What Is Depth of Market in MT5? How to Read the DOM

Depth of market in MT5 is a window that lists the buy prices (bids) and sell prices (asks) around the current price, with the volume shown at each level. For many forex CFDs those levels come from your broker’s quotes, not a central order book, so read them as a live snapshot of prices and sizes.

Module 9 · Lesson 5 of 5

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Last updated 19 October 2026

What you'll learn

New to the platform? Start with how to use MetaTrader 5.

What is depth of market in MT5?

Depth of market in MT5 is a window that lists the best bid prices and ask prices for one instrument, with the volume shown at each price level. It is also called the DOM, the order book or, on stock platforms, Level II. It shows what is on offer right now, not where price will go next.

Your broker sets how many levels you see, according to the MetaTrader 5 help page on depth of market.

Key terms

How do you open depth of market in MT5?

To open depth of market in MT5, right-click a symbol in the Market Watch window and choose Depth of Market. The window opens for that one symbol. If a symbol shows only a few levels, that is how your broker has set it up, not a fault in the platform.

  1. Open Market Watch from the View menu if it is hidden.
  2. Right-click the symbol, for example EURUSD.
  3. Choose Depth of Market.
  4. Optional: switch to advanced mode in the window's toolbar to see every price step.

How do you read the bid side and the ask side?

You read the DOM as a ladder: asks are stacked above the current price and bids below it, with the lowest ask and the highest bid meeting in the middle. A market buy starts at the lowest ask and a market sell at the highest bid.

Part of the ladder What it shows
Ask side (above) Prices and volumes a market buy fills against
Spread (middle) Best ask minus best bid, a cost on every trade
Bid side (below) Prices and volumes a market sell fills against

Volumes are in lots; the lots, pips and pip value lesson explains them.

A depth of market ladder for EURUSD with ask prices 1.08520, 1.08515 and 1.08512 holding 5, 3 and 2 lots above the spread, and bid prices 1.08510, 1.08507 and 1.08503 with example volumes below it
In the depth of market, asks are stacked above the spread and bids below it, and a large market buy fills upward through the ask levels.

What does deep or thin market depth mean?

Market depth describes how much volume is shown near the current price: a deep book has large volumes on many levels, a thin book has little. It tells you how far a large order may travel through prices before it fills. That links it to liquidity, meaning how easily you can trade without moving the price.

Feature Deep book Thin book
Volume per level Large Small
A large market order Fills close to the best price Moves through several levels
Slippage risk Lower Higher

MT5's DOM histogram shows the total volumes of current buy and sell offers at its top and bottom. Traders often read a bigger total on one side as pressure from that side, but the totals cover only visible levels and can change in a second.

Are depth of market volumes real orders?

Depth of market volumes are real orders only for exchange-traded instruments; for over-the-counter (OTC) instruments, such as many forex CFDs, the levels may come from your broker's quotes or be calculated from the bid and ask. An OTC instrument trades directly with a provider rather than on a central exchange, so there is no single shared book.

MetaTrader 5's help describes three cases:

Instrument type What the DOM shows
Exchange-traded (some futures or shares) Real prices and order volumes from market participants
OTC, broker provides volumes Levels formed from the broker's quotes, which may differ by trade size
OTC, no volumes provided Levels calculated from the bid and ask, mainly for placing orders quickly

How do you calculate the average fill price from the DOM?

When a market order is bigger than the volume at the best level, it fills across several levels, and its average price is the volume-weighted average of those levels. MetaTrader 5's help describes the same thing: a large buy is filled from the several offers closest to the market.

Average fill price = (lots at level 1 × price 1 + lots at level 2 × price 2 + …) ÷ total lots

Worked example: a 4-lot buy

Synthetic figures for EURUSD, ask side only:

Ask price Lots shown
1.08512 2
1.08515 3
1.08520 5

A 4-lot market buy takes the 2 lots at 1.08512, then 2 of the 3 lots at 1.08515.

The same book with different order sizes:

Order size Levels used Average price Extra cost vs best ask
2 lots First only 1.08512 $0
4 lots First two 1.085135 $6
6 lots All three about 1.085148 $17

For 6 lots, 3 lots pay 0.3 pips ($9) and 1 lot pays 0.8 pips ($8). Check pip values for other pairs with the pip value calculator. On an OTC account your fill also depends on your broker's execution.

How do you trade from the depth of market window?

You can trade from the DOM by setting a volume and clicking the buttons beside each price level, once One Click Trading is switched on in the platform settings. MT5 then sends each request straight to the server with no confirmation dialog, so every click is a live order, as the One Click Trading help explains.

  1. Turn on One Click Trading in the platform settings and accept its terms.
  2. Type the volume in the vol field.
  3. Click the button beside a level to place a pending order (table below).
  4. Drag a pending order to a new price to move it; its stop loss and take profit move with it. Dragging a limit order across the bid/ask border turns it into a stop order.
Order Where you click
Buy Limit Bid price area
Sell Stop Bid price area
Sell Limit Ask price area
Buy Stop Ask price area

If limit and stop orders are new to you, start with the order types lesson.

What can depth of market tell you, and what can't it?

Depth of market tells you which prices and sizes are visible near the current price at this moment; it cannot tell you what other traders will do next or where price will go. Skilled traders use it as context for entries, order size and slippage.

The DOM can tell you The DOM cannot tell you
The best bid, best ask and spread right now Where price will move next
How much volume is shown at each nearby level Whether that volume will still be there in a second
Where your own pending orders sit Orders that are hidden or never shown, or the whole market

Two related MT5 topics live elsewhere: chart timeframes and account modes in netting vs hedging.

How do skilled traders use depth of market?

Skilled traders use depth of market to size orders to the visible liquidity, place pending orders quickly and estimate slippage before a large trade, while reading every level as a live snapshot that can change in a second. The habits below put that into practice on any symbol.

Try it on demo

On a demo account in MetaTrader 5, open Depth of Market for EURUSD and watch it for two minutes, noting how often the best bid, best ask and volumes change. Then copy the first three ask levels and work out the average price for an order twice the size of the top level.

This lesson is part of the MT5 Power User module.

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Quick check

  1. The depth of market window in MT5 shows
  2. For many over-the-counter forex CFDs, the DOM levels may be
  3. The book shows 2 lots at 1.08512 and 3 lots at 1.08515. A 4-lot market buy fills at an average of
  4. In MT5's DOM, a Buy Limit order is placed by clicking a button in the
  5. A large volume showing at one price level means

Frequently asked questions

Does MT5 have depth of market for forex?

Yes, but what it contains depends on your broker. For OTC forex CFDs the levels may be built from broker quotes or calculated from the bid and ask, so the volumes may not represent a central order book.

Is depth of market the same as Level 2?

Mostly, yes. Level II is the stock-platform name for a ladder of bids and asks beyond the best price, which is what MT5's DOM shows. The difference is the source: on OTC instruments the DOM may show broker quotes rather than exchange orders.

Can depth of market predict price direction?

No. The DOM shows what is visible at one moment, and orders can be cancelled or added at any time. Traders use it to judge liquidity and likely slippage, and a large level can be withdrawn before price reaches it.

Sources

Practise what you learned

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