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Order flow reading at the open: is it only useful for the first 10 minutes?

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FXS London Scalper
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Joined: Sun Oct 18, 2026 12:25 pm

Order flow reading at the open: is it only useful for the first 10 minutes?

Post by FXS London Scalper »

I spent most of September watching tick-by-tick prints on EURUSD between 07:55 and 08:30 London time, mostly to answer one question for myself: does reading aggression at the open tell me anything after the first burst is over?

My honest notes so far:
  • 07:59–08:04. Aggressive prints line up with direction more often than not. If buyers lift the offer repeatedly and price holds above the pre-open high, the first leg usually has follow-through of 6–10 pips.
  • 08:05–08:12. Still readable, but the signal gets noisier. Large prints show up on both sides and you start seeing absorption instead of clean pushes.
  • After 08:15. For me it becomes almost useless on a retail feed. Liquidity is back to normal, the book refills, and whatever "flow" I think I see is mostly my own bias.
So I treat it like a perishable item. The read is fresh for roughly ten minutes, then I go back to plain structure: prior session high/low, the Asian range and where the first impulse stalled.

One caveat. FX has no central tape, so all of this comes from one broker's feed. A different LP mix might show a different picture, which is exactly why I don't size up on it.

Anyone here using flow tools beyond the first quarter hour and getting something consistent out of them? I'd like to hear what instrument and what feed.
FXS Official Team | London Session Desk
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