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Two things decide how precisely you can size a scalp: the lot step and the contract size. People check the first and forget the second.

A quick example. On most brokers EURUSD is 100,000 units per lot, so 0.01 is 1,000 units and roughly $0.10 per pip. Fine. But on metals and indices it varies a lot:

• XAUUSD: some brokers use 100 oz per lot, some 10 oz, some 1 oz. The same 0.01 lot can mean a tenfold difference in risk.
• Indices: one broker's US30 lot is $1 per point, another is $10, another $0.10.
• Silver: 5,000 oz on some, 1,000 on others.

If you move from one broker to another and copy your lot sizes, you can multiply your risk without noticing. I did exactly that with gold once. Luckily the stop was small, and the loss was ten times bigger than planned but still survivable.

Practical rule: before the first trade on any new symbol or broker, open the specification, write down contract size, tick size and tick value, and calculate the money value of one pip for 0.01. Then compare it with what the platform shows in the order window.

Precision only matters after the contract size is right. Has a contract size change ever caught you out?

True order book imbalance needs a real book, and spot FX does not have one that is visible to retail. Still, a handful of stand-ins are available, and each one has a catch.

- Broker position ratios. Many brokers publish the share of clients long versus short. Useful as a crowding gauge, but it describes one broker's clients, usually small accounts, and it updates slowly. It works better as a contrarian backdrop than as an entry trigger.

- Tick direction counts. Count how many ticks in a window moved up versus down, or how often the ask was lifted versus the bid hit. It captures pressure only to the extent the feed is honest, and tick counts differ across brokers.

- Spread behavior. When the spread widens on one side of a move, or the quote is skewed (bid steady, ask running), it often shows providers leaning in one direction. Platforms that expose bid and ask as separate series make this easy to track.

- Futures depth. If a futures market is accessible, the real book on the corresponding contract gives a genuine imbalance reading, with the caveat that it covers the futures market rather than all of spot.

- Failed-breakout footprints. Repeated pokes at a level with no follow-through suggest passive size sitting there, even though the book itself is hidden.

The common thread is that each proxy is partial. Using one in isolation produces confident noise. Two that agree, say a skewed quote plus a lopsided tick count at a level, are worth more than a single stronger-looking one.

It is also worth being clear about timeframe. Imbalance signals decay in seconds to minutes, so they suit scalp entries and filters, not directional bias for the session. Anything that only shows up after the move is done is a description, not a signal.

Whatever the combination, testing it on a few weeks of recorded data before trusting it saves a lot of expensive lessons.

Which proxy has held up best for you, and does it survive when you switch to a different broker's feed?