A price feed error is a mismatch, glitch, or interruption in the stream of market prices your trading platform shows. For a retail forex trader that can look like a frozen chart, wildly jumping ticks, unusually wide spreads, or executions that don’t match the prices you were watching. Because retail trading platforms rely on continuous, real‑time quotes from liquidity providers and broker servers, problems anywhere along that chain show up as feed errors at the trader’s terminal. Understanding what can cause those errors, how they affect orders, and what you can reasonably do about them helps you avoid surprises and manage risk better.
How price feeds work — a quick picture
Every trading platform displays a constant stream of bid and ask prices. Brokers obtain those prices from one or more liquidity providers (banks, prime brokers, ECNs) and pass them to your desktop or mobile app as a sequence of ticks. A tick is simply an update: a new best bid, best ask, or last trade price. When everything runs smoothly you see an almost continuous flow of ticks and the chart updates accordingly.
If that stream is delayed, malformed, missing, or altered, your terminal shows the problem: the chart may stop, numbers can jump, spreads may blow out, or you may be shown a price that doesn’t reflect current interbank conditions. Importantly, the displayed price is only the information layer — the price at which you actually get filled depends on how the broker routes and executes your order, and that is governed by their execution model and rules.
Common types of price feed errors and how they look
Price feed errors come in several familiar forms. You will often spot them by unusual behaviour on the chart, in the quotes window, or in execution messages.
A stale feed shows no ticks for an unusually long interval. On a volatile day this is a red flag: the platform chart freezes while the wider market moves. A spike or glitch is a single or small cluster of ticks that leap far from the recent market range — for example, EUR/USD trading at 1.1200 then a one‑tick jump to 1.2000 before returning. A gap or jump can occur at session open or around big news and may be genuine market behaviour, but a feed error can produce artificial gaps that don’t match other sources. Finally, extreme or negative spreads, reversed bid/ask, or timestamp mismatches in ticks indicate corrupted or misordered feed data.
What causes price feed errors
There is rarely a single root cause; feed errors usually arise from issues in one or more links of the chain between liquidity providers, broker servers, and your terminal. Typical causes include:
- Network latency, packet loss or routing problems between provider and broker, or between broker and your terminal
- Aggregation errors when a broker combines quotes from several providers without proper synchronization
- Software bugs or configuration mistakes on the broker’s feed handlers or the trading platform
- Intentional filtering or throttling by the broker (for example to damp market noise or prevent certain fast scalping activity)
- Liquidity provider outages, corrupted messages, or mismatched message sequence numbers
- Market microstructure events (very low liquidity, market maker outages, or sudden order book depletion) that interact badly with feed logic
Each of these produces a recognisable fingerprint: time‑aligned gaps for latency, transient isolated extreme ticks for corrupted messages, or permanently widened spreads if the broker is routing to thin liquidity.
How price feed errors affect orders and positions
A feed error can affect you in different ways depending on order type and the broker’s execution model. If you place a market order while your platform shows an outdated or delayed price, the broker will still execute against live liquidity — which means the fill can be at a materially different price than the one you saw. That difference shows up as slippage. For limit and stop orders, the effect depends on how the broker treats the incoming ticks: some brokers require confirmation of several ticks after a price jump before triggering stops, others trigger immediately. During data gaps brokers may suspend trading or reject orders, or they may execute once they have a confirmed quote.
For example, imagine you see GBP/USD at 1.3000 and place a market buy for one lot. If the feed to your terminal is 2 seconds behind during a fast move, the best live ask might already be 1.3020. Your execution will likely be near 1.3020, not the 1.3000 you watched. In volatile conditions the difference can be much larger.
Open positions themselves are not magically revalued or erased because of a feed error — your P&L uses whatever prices the broker records in the server. But if the feed error prevented you from closing at a desired level, or caused a stop not to trigger, that outcome can be significant. Also, guaranteed stop losses (where offered) are typically priced and honored per contract terms and may behave differently than normal market stops.
How to recognise whether the problem is a feed error or real market movement
The simplest technique is to cross‑check. If multiple reputable sources show the same move at the same time, it’s likely real market action. If your broker’s price deviates sharply while other terminals, market data websites, or a second broker show no move, then a feed error (or a difference in liquidity source) is probable.
Look for telltale signs on your platform: a sudden jump followed by immediate reversal back to previous levels, timestamps in ticks that are out of order, unusually long time gaps between ticks, or a sudden, persistent widening of spread limited to one broker. If you run automated systems, monitor the feed heartbeat and sequence numbers — missing sequence IDs or broken heartbeats are reliable indicators of feed trouble.
