CURRENCY TRADING INDICATORS

“When the door

cracks, will you be
ready to move?”

Open Orders and Positions

as a Trading Indicator
Professional traders at Forex dealing desks have always had a distinct
informational advantage over smaller independent Forex traders. That
information gap seems to be narrowing. Dean Popplewell and Scott Boyd
crack the door a bit and share how traders can gain access to the open
order book and open positions through OANDA’s trading platform.

T
raders manning the Forex dealing desks of all Technical analysis uses historical price charts and various deci-
major investment firms, rely on fundamental sion support tools to evaluate the strength of the rate trend, and
and technical analysis to assist in the devel- to identify potential reversal points.
opment of their trading strategies. Funda-
mental analysis attempts to predict the effect Historically, professional traders have held a distinct advantage
that news events, such as the latest employ- over smaller, independent Forex traders. It has not been uncom-
ment results, or the most recent GDP fig- mon for an investment firm to spend hundreds of thousands on
ures, will have on future exchange rates. news services to ensure their traders receive news flashes ahead

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 TEXT DEAN POPPLEWELL AND SCOTT BOYD

of the general public. Professional desks also have had access to “If total short positions outweigh
powerful trading systems with sophisticated technical charting
capabilities that were either too costly or simply not available to total long positions, the firm’s
individual Forex traders.
clients are obviously “bearish” on
In recent years, the gap between the trade support available to
professional and private traders has narrowed dramatically. that currency pair. On the other
Online news services continuously push market news updates to
their websites with little or no delay for the general public. Retail hand, if long positions exceed
trading platforms have also evolved, and rival the most powerful
commercial trading systems in terms of charting features and short positions, customers are
execution quality.
supporting a rising trend.”
Despite these technological advances, a trader with an invest-
ment firm still maintains a considerable advantage over inde- does illustrate how positions and orders can be used to gauge
pendent traders – the ability to view compiled data on client overall market sentiment. To use a well-worn expression, this is
positions and pending orders for the firm’s entire trading base. where the “rubber hits the road.”
An investment firm’s dealing book displays current short and long
positions for each currency pair, and the Forex order book details For instance, a 30-day moving average superimposed over the
pending limit orders. Having this information available in real- market price may indicate that the current price is trending
time, makes it possible to gauge true market sentiment for any upwards. However, a series of pending sell orders positioned just
currency pair. above the market price is a truer indication of future expecta-
tions, and by extension, overall market sentiment. No technical
If total short positions outweigh total long positions, the firm’s indicator measuring past price performance can provide the same
clients are obviously “bearish” on that currency pair. On the other degree of insight into current market psychology.
hand, if long positions exceed short positions, customers are sup-
porting a rising trend. Being able to confirm market sentiment PUBLISHING OPEN POSITIONS ENSURES TRANSPARENCY AND
through empirical evidence, is as close to a guarantee as you can IMPROVES MARKET EFFICIENCY
get when trading in any open market. Two terms that we hear time and time again in the investment
industry, are “transparency” and “market efficiency.” For the
While a summary of current positions provides insight into cur- casual observer, these may seem to be distinct from one another,
rent market sentiment, information on pending limit orders pro- but I argue that they are very much related. I would also argue
vides even more precise feedback. For instance, if the current that it should be the goal of all markets – and all market-makers
market price for the EUR/USD currency pair is 1.2855, and – to facilitate and promote a fully transparent market.
there is a large block of sell limit orders just above the market
price at 1.2865, you can infer that 1.2865 represents a potential Transparency ensures that all traders are treated the same with
resistance level for the currency pair. equal access to market and pricing information. This ensures that
one group is not privy to specific details giving them an advan-
Why can you draw this conclusion? Some of the limit orders could tage over another group. This ensures all market participants can
be new entry orders, but it also stands to reason that a large per- trade in an open and transparent market, which is the very defi-
centage of the pending sell orders around the 1.2865 price point are nition of market efficiency.
intended to close existing long positions in a bid to take profits.
Unfortunately, positions and open order books remain largely
Furthermore, if the positions chart shows a high volume of the exclusive domain of the dealing desks. OANDA was the first
long positions below the market price, this adds further evidence Forex market-maker to break down this barrier when it launched
to the likelihood that many of the pending orders at 1.2865 are the ‘FX Open Positions Ratio’ and the ‘FX Open Orders and
take-profit orders intended to close existing long positions. Positions Summary’ a few years ago.
Ultimately, it does not really matter whether the limit orders are
take-profit orders or new orders to enter into a short position. These two utilities make up part of OANDA’s suite of decision-
making software tools, providing a true depth of market view for
The important conclusion is that 1.2865 is a key price level that currency pairs traded in OANDA’s Forex market.
will trigger selling activity and represents a likely resistance level.
Only the dealing desk traders have this information, placing other OANDA BRINGS AN OPEN ORDERS BOOK TO RETAIL FOREX
traders in the market at a disadvantage. The following illustration shows a recent snapshot – in real
time – of the positions in OANDA’s market. As you can see, long
In fairness, this is a rather simplistic example that fails to take positions dominate the market overall, and several currency pairs
into consideration other potential market dynamics. However, it in particular are currently held long. Also, in the chart on the

A U G U S T 2 0 1 0 T h e Fo re x J o u r n a l 37
CURRENCY TRADING INDICATORS

right, you can see that the majority of trades involve, as you
might expect, the EUR/USD currency pair:

Long-Short Ratios Position Ratios

K
nowing the market sentiment with respect to OPEN POSITIONS
market direction is very helpful in creating a The ‘Open Positions’ chart on the right side of the previous
trading strategy. OANDA takes this one step illustration shows the same level of detail as the Open Orders
further and publishes complete details regarding chart but for actual positions held by OANDA’s clients. Plot lines
open positions, as well as the execution price for to the left of the vertical center line represent short positions with
these orders: the placement of the line on the graph indicating the position
entry price. The length of the line reveals the
percentage of total positions at that entry
price for the past twenty-four hours. Note
that the positions recorded on the Open
Positions chart are still active positions. As
such, profit/loss implications are unrealized.

Access to a snapshot of a market-maker’s

market orders and positions is the ultimate in
transparency. By studying the relationship of
pending orders to positions, it is possible to
deduce potential support and resistance levels
for the current market. It is also possible to
gain some insight into how traders are think-
ing and for students of market psychology,
this is particularly compelling. TFJ

Dean Popplewell has a wealth of Forex experi-

ence. He has been a professional currency trader
for 10 years, fixed income trader for four years
and head of the global trading desks at various
financial institutions in Canada. Dean is
OANDA’s resident currency analyst and has
FX OPEN ORDERS been writing OANDA’s daily Forex blog since January 2007 as a way
The ‘FX Open Orders’ chart tracks the pending limit orders to share some of his Forex experience with the OANDA community.
held by OANDA’s clients. All plot lines to the left of the vertical He can be reached at dean@oanda.com.
center line are sell limit orders, while plot lines to the right, show
buy orders. Scott Boyd is a content writer specializing in the financial sector and
has produced educational materials and conducted market analysis
The length of the plot line indicates the number of orders at for several of Canada’s leading financial institutions. Scott contributes
that price level, expressed as a percentage of the total orders held articles to the OANDA blog and is keenly interested in the factors
by OANDA for the past twenty-four hours. affecting global currency prices.

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