Requoting

Requoting is the routine practice of cancelling a resting limit order and reposting it at a different price, typically one tick away, so that a quote follows the market instead of being left behind. It accounts for a large share of the cancellations seen in an order book and is not evidence of deception.

Senzoukria · Glossary · Updated September 2026

Mechanics

A limit order sits at a fixed price. When the market moves, that price is either too far from the touch to be filled or too close to be safe. The owner cancels it and submits a new order at the adjusted level. On an order-by-order feed this appears as one order ending and another beginning; on an aggregated feed it appears as size leaving one level and size arriving at a neighbour.

  • The reposted size is frequently identical to the cancelled size.
  • The new level is usually adjacent: one or two ticks in the direction the market moved.
  • The cycle repeats for as long as the market keeps moving.

What it looks like on the heatmap

  • A resting band that steps up or down in lockstep with price, staying roughly the same distance from the touch, without accumulating executions.
  • A cancellation count that far exceeds the executed volume at the same levels over a session.
  • A diagonal staircase of short bands rather than a single long horizontal band.

In Senzoukria

The Liquidity tracker panel on the heatmap screen classifies each level's liquidity as withdrawn or executed. Its on-screen note reads that withdrawn includes normal market-maker requoting, cancelling to repost a tick away, and that this split distinguishes withdrawal from execution without calling withdrawal deceptive.

The panel needs the order-by-order (MBO) feed because it reads each order's life, not just the visible totals; if order events are lost the panel reports the count and describes the picture as partial rather than filling the gap.

Common mistakes

  • Counting each reposted order as a new participant entering the market.
  • Reading a staircase of requotes as a wall being built and then pulled.
  • Inferring intent from the cancellation itself: a cancel-and-repost is consistent with ordinary quote management.

This page in other languages

Frequently asked questions

Is requoting the same as spoofing?
No. Requoting is repricing a genuine quote that the owner is prepared to have filled. Spoofing is a legal term for orders placed without intent to execute, in order to mislead. Market data shows cancellations; it does not show intent, so a cancellation alone cannot establish either.
Why do cancellations outnumber executions so heavily?
Because every price move causes quotes on both sides to be repriced, while only the orders at the touch can actually trade. A single trade can be preceded by many cancel-and-repost cycles at nearby levels. This is why a tracker that reports the share of liquidity that left the book without trading tends to show a large share on the withdrawn side.
Can requoting be seen on an aggregated depth feed?
Only indirectly. Aggregated depth shows size totals per level, so a requote appears as a decrease at one level and an increase at another, indistinguishable from an unrelated cancel and an unrelated new order. Attributing the two events to the same order requires the order-by-order feed.

Keep reading

Strategy researchTest a trading strategy, from observation to challenge rulesDefine an observation, question it with the copilot, write a rule and explore costs, drawdown and fictional challenge limits in an interactive example.Quant · Start hereQuant trading for beginners: from idea to backtestDefine a testable rule, choose suitable data and evaluate later periods after costs.Order flow · HubOrder flow trading: the complete guideThe hub. What order flow is, what it shows — aggression, delta, imbalance, absorption, liquidity — and the tools that read it, each linked to a full guide.