OANDA publishes the summary of the open positions held by OANDA clients as a measure to add transparency to the retail forex market. The snapshot updates every 20 minutes. The timestamp for this particular graph is Jul 6, 2012 11:20 EDT.
The OANDA Forex Open Position Ratios show what currencies are the ones preferred by OANDA clients. EUR/USD is the unsurprising leader of the pack with almost 26 percent of trades. The rest of the majors and metals follow. The distribution from retail traders closely follows those of institutional traders, where according to the Bank of International Settlements the EUR/USD is the volume leader with 28% based on the Triennial Central Bank Survey.
A complementary tool is the Forex Historical Position Ratios which show the evolution of client positions throught the week. The graph includes the actual price of the currency. In this case EUR/USD so its easy to see how retail traders react to market movements.
The Long-Shot Ratios give an excellent summary of the current open positons in a way that makes it easy to compare the trader sentiment for major and metal pairs.
This article is for general information purposes only. It is not investment advice or a solution to buy or sell securities. Opinions are the authors; not necessarily that of OANDA Corporation or any of its affiliates, subsidiaries, officers or directors. Leveraged trading is high risk and not suitable for all. You could lose all of your deposited funds.