and dragging with your mouse.
History Navigation. Navigate through different Order Book snapshots using the panel above the histograms.
Snapshots time. Displays the time at which the current snapshot of the order book was taken.
The “Refresh” button on this tool refreshes the data, providing you with the latest information and snapshots from the Order Book.
Currency Pairs. Here is the list of available currency pairs for this tool:
- AUD/JPY;
- AUD/USD;
- EUR/AUD;
- EUR/JPY;
- EUR/USD;
- GBP/JPY;
- GBP/USD;
- NZD/USD;
- USD/CAD;
- USD/CHF;
- USD/JPY;
- XAU/USD;
All Orders/NET – These buttons on the indicator panel allows you to switch between the regular order book and the net version, which displays the difference between the left and right sides of the order book.
Increase/Decrease. Turns on a feature that compares two snapshots taken at a specified time interval and highlights the differences, showing where increases or decreases occurred.
Horizontal Zoom. Changing this setting will make the order book’s horizontal view larger or more detailed.
How to use the Scale
The following animation demonstrates how to use the scale feature in the Order Book tool:
To use the scale mode in the Order Book tool, just click and drag your mouse across the histogram. When you select a part of the Order Book this way, it will show you the total of each quadrant you’ve selected. Also, the ratio bars will update to display the proportion of the area you’ve chosen.
Additionally, as you drag your mouse, a window on the right side will show you the actual numbers, giving you both a visual and a numerical view of the Order Book histograms.
These features are really helpful for a detailed analysis of the Order Book, which can aid in making precise trading decisions.
The FXSSI Order Book tool is a sophisticated online tool designed for Forex traders to analyze market sentiment. It displays two histograms showing open and pending orders of retail traders. The left histogram details all pending orders like Take Profits and Stop Losses, and the right one shows current open trades. This tool excels in providing a deeper analysis compared to basic Order Book snapshots, offering features like zoom, scale adjustments, and dynamic ratio bars.
