Order book
Trading & ordersThe live list of all outstanding buy and sell orders at each price level.
In plain terms
Everyone waiting to trade, right now, arranged by price.
1492 terms
Glossary
Every term is defined twice: once the way a filing would put it, and once the way somebody would explain it to you across a table. The second one is usually the one that sticks.
Showing 11 terms
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Market depth
Trading & ordersAlso called: Order book depth
The list of pending buy and sell orders at each price level, usually shown five deep.
In plain terms
The most informative panel on your broking screen and the one nobody looks at.
Dark pool
Trading & ordersA private venue where large orders are matched away from the public order book, common in some foreign markets.
In plain terms
Indian cash equity trading is overwhelmingly on-exchange and visible. Large negotiated trades go through the exchange block-deal window and are disclosed the same day.
Freak trade
Technical analysisA trade concluded far away from the prevailing price because an order exhausted a thin order book, leaving a long wick that is a real, settled print rather than a data error.
In plain terms
Nothing malfunctioned — a market order simply ran out of rungs to match against and took the last one it could reach. It triggers stops on the way past and stays in the price history for good.
Polled spot price
DerivativesAlso called: Spot polling
A spot price computed by surveying physical market participants at a designated delivery centre under a published methodology, rather than from an order book.
In plain terms
It is a survey taken once or twice a day, not a continuously traded series. Reading a divergence between it and the futures as though both were live prices misreads what one of the two numbers is.
Trading member
Market basicsA broking firm admitted to membership of an exchange, through which clients’ orders reach the order book.
In plain terms
Your broker, in the exchange’s language. Exchange-level charges and obligations — such as order-to-trade penalties — apply to the member rather than to you directly.
Breakout trading
Technical analysisBuying a decisive close beyond a consolidation range, on the expectation that compression resolves into a directional move.
In plain terms
The volume filter is the strategy. A breakout on below-average volume is a thin order book making a big-looking move that gets handed straight back.
Heikin-Ashi
Technical analysisA chart type in which each bar is averaged with the one before it, so trends appear as long unbroken runs of a single colour.
In plain terms
The prices it displays never traded. Use it to decide whether you are in a trend, never to place a stop or read a level — your order executes in the real order book.
Order-to-trade ratio
Trading & ordersAlso called: OTR
The number of orders a trading member places relative to the trades it completes, attracting exchange charges when it runs high.
In plain terms
The reason Indian order books flicker less than foreign ones. Placing and pulling thousands of orders costs the member money.
Payment for order flow
Trading & ordersAlso called: PFOF
An arrangement found in some foreign markets under which a broker is paid to route client orders to a particular firm rather than to an exchange.
In plain terms
Not part of the Indian arrangement. Your order reaches the exchange order book, and the broker is paid by the brokerage shown on your contract note.
Synthetic price
Technical analysisA price displayed on a chart that was calculated rather than transacted, such as a Heikin-Ashi open or close.
In plain terms
Never place a stop off one. The level does not exist in the order book where your order will execute.