Market Depth

Filed Under »
Dictionary Says

Definition of 'Market Depth'

The market's ability to sustain relatively large market orders without impacting the price of the security. This considers the overall level and breadth of open orders and usually refers to trading within an individual security. 

Investopedia Says

Investopedia explains 'Market Depth'

For example, if the market for a stock is "deep", there will be a sufficient volume of pending orders on both the bid and ask side, preventing a large order from significantly moving the price.

Market depth is closely related to liquidity and volume within a security, but does not mean that every stock showing a high volume of trades has good market depth. On any given day there may be an imbalance of orders large enough to create high volatility, even for stocks with the highest daily volumes. The decimalization of ticks on the major U.S. exchanges has been said to increase overall market depth, as evidenced by the decreased importance of market makers, a position needed in the past to prevent order imbalances. 

Sign Up For Term of the Day!

Try Our Stock Simulator!

Test your trading skills!

Related Definitions

  1. Volume

    The number of ...
  2. Open Order

    An order to buy ...
  3. Security

    A financial ...
  4. Liquidity

    1. The degree to ...
  5. Liquidity Risk

    The risk ...
  6. Market Maker

    A broker-dealer ...
  7. Price Continuity

    A characteristic ...
  8. Depth of Market

    A measure of the ...
  9. Buyers/Sellers On Balance

    1. A ratio based ...
  10. Closing Tick

    The difference ...

Articles Of Interest

  1. The Basics Of The Bid-Ask Spread

    Understanding the real forces that move stock prices is part of being a good trader.
  2. Understanding Order Execution

    Find out the various ways in which a broker can fill an order, which can affect costs.
  3. How can I be paying more than what a stock is trading for?

  4. What are the determinants of a stock's bid-ask spread?

  5. 4 Traits Of A Top Financial Blog

    With thousands of blogs on the web, it's hard to sort the good from the bad.

comments powered by Disqus
Recommended
Loading, please wait...
Trading Center