What is an order book?

An order book is one of the first things you see on the HTX trading interface. Order books are automated lists that organize buy and sell orders for a specific asset based on its current price level. The purpose of an order book is to show the standing orders of an asset in real-time and as such, display the constantly changing connection between buyers and sellers.

HTX order book

Orders in an order book are separated into bids and asks, and buy and sell orders correspondingly. Bids are the prices traders are willing to pay, and asks are the prices at which traders are willing to sell. Market books are also known as market depth.

An order book and market depth charts help traders to make more informed trading decisions. They are used for technical analysis, determining accurate prices for orders, and detecting order imbalances that provide clues as to an asset’s direction in the short term.

By providing valuable trading information, order books also improve market transparency.

What does the order book contain?

1. In the middle of the order book, you see the underlying asset’s current price. Above it, in red, are the latest sell prices, and below, in green, are the latest buy prices.

2. The column on the left shows the asset price, the middle column the amount of assets being offered or bid on, and the column on the right is the summation of all the assets from the orders above, as well as the current order.

For example, in the image below, if an investor is looking to purchase BTC at 17104.11 USDT, he will need to queue for it as there is a total of 0.0949 BTC in the queue before it reaches that price.

3. You can also view the trader that has taken place in the past by clicking on [Market Trades].

4. You can view the pending buy and sell orders at various price levels separately by clicking the green and red symbols at the top of the order book. You can also view the whole order book by clicking ‘More’.

Market depth

The information in the order book is the basis of the market depth chart. It visualizes this information and shows how many underlying assets are waiting to be bought or sold. This gives investors and traders a view of how the market is doing at any given point in time. The greater the market depth, the less likely big orders will impact an asset’s price.

When there’s a higher volume of red on the depth chart, it indicates that selling pressure is high, and the underlying asset might enter a correction phase. On the other hand, a higher volume of green indicates more buy orders, which gives the price more opportunity to grow.

Note that the order book is constantly changing — what you observed when looking at it a second ago may now no longer be applicable.