Level II/Market Depth

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The Level II/Market Depth window is accessed from the right click pop up menu or by selecting it from the Tools menu:

 

 

Clicking on the pushpin will link the window to the selected color group.

 

The top portion contains the current Level I quote for the symbol which would be the same as in the portfolio.  Below that are the Level II bids on the left side and the asks on the right side.

 

Once the screen is displayed, you can manually enter another symbol from your portfolios in the yellow Symbol input box and press Enter key to activate it, or if using TD AMERITRADE, click on the Option Chain button to select an option symbol

 

 

Use the Font buttons to the right of the symbol to increase or decrease the font size of the data on this screen.

 

Menus:

 

Site - Select the site for Level II you want to use from the Site menu.  You can choose to limit the sites that appear on this list to your specific choices on the Level II Site List preferences screen.

 

The list of supported and recommended sites and details about them can be found on our website at http://www.quotetracker.com/qsources.shtml

 

Server - You can select another server for the site (if available)  from the Server menu.

 

 

 

View - Some sites may have different columns available to display.  Select the columns and items that you want to see from the View Menu.  A check mark will appear next to the selected items.  Click again to unselect:

 

 

 

 

 

MM Tick (indicated by the T column) - If available, up (green) and down (red) arrows indicate the direction of the last change of the price for the Market Maker.  Left (green, pointing outward) and right (red, pointing inward) arrows indicate the direction of the last change of the size for the Market Maker. Green indicates the size increased and red indicates the size decreased:

 

Last Trade Size - If available, this option will display the last traded size for the symbol. It will appear at the top in the Level I section following the Last (price).

 

Mirror View - This option is for display only. It will arrange the columns in such order that the ask side mirrors the bid side:

 

Current Site - The black strip below the Menus that identifies the site you are connected to.

Summary - If available from the site, shows summarized current price information below the symbol.  Information that may be available may include such items as Time, Last price, Change, Volume, High and Low.  It all depends on what the site supports.

Aggregate - Shows the total number of Inside (rows) and the sizes for each side (bid and ask) at the topmost (yellow or blue) level.

Aggregate 3/5-tier - Shows the aggregated orders of the top three/five rows (colors)  and the sizes for each side (bid and ask).

Sort - Select the way you want the prices to be sorted and shown on the Bid and Ask sides.  The default is by Time.


Colors: - Allows you to select the color scheme for the Level II window. Content and interpretation is the same.  It is simply a preferred visual selection:

Colors: Standard

Colors: Pastel

 

Settings - Brings up the Level II Setup screen.

 

The Ratio in the title bar is the sum of the sizes of the bids over the sum of the sizes of the asks, displayed on the screen.

 

Arrow Marker - You can single click on any bid or ask and an arrow will be placed between the columns pointing to the selected bid or ask.  This is used as a marker or placeholder.  It will move up and down in the list with the marked order.  Click on it again to remove it.  Not all selected sites may support this feature.

 

You may enter any symbol you want in the Symbol yellow input box once the screen comes up.  Not all symbols may be supported by the site you select.

 

Some of the Level II screens come in two variations - Snapshot (HTML based), which requires refresh and Streaming (Java based), which is a constant data flow, with no refresh required.  These are similar to the indicators for the portfolios and watch lists.

 

Snapshot:

 

Select either Auto (green) or Manual (yellow) mode  In Manual mode, the screen will only refresh when you click on the Refresh button.  For Auto mode, enter the Refresh rate in seconds and click on the ENTER or TAB key to activate.  You can click the Refresh button at any time to initiate a new fetch.  As it is refreshing, the Refresh button will change to a Cancel button which can be used to stop the refresh.

 

Streaming:

Click on the Stop button and it will change to a Start button. This is useful if you want to pause the screen or to restart the streamer manually.

The colored button indicates the connection status:

GREEN - Connected and working.

RED - Connection failed. - Not connected.

GRAY -        Stopped - Not connected.

YELLOW - Attempting to connect.

 

Trading directly from the Level II screen:

You can invoke a trade at a specific ECN/MM by double clicking on a bid (sell) or an ask (buy) on the Level II window.  Right click on the bid or ask to see the action that will be taken.  Left click on the pop up and the appropriate entries will be filled in the trade panel, ready for you to submit the trade:

 

  Right click on Bid - Click to Sell.

 

  Right click on Ask - Click to Buy.

 

The number of shares prefilled in the trade panel depends on the option(s) selected on the # of Shares tab in Trading Preferences.

 

Interpreting the data:

Each price point group is color coded to make it easy to see if the strength is on the buy or the sell side. The specific display colors used are not significant only in as much as how they are represented in their groups.  If you see that the yellow (or blue with the pastel color scheme selection) portion on the left (bid) side is less than the one on the right (ask) side, then chances are that the bid is about to change because there are less shares on that side at that price.  The color strip above the prices represents the total number of shares in both the bid and the ask order broken down by price.  The other thing to watch is how the center line - the one between the two yellow (or blue with the pastel color scheme selection) sections, shifts left and right. If it is far to the right, then there is buying pressure.  Far to the left means selling pressure.

 

Generally, the best bids/asks are displayed at the top, the worst are at the bottom, but there may be exceptions. The display rules are specified by the source of the quotes.

 

NOTE: The orders displayed on this screen do NOT necessarily represent all the orders on a particular stock - only the ones placed through the ECN's or Market Makers supported by the site you select. In addition, not all symbols may be supported by the site.  The data comes from the site you select from the menu on this screen, regardless of the site that is currently selected for quotes and has no effect on the prices displayed on the main portfolio screen.