The open order book offers investors an insight into the order book situation of a stock or an ETF. This can help you make a trading decision or place an order.

What's the point?

  • The open order book can help to assess where the price of a share is heading in the short term. 
  • It supports you in the skilful placement of your order.
  • You can see the liquidity of a share in the case of lower-margin second-line stocks.

What you see in the Xetra order book

The Xetra marketplace offers you an open order book, i.e. all placed buy and sell orders are visible to market participants in the regular order book.

In the order book, all limited orders are sorted according to price. The highest buy orders are displayed on the left, the lowest sell offers on the right. Market orders, i.e. orders without price limits, can be executed 'best' or 'cheapest' immediately, which is why they do not remain in the order book.

The order book can be viewed in the investor portal with a depth of ten orders.

The open order book shows the ten best buy and sell limits with cumulative quantities and number of orders at this limit. In the Internet presentation, the volumes offered are visually illustrated in the form of green bars (buy offers) and red bars (sell offers).

The section above shows the two best limits for the adidas share. The plus sign at the beginning of the line opens the order book depth, the minus sign closes it again. 

The most important columns in the order book are 'Bid' and 'Ask'. There are the limits of the orders placed. In the 'Bid' column are the offers to buy, also called money. These are the ten highest prices at which market participants are currently willing to buy the stock. If you want to sell the stock, this is the relevant side of the order book. 

In the 'Asks' column - also called the letter - you will see the ten lowest offers to sell for which market participants are willing to sell the stock. Bid and Ask together give the trading margin of a security. 

The columns to the left and right of Bid and Ask (in Bid Vol and Ask Vol) show the volume of Bids and Asks, more precisely: the total number of shares at this price. The number of buy and sell orders to the right and to the left of the bid and ask volume is shown. 

In our example, this means that four buy orders for a total of 493 adidas shares at a price of 122.37 euros are in first place on the money side of the order book. This is followed by two buy orders where buyers are willing to pay 122.33 for 911 Adidas shares. On the other hand, there are two offers to sell for a total of 286 adidas shares at 122.40 euros, followed by an order for 200 shares at 122.41 euros. 

The bid and ask limits are followed in the order book table by the last price determined, in our case 122.36 euros, the current trading phase (Ph) and the time when this price was determined and the closing price from the previous day. 

How is it executed?

Orders are executed on Xetra if bid and ask match. Either the limits match or market participants place market orders. These are orders without limits that are executed at the next available price. During execution, market orders take precedence over limit orders. In principle, price-time priority applies.

When orders are executed, they disappear from the book and the next best bids or asks move up.

How to read the order book

The order book provides you with valuable information that can help you in various investment situations: You can assess whether a stock is likely to rise or fall in the short term, as you can see whether demand or supply is higher. You will be able to place your own buy or sell orders more skillfully, i.e. more profitably. If your stocks are tight, you can see how liquid this stock is at the moment. Here are some examples of how you can interpret the order book.

Upward trend

In the example, there are more and larger orders on the buyer side of the order book. These can cushion the stock downwards. On the sell side, only at EUR 8.188 is there a larger sell order, which slows down an upward trend. The share is currently in positive territory and will probably continue to rise in the short term.

Selling pressure

In this case, there are more sell orders in the book, and the large sell order of 26,762 shares for 25 euros represents a hurdle for price gains that must first be overcome. 

In the case of shares, the letter page is well filled - obstacles on the way up. On the money side, there are only two orders worth mentioning at 24.945 and 24.940 euros respectively. The share could not be absorbed downwards. The tendency is therefore more towards the downside. 

Sideways

In the following case, the sales in the order book are relatively balanced.

How to call up the source list

The order book is available in the form of index lists. The respective order book is also available on the data sheet of each share. Simply follow the link below the chart.