Order flow

I read on google that professional traders have access to the 'order flow' which gives them a distinct advantage over retail traders. In other words they can see where the stops/limits are placed.
Would anyone care to elaborate on this or could someone tell me where they get this info from. thanks

Anyone can see order flow in the futures market. For spot fx a bank can see the order flow of it's own customers but not other banks. With some ECNs you can see order flow.

Check this thread: http://www.forexfactory.com/showthread.php?t=10852

Darkstar might be the guy to see about this.

Lou

It depends on what kind of order flow you’re talking about.

As was pointed out by notouch a bank or similar type market maker (including retail shops) can see all its clients order information including stops/limits. You'll never get complete access to this information without being hired into the company.

With an institutional ECN you can see most of the limit orders in the book. I say most because almost all of the big orders are iceberg. The stop loss information is invisible on these platforms however, so you need an alternate way of locating them.

IFR does a pretty good job of consolidating the market maker stop/limit information but you still lack the size information in most cases. If you want to get a good idea of the type of information available, you can sign up with an FXCM demo account and install the news plug-in. It's a scaled down version of the IFR service, but includes the complete order board information.

Darkstar

Have you used the full version of IFR. How much better than the FXCM version is it? Is it worth moving up?

It depends what you want out of it. If all you want is the orderflow and the headlines, FXCM is probably good enough. The commentary and event calendar (with the range of estimates) are nice if your into that sort of thing, but I wouldn't consider it earthshattering information. Option Expiration calendar is useful sometimes too.

Personally I much prefer the interface on the real deal. FXCM constantly disconnects and errors in the orderboard are not self-correcting. That and the IFR app is web based so I can pull it from anywhere without having to install stuff.

I guess in summary, if you have an extra $175/mo to spend its worth it, but I wouldn't sacrifice the movie channels on cable for it.

Ha ha. That settles it.