Introductory Guide to XRayTrade Terminal
Making the transition from being a hodler to an active trader can be quite the jump. There’s a big difference from entering your credit card number and pressing ‘buy’, and having to navigate order books, flashy UI, bids, asks, complicated fee structures, you name it.
Luckily for you, we are here to help, and this document will help you get your bearings as you wade into the wild world of cryptocurrency trading.
Order Entry
The top-left of your terminal, directly above Sales, is where you can execute your buy and sell orders.
First you will need to pick what you want to do: buy or sell. You can toggle between buy/sell by clicking the switch.
There are two types of orders, ‘market’ and ‘limit’, which you can select by clicking on the tabs.
A market order is the simpler of the two: you can just input the amount in USD that you wish to buy or sell (the currency unit is determined by the market pair you are trading), and then click the buy or sell button at the bottom. If it is a buy, it will then automatically buy at the best available price from the asks (sellers) displayed in orange figures on the order book. If you’re selling, it will then automatically sell at the best available price from the bids (buyers) displayed in blue on the order book.
For a limit order, you will need to select a limit price for buying or selling, at which you are willing to pay up to or down to, hence your ‘limit’. You also set the quantity you want. In the case of a big order, it is common practice to place limit orders at various prices.
If you place an order for which there isn’t an immediate match, then the order will stay on the order book, where it will stay until someone takes you up on your buy/sell offer which will result in a fill. Alternatively, you can cancel at anytime in your ‘active orders’ panel.
Position
This section appears just underneath the Chart, and tells you whatever position you have at that moment. This will give you all the necessary details, such as quantity and entry price, which tells you the conditions upon which you entered the trade.
If your quantity includes a plus symbol (+) this means you are long, meaning you are predicting an upcoming higher price. If your quantity begins with a minus symbol (-) this means you are short, meaning you are predicting a lower price in the future. Entry price is the average price you went long or short at.
‘Mark’ is short for ‘Fair Price Marking’ and is a price used to determine liquidation and unrealized P/L. A more detailed explanation on mark price can be found here.
‘Liquidation price’ is the price point at which you can no longer cover your position. In the event of a liquidation, the mark price is reached and will result in your full balance being placed for sale on the market.
‘P/L’ stands for Profit/Loss. ‘Realized P/L’ shows how much has already been added/subtracted from your balance, and ‘Unrealized P/L’ shows how much would be added/subtracted based on the mark price.
Exiting your position to realize your gains/losses will be based on what price you sell or buy at on the market, and won’t be determined from the mark price. It is best to think of your Unrealized P/L as an estimate of your potential P/L only.
Active Orders
Active Orders are found to the right of Position and list any limit orders that you placed on the order book that have yet to be filled. It provides a quick
at-a-glance overview of all your orders and allows you to quickly cancel them by clicking on ‘cancel’ in the far right column.
Order book
Next to the Sales list, there’s the Order book. There, you can see at what price and quantity others on the market are offering to buy and sell.
At the bottom, figures denoted in blue are the buy prices that others have listed, with the blue value closest to the middle being the highest bid price to buy. Above this, you’ll see the opposing list of sell orders.
The difference between the highest bid (buyer) and the lowest ask (seller) is referred to as the ‘spread’. On XRayTrade, you’ll see this value denoted in the center of the order book between the bids (buyers) and asks (sellers).
Again, there are two columns, one for price and the other for quantity. But here, behind the quantity values, you’ll also be able to see colored bars providing a visual display of the cumulative quantity up to that price level.
For example, the third blue bar down the list from the middle will represent the total quantity of the top three bids (54,094+217,037+4= $271,135 total quantity waiting to buy down to a price of $15,233).
Keep in mind that the bar visualizations are relative. They are best used to see which way a market is leaning at a given time. When buy pressure builds up, you’ll be able to see thickening blue bars on the bottom while the orange bars above thin out, and vice versa.
Sales
On XRayTrade, this appears on the right side, with two columns; price and quantity. You can also get a feel of which way the market is swinging by a quick glance at the color scheme. Prices highlighted in orange indicate a decrease in price, and blue highlights tell you there is an increase in price.
Hotkeys
On the terminal below Position and Active Orders you can find your Hotkeys. By default, you already have a hotkey profile active. The keyboard displays the functions connected to each key and where they are approximately located on your keyboard. The keyboard will also provide a colored flash feedback when you use your hotkeys to indicate that you have executed the key command. You can edit and save new hotkey profiles by clicking the ‘Edit Keyboard Profile’ button on the bottom right.
Chart
To the right of Order Entry is a customizable Chart to provide a visual cue as to how the market price history has been swinging. Sales and the Order Book can tell you what is happening on a second-to-second basis, but the chart is much more useful for longer timescales, anywhere from minutes to months.
Account Side Bar
At the very top-right, you’ll be able to see the email address at which your Account is registered. By clicking on it, you’ll be able to access the other parts of XRayTrade such as your security, settings, fund transfer, market controls and switch to sign out.
Markets Sidebar
Markets Sidebar is found at the bottom left hand corner of your trading terminal. It will indicate which exchange and market pair you are currently trading on within your terminal. Click it and it will bring out the sidebar with all the exchanges and market pairs accessible. Clicking any of the markets will bring you to that market’s trading terminal.
Leverage
With that in mind, you might be thinking of how you could earn more by predicting price movements. Indeed, all the aforementioned mechanisms could contribute in doubling an initial investment if the price went up twofold.
Therefore, you might be wondering how you can borrow some money and trade with a larger pool in order to make more profit. XRayTrade extends an automatic leveraging system through BitMEX for up to 100 times. This means that if you have 0.1 XBT (Roughly $1,700) available in your balance, you automatically can take up to ~10 XBT ($170,000) contracts. The system automatically calculates and handles the leverage.
Leverage is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it can be very profitable, but on the other hand you could literally lose all your money within a few minutes of a bad position resulting in liquidation. You have to be very careful with the amount you are leveraging and always closely watch your liquidation price.
This are just the basics, but it should be enough for you to get going and start learning on your own. Stayed tuned for more upcoming advanced trading material, or if you need help, contact us at support@xray.com.
Happy trading!
