Can a retail trader ever spot an iceberg order in FX?

[Shadow Trader]

Short answer first would be no, but the longer version is more interesting, so it is worth wandering through it.

What would an iceberg even look like in spot FX? On an exchange, it is a large resting order that shows only a small slice and refills each time that slice trades. The tell is a level that keeps absorbing trades without the displayed size or price changing. Spot FX does not work that way for retail. There is no single book, and the broker decides what to show. So the classic tell is not directly observable.

Could the effect be detected indirectly? Possibly. Think about what an iceberg does to price: price pushes into a level repeatedly, each time with real aggression, and keeps failing to get through. Tick volume (or futures volume, if available) is high at that level while price barely moves. That absorption pattern is the closest a chart-based approach gets. The trouble is that it also describes a plain wall of ordinary orders, a barrier option defence, or just a mean-reverting stretch. Nothing in the data distinguishes them.

Might the futures market help? There, depth data and trades are real. Seeing a level that gets hit again and again, with the displayed bid refilling at the same size, is a genuine iceberg signature on that contract. Whether it carries across to spot is another matter, and the answer likely depends on the size and how tightly the two are arbitraged at that moment.

What about the broker side? A liquidity provider can hold a big client order and work it slowly, but that leaves a footprint only in the provider's own records.

So the honest position is that suspected absorption is detectable, iceberg specifically is not, and the label adds confidence that the evidence does not support. Even so, the absorption pattern alone can still be a decent reason to avoid fading into a level that keeps eating flow.

Has anyone found a way to separate absorption at a level from simple chop, and does it hold on spot or only on futures?