Time and sales: the feature most retail platforms leave out
Posted: Sat Oct 31, 2026 8:47 pm
A time and sales window lists each trade as it happens, with price, size, and time. It is standard in futures and stocks. In spot forex, it does not exist in any meaningful form, since there is no central tape.
What retail platforms show instead is a list of quote updates, which is not the same. A quote is an offer to trade, not a trade. That distinction matters when reading flow.
Some brokers display a pseudo tape built from their own executions. It can be informative about that broker's flow, but represents a tiny part of the market.
Anyone wanting real trade data has to look at futures, where the CME publishes executions for currency contracts. Volume spikes there often precede or coincide with spot moves.
The point is not that forex scalping is impossible without a tape, but that claims about reading the tape in spot forex deserve skepticism.
Does anyone use futures data alongside spot charts, and does it add something useful?
What retail platforms show instead is a list of quote updates, which is not the same. A quote is an offer to trade, not a trade. That distinction matters when reading flow.
Some brokers display a pseudo tape built from their own executions. It can be informative about that broker's flow, but represents a tiny part of the market.
Anyone wanting real trade data has to look at futures, where the CME publishes executions for currency contracts. Volume spikes there often precede or coincide with spot moves.
The point is not that forex scalping is impossible without a tape, but that claims about reading the tape in spot forex deserve skepticism.
Does anyone use futures data alongside spot charts, and does it add something useful?