Trades are completed transactions
A trade is a completed transaction: a buyer and a seller agreed on a price and the transaction executed. Trade data records each of these as it occurs and is therefore the factual record of a market. Where quote data shows what participants were willing to do, trade data shows what they actually did, and at what price and size.
What a trade record contains
Each trade record is small and precise: the price at which it executed, the size or quantity traded, and the exact time. In sequence, these records are often called the time and sales, a chronological record of every transaction. They are the most basic record of activity in a market and the foundation for many derived figures.
Volume and derived metrics
Many familiar figures are built from trade data. Volume is the total size of trades over a period. VWAP, the volume-weighted average price, weights each trade by its size. The volume component of an OHLCV bar is the sum of trades within the interval. Accurate trade data is therefore a prerequisite for these derived metrics.
Trade data and the last price
The current price of an asset usually refers to the price of the most recent trade, which comes directly from trade data. This last price is a record of the past, even if very recent, whereas the bid and ask describe what is currently available. The two together provide a more complete picture than either alone.
Trade data on SiftingIO
SiftingIO normalizes trade and price activity across stocks, forex, crypto, and commodities into one schema, so the last price, volume, and trade-derived metrics are represented consistently across markets. The live edge can be streamed over WebSocket for client-side computation of volume and VWAP, while historical bars are available over REST where a summarized view is sufficient.