Market Depth questions

[gregcourageous]

Hello All.

Quick question, I know market depth shows you who is buying and selling, but what does the "number" mean... eg in commsec, on each side is the quantity, then to the outer side it has "number"

I'm a massive newbie to trading, just trying to get my head around as much as possible as quick as possible =) This forum seems to be a good place to do it, appreciate all the posts from everyone who knows what they are doing - keep em coming!

Cheers.

 

[svensk]

Re: Market Depth question

The number means how many people selling at that price.

So say

Price - 0.50
Quantity - 50000
Number - 5

Five people selling/buying at 0.5, totaling a quantity of 50000 shares.

 

[gregcourageous]

Re: Market Depth question

Thanks - I thought that may be the case, however i thought the number would be bigger than they are.
Appreciate your help!

 

[Tech_king]

Re: Market Depth question

The number can be bigger sometimes! Just depends on the day and if anything is happening with the stock.

 

[falconx]

Re: Market Depth question

Is there anywhere you can view the delayed or live market depth for free? For some reason NAB online trading don't offer it.

 

[svensk]

Re: Market Depth question

Is there anywhere you can view the delayed or live market depth for free? For some reason NAB online trading don't offer it.

etrade and commsec show live market depth, but only for the top ten sell and buy orders and last ten trades.

I think the pro platforms for both of the above show full market depth.

 

[falconx]

Re: Market Depth question

etrade and commsec show live market depth, but only for the top ten sell and buy orders and last ten trades.

I think the pro platforms for both of the above show full market depth.

I am interested in viewing the market depth of all stocks in the ASX300, where would be the least expensive website for it?

 

[Cyber Man]

Market depth question?

I have traded for many years now and there is one thing that I have wondered about so I was hoping that someone here can shed some light?

Say for instance a stock has the following bid/ask -

LOTS/BID LOTS/ASK
9044 655 2301 656
8455 654 1881 657
etc.

You watch the usual trades go by and then suddenly you see a trade of 100000 go through with very little change to the bid ask and no change to the last price. Where does this trade come from and why doesn't it show in the depth? Is it a pre-arranged sale between two parties? This question may sound stupid but it is something I have thought about for a while.

 

[reece55]

Re: Market depth question?

The answer is crossed trades, which happen when ASX participants manage both the sale and the purchase in the one go..... Hence, they are offset against one another.

Ever looked at full market depth - watch for the buyers and sellers of 1 share - these enable the brokers to perform the crosses.

Cheers

 

[Cyber Man]

Re: Market depth question?

Thanks for the reply Reece. I thought crossed trading was illegal?

 

[AnalysisParalysis]

Re: Market depth question?

Thanks Reece, I was wondering why someone would sell 1 share.

 

[Spaghetti]

Re: Market depth question?

Market depth leaves me with many questions and causes me to scratch my head.

For eg I see a sell for $3.00 and a buy for $2.85. Big gap. Why would you want to have a buy order so far from a sell order? You watch the stand off for ages then if a seller breaks and sell for $2.85 the prices heads south quickly triggering all sorts of stop losses, so the person who eventually bought for $2.85 makes an instant loss. Asked for it.

Then the other side of the coin, if you want to sell and there is a gap of 15c why not even try to place a sell order in between instead of going to the highest bidder. Even try it for 5 minutes.

Anyways back to scratching my head.

 

[Bullion]

Re: Market depth question?

Everyone has their own way of trading and their own theories of what is the best way to go about it. Someone might want a quick sale, another can wait to get a better price.

All comes down to the mind of the seller/buyer

 

[Broadside]

Re: Market depth question?

Thanks for the reply Reece. I thought crossed trading was illegal?

cross trades are quite legal and brokers love them as they earn commission on both sides of the transaction, there are market rules to obey though.

 

[ronski456]

Market Depth - A Question

First time poster here...

I have been following ALT recently and yesterday it closed @ 0.017.

This morning it had a market depth volume of 5,267,000 units and 18 buyers; volume of 3,013,000 and 13 sellers.

Why is the indicative price then 0.015 for the opening?

I thought buyers > sellers = price goes up or at least stay the same as previous close?

Cheers

 

[Trembling Hand]

Re: Market Depth - A Question

No it all depends at what price the buyers are at.

If you had 10000000000000 buyers and 3 sellers still mean nothing if the highest buyer was only at .010 cents

 

[reece55]

Re: Market Depth - A Question

No it all depends at what price the buyers are at.

If you had 10000000000000 buyers and 3 sellers still mean nothing if the highest buyer was only at .010 cents

TH is right here and believe me, if you regularly watch L2 screens, the brokers are prone to putting in these dummy bids low to boost the number of buyers in times of a sell off......... I normally look at 5 - 10% either side (depending on the volatility of the stock) as an indication of the actual buying and selling power, but even then you don't know because a lot of players don't show their hand...... If you are buying or selling a large parcel, your not going to announce it in the L2 are you!

Cheers

 

[RamonR]

Market Depth question

Have recently aquired CBA and it seems to be trading around $40 a share on average.
But some days you see some buy orders which seem to be ridiculously above market value i.e. $54 per share.

I cannot understand this but wonder if this gives them preference.
So that they are the first trades executed at market prices.

Is this a strategy for getting in first or is there more to it that.

 

[prawn_86]

Re: Market Depth question

This questions gets asked many times over. In fact as recently as this morning. Have a search through the beginners lounge from this mornings posts

 

[mfp]

Re: Market Depth question

I cannot understand this but wonder if this gives them preference.
So that they are the first trades executed at market prices.

You are spot on. This will occur during the opening/closing auction where people are simply jumping the queue to ensure their buy order is filled at the opening/closing price.