[mister ed]

James, EBS are actual dealt prices whereas what other charting packages (especially the retail ones) rely on for FX prices are indicative rates provided by interbank dealers. The indicative prices have a lot more variability than the EBS dealt prices, and the indicative rates may very well never actually deal in the market. What this manifests itself on the chart as is more noisy bars, each half-hour bar on the charts you show have a greater range using the indicative prices than using the actual dealt EBS prices, but the extreme prices may very well never have dealt. I didn't know there was any way of getting EBS price feed outside of working in an institution, thanks for the heads-up on CQG.

A caveat with EBS prices. The EBS is only one channel through which FX can be dealt. There are 'voice' brokers matching deals between banks, for considerable amounts, as well as banks dealing direct with each other without any broker intervention, in sometimes even greater amounts. Thus the price and volume figures for EBS are, again, only a guide to the whole of the FX market. Having said that, I believe they are a very reliable guide, in terms of sample size, and the best there is. I am not sure of the sort of % of the whole FX business that flows through EBS, but it is substantial. Also, some currencies are a lot more active on EBS than other currencies and thus those more active currencies will have better representative data.

I know there are a few participants on the forum who work on the banking side of the FX business, be interested to hear what they have to say on your questions. They may perhaps be able to correct any errors in my information, and broaden on what I have said.