Level II market-depth features

Hello guys,

I have just moved my accounts to a broker offering Level II market-depth features. However, the damn info moves so fast that I just cant process any valuable information off it.

Is anyone more familiar with Level II data and could enlighten me a little bit please?

Thank you.

Level II are were the market makers are, you see everything that is occuring with bid/ask, blah, blah..... The main objective is to play the spread to make a profit. This is what I recall when I used to support the trading floor for securities traders, I am pretty sure its the same in the Forex market. You can see who the big boys what they are doing. I hope that helps.

This is primarily why it's so dangerous to daytrade. You have to have a really good "feel" of market depth and price action amoung the buyers and the sellers. ECNs give you this advantage, the NASDAQ comes to mind.

Very, very dangerous this kind of trading. The M vs.The S in this situation.

WTB, even NASDAQ level II data moves "fast," but due to the fact that the equities market is centralized, it seems to move in a way that is easier to digest (assuming that no market maker "tricks" are moving the price in a direction that seems to be contradictory to the liquidity shown on level II).

I have seen the level II data on an EFX Group demo, but as you say, it moves too fast. Until the forex market is centralized, I think that the use of this data to make scalping-type trade decisions will be limited. I don't use level II data for this. To me it is just a gauge to determine what's the average liquidity available at the best bid and ask - as well as the depth of market. This tells me how many lots I should expect to get executed easily in one shot when the time comes.

Klaka, day trading is not the only trading that's "dangerous." In fact, I think that "swing trading" or "position trading" can actually be riskier than day trading. When you are day trading, or better yet scalping, your position is only open for a relatively short period of time. When you are position trading, you are exposed to the market for much longer. Consequently, risk of exposure is much greater when you position or swing trade. The fact that people "hold" positions longer when they swing trade until they "come back" to a favorable price does not mean that this type of trading is safer. It's a bit of an illusion because the price does not have to come back.

I just use it to have a snap shot of how much size is going on along with the price movement to determine intraday potential.

Your wrong. Swing trading is much safer than day trading. If u trade bigger timeframes, the candles are more stable and technicals are more stable too. There are no sudden spikes like small timeframe. U avoid lots of whipsaws and also stop loss can be placed at a better price. U trade lesser which also means your probability of winning a trade is higher.

Does anyone know if AVA fx has level 2 ??

Avafx is a very stinky market maker so no.