Market data is real-time or historical information about a financial market or instrument. It typically provides information such as price, bid/ask quotes, and market volume.
Market data may include details of executed trades on that market. It differs from the following other types of financial market data:
Reference data typically provides static or slowly changing metadata about financial instruments such as symbology (ticket symbols, ISIN codes) or corporate actions.
Fundamental data is information about the financial health of companies or assets such as earnings reports or balance sheets. Market data reflects real-time trading activity, while fundamental data underpins long-term valuation and investment decisions.
Order entry data (sometimes referred to as trading data or trade data) are the instructions submitted by a trader or trading system to buy or sell financial instruments. Whereas market data reflects the aggregated activity of all market participants, order entry data represents the individual intentions or actions of a particular trading participant (although note that each trading participant might in turn be aggregating orders from their own customers).