What traders can do when they suspect a price feed error
When you notice a potential feed error, act calmly and methodically. First, suspend trading activity on that account until you understand what happened; avoid sending more orders into uncertain conditions. Take screenshots or export the platform logs showing the offending ticks, spreads, and timestamps. Compare those with another data source or a second broker to document the discrepancy.
Contact your broker’s support and provide the evidence. Ask for clarification of what happened and request the server‑side execution logs for any trade affected. If you were filled at a price that looks clearly invalid, escalate the case and ask how they source liquidity and how they handled the specific trade. Many brokers will investigate and may reverse or compensate if the execution violated their own stated rules, but outcomes depend on account terms and the exact technical cause.
For live algorithms and EAs, implement defensive checks: refuse to trade if tick gap exceeds a threshold, pause trading on heartbeat loss, and log all fills for fast reconciliation.
Practical measures to reduce your exposure to feed errors
You cannot eliminate feed problems entirely, but you can reduce exposure. From a practical trader perspective, using limit orders where appropriate prevents being filled at an outdated market price, although limit orders can also miss fills. If you rely on stops, consider whether a guaranteed stop loss (if the broker offers it) suits your needs, keeping in mind guaranteed stops usually carry additional cost. Avoid aggressive scalping strategies that depend on microsecond pricing unless you have a verified low‑latency infrastructure and an execution agreement that supports it.
For algorithmic traders, host your trading system on a reliable VPS or colocated server close to the broker’s execution servers, monitor heartbeat and sequence numbers, and code safety checks that halt trading on abnormal feed conditions. For discretionary traders, avoid placing large trades around known news releases if your broker’s feed stability is uncertain.
When choosing a broker, look for transparent information about their data sources, whether they aggregate multiple liquidity providers, and what uptime or execution guarantees they provide. Trade with brokers who publish trade confirmation details and offer clear trade reconciliation procedures.
Broker-side mitigations and why they matter
Reliable brokers invest in liquidity aggregation, feed redundancy, and proper message sequencing to avoid corrupted ticks. Aggregation smooths out a single provider’s quirks by combining prices from several sources, while filters can remove obvious outliers. However, overzealous filtering or poorly timed throttling can create its own problems — for instance, artificially delaying ticks to “confirm” prices can create slippage for fast traders. Good brokers balance speed, accuracy, and protection against abusive flow. As a client, understanding a broker’s execution model (market maker vs. straight‑through processing, whether they internalize flow) gives context for how they handle feed anomalies.
Risks and caveats
Trading foreign exchange carries significant risk and you can lose money. Price feed errors add operational risk on top of market risk: they can cause fills that you didn’t anticipate, delay order execution, or temporarily block trading. Brokers’ terms and conditions typically include clauses about execution at “first confirmed market prices” and limitations around correcting trades during feed problems; these contractual terms often determine whether a disputed fill is reversed. Nothing in this article is personalised trading advice — treat it as general education. If you rely on algorithmic execution or trade with significant size, consider professional technical due diligence and legal review of your broker’s terms before allocating capital.
Key Takeaways
- A price feed error is any delay, corruption, gap, or abnormality in the stream of market ticks that your platform shows; it can cause slippage, missed orders, or confusing prices.
- Common causes include network latency, liquidity provider outages, aggregation bugs, and platform configuration errors; cross‑checking other feeds helps tell real market moves from errors.
- If you spot a suspected error, pause trading, capture evidence, contact your broker, and follow up with documented logs; use limit orders, guaranteed stops where appropriate, and defensive checks in automated systems to reduce exposure.
- Trading carries risk; this information is educational only and not personalised advice.
References
- https://finansified.com/forex-market-data-feed/
- https://liquidityfinder.com/insight/other/latency-arbitragein-forex-trading-easy-profits-not-really
- https://www.degiro.com/uk/helpdesk/trading-platform/data-shown-price-feed-wrong-will-affect-my-orders-or-positions
- https://www.weltrade.com/blog/broker-price-feed-manipulation/
- https://www.financemagnates.com/forex/bloggers/the-pitfalls-of-data-feeds-for-exchange-prices/
- https://forex92.com/blog/common-errors-forex-robots-encounter/
- https://feedcast.ai/en/blog/5-common-product-feed-errors-and-how-to-fix-them
- https://www.goatfundedtrader.com/blog/forex-trading-algorithms
- https://nurp.com/wisdom/common-algorithmic-trading-errors-and-solutions/