Hey guys,

I need your help in understanding what I see in the attached DOM of the ES Futures this evening.
As you can see, the market by order column for bid and ask shows for (nearly) every price a order with a quantity of 17 contracts.
Is that really a coincidence? Or is there a logic behind that? I guess the logic is that a market participant placed orders for every price ... but ... does that make sense?


How do you interpret what you see there?

chasepatrol 

Hey guys, I need your help in understanding what I see in the attached DOM of the ES Futures this evening. As you can see, the market by order column for bid and ask shows for (nearly) every price a order with a quantity of 17 contracts. Is that really a coincidence? Or is there a logic behind that? I guess the logic is that a market participant placed orders for every price ... but ... does that make sense? How do you interpret what you see there?

Pretty interesting. In a more illiquid market it's common to see something like this where an algo is just making a market, but on the ES this likely isn't the case.

I don't think there's anything to interpret here, most likely just placeholder orders to maintain queue position.