Hi newbie, Spot FX are not traded on exchanges, therefore you dont know the real volume of current trading. Never. The only volume you might can see, is the one of your broker trading volume for that FX pair. Besides that you dont need any volume measurement in FX Spot, because this are the most volume markets out there, so there is almost every day 24h high volume, expect some times, when all exchanges international are closed, or on some holidays in the USA, but also on Christmas there is high volume !!! If you want see if there is high or low volume traded right now, WATCH the price action !!! Is the market alive ? What are doing the spreads ? Fast changing BID+ASK prices + very small spreads = highest volume !!! Of course the highest volume comes in when Europe exchanges open at around 08:00 - 09:00 CET and again when New York opens at aroung 09:30 - 10:00 EST !!! Again on Asian pairs, when Tokyo opens on 01:00 - 02:00 CET !!! To analyize the real volume of a market it must been traded on a exchange, so it is transparent. In OTC markets like FX Spot, you can not have that. Ok, you can have it when you have instituionall FX trading access and you have more banks to buy and sell your currencys for every deal, then you can maybe see the volume, they offer you !!!
lg cap, what type of volumes are you thinking of ? thought there was only one with spot the volume will vary from broker to broker, I've noticed on Oanda's 5 sec chart there'll sometimes be more trades registering via price bars than the 6E futures contract the other thing about volume is if a large - several thousands order hits the 6E market during the Asian session it'll spike the price for one to two minutes, but such orders can't be anticipated oh yes, then there's the DOM - Depth of Market where you see the Ask/Bids and what quantity of each are coming in, some ? many ? traders use this when trading the 6E and ES in particular, never tried to use or learn what the theory is behind it, again, don't think it's available for spot
of course, the FX futures and the FX spot markets are a little different, but they all find together on the same price after the deals. And this is not decided by the CME, no its made in the Spot market by the bankdealers. I dont give any shit about any volume indicator or quotes, not in FX-Spot, not in Futures, not in Stocks, not in ETFs. When the market is alive, then there is enough volume. If my ordered is removed from the broker on a low liquid market, than i wait and try it later and again and again.... Good trader dont need any volume indicators or quotes....IMO
I am using mbttrading platform where they have a full DOM for forex spot. HATEtheRisk, you mentioned that Forex Spot is OTC so doesn't have an exchange volume like forex futures. Does this mean this volume represents the broker's users volume only ? When you talk about the bid/ask in combination with the spread, are these forex futures bid/ask? Wallace : On Oanda, is the volume you are mentioning the Oanda's users volume or is it an indicator that uses the price moves to calculate a volume? HATEtheRisk : I am always trying to keep learning as I am not yet ( ) a top trader. Please check your PM when you can
lg cap: spot fx 'volume' is I believe ticks, that is just price changes, and because there is no standard contract size, you don't anyway know whether a trade is for a micro mini or full lot, unlike futures trading which only has standardized sizes with Oanda a person can trade any quantity - Oanda calls them Units so someone could trade an oddball amount such as $4379 units making 'volume' even more of an abstract quantity what I was referring to was seeing more price bars on the chart, a slightly different formation than the 6E chart where no trades were going through, say half a dozen bars in a 5 min period, also the H-L of some prices bars being different the Oanda FxTrade program doesn't have a volume indicator if you don't know, suggest you ask MB Trading what is and from where the DOM numbers are obtained, are they just MB customer orders or are they part of the data that is included with the price feed they're using, and if so, who's providing the feed
lg cap, don't think micro lots are going to 'move the market'; the futures mini and micro contracts have low volume and the prices move more slowly than the full contracts. here's an example of 6E and ES volume hitting the market: http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=226053 you can get a NinjaTrader demo from NinjaTrader or AMP Futures that will provide realtime quotes for the futures, and the Oanda FxTrade demo has the same prices as the real platform so you'd be able to see for yourself what I am talking about please post what MB Trading has to say about their DOM data
the only volume you could use in spot fx would be the corresponding volume in the currency futures. In spot, volume is meaningless, so is the last by the way. There is no last. It is all just bid ask. So, bid ask size I suppose could replace volume, but it is all really meaningless.
I've only been trading forex a few months. When I started my broker showed volume for USD/CHF and it showed volume for USD/JPY. But when I tried to trade CHF/JPY there was no volume displayed. I thought maybe I was doing something unconventional. So If I wanted to get long CHF and short JPY I would just put on short USD/CHF and long USD/JPY just so I could get a volume display.