The Question and Answer Board

[Mattu]

RE: Buy vs Sell on Trades Screen

You're right, all trades are technically a buy and a sell.

What the trades page does is try to determine what the executed order orginiated as based on the executed price. It takes an educated guess.

If the order executes at/near the ask price, it calls it a buy. If the order executes at/near the bid price, it calls it a sell.

Buy volume or sell volume is a daily sum total of the individual trades for the day for buys and sells.

The trades video might help, as well:

http://ih.advfn.com/p.php?pid=demov&v=tr

Also, click Help on the Trades page, there's this text there, as well as other useful information:

The 'Buy', 'Sell' and '?' columns - Where the 'Price' is closest to the 'Offer' price, the trade is considered a 'Buy'. Where it is closest to the 'Bid' price, the trade is considered to be a 'Sell'. Where it is dead centre between 'Bid' and 'Offer', it appears in the '?' column; this indicates that the trade cannot be identified as either a 'Buy' or a 'Sell'.

Let me know if you have any other questions....