How to use Exness tick history to verify bid and ask prices
If you’re a serious trader, you no longer have to wonder why an order was executed at a certain price or simply take your broker’s word for it.
At Exness, you can just check our public tick history and see the historical pricing data for yourself.
Key takeaways
- Exness tick history is publicly available. You can download historical bid and ask prices without logging in or opening a trading account.
- The data goes back to 2015. Millisecond-level records let you examine historical pricing and spreads in detail.
- You can check historical prices independently. Compare the data against your trade history to investigate pricing around entries, exits, and stop outs.
- Tick history also supports strategy research. Use it to analyze spread behavior or as an input for backtesting.
- Pricing data isn't the same as execution data. Historical quotes provide useful context, but they don't capture every factor affecting an individual trade.
What is Exness tick history?
Exness tick history is a publicly available archive of historical bid and ask prices.
It lets you download tick data for a specific instrument and time period, so you can see how prices moved, check historical spreads, and compare the data against your own trades.
The archive dates back to 2015, with pricing data recorded at millisecond-level precision, up to 15 ticks per second.
Making it public is part of our commitment to fair, transparent trading conditions. We believe traders should be able to independently verify the prices we provide, rather than simply trusting that they're accurate.
Here's how to use it.
How Exness tick history works
Unlike a standard price chart, which represents market movements as candles or bars, tick history provides individual price updates.
This allows you to examine price movements or spreads in much more detail.
Let’s go over the terminology.
Term | What it means |
Tick | An individual recorded price update for an instrument. |
Bid price | The price at which you can sell an instrument or close a buy position. |
Ask price | The price at which you can buy an instrument or close a sell position. |
Spread | The difference between the bid and ask prices at a given moment. |
Tick history | A downloadable record of historical bid and ask price updates for a selected instrument and period. |
Build your strategy on real data
Use our historical tick data to study past price action and test your trading ideas.
At Exness, all this information is publicly available on our tick history page.
You don't need a trading account or login to access it. Just choose the instrument and period you're interested in, then download the data.
Note that tick history doesn’t show individual trade executions. It can help you verify pricing conditions, but it doesn't tell you everything about how a particular order was executed.
How to choose the right instrument and time period
First, select the instrument as it appears on your trading platform, such as XAUUSD. Then choose the time period you want to examine.
If you're investigating a specific trade, focus on the period around its execution to identify relevant price movements.
Keep in mind:
- Current month: Download tick data for individual days.
- Previous months: Download tick data for the full month.
For example, to investigate a trade from three months ago, you'll need to download that month's complete tick history, even if you only need a few seconds of data.
How to download Exness tick data
Accessing historical tick data is straightforward.
- Visit the Exness tick history page.
- Select the instrument you want to investigate.
- Choose the month or date range.
- Download the tick history file.
- Extract the ZIP file to access the historical pricing data.
You can use the built-in search function to jump through the tick history report for a particular time or price, rather than manually scrolling through the entire dataset.
For longer periods or frequently traded instruments, the files can be quite large, so we'll cover a few ways to manage them later.
How to read bid and ask prices in the downloaded file
Each tick records a price update with three key details:
- Timestamp: When the update was recorded.
- Bid: The quoted selling price.
- Ask: The quoted buying price.
With millisecond-level precision, tick data lets you examine price movements in greater detail than candlestick charts, particularly during volatile markets or major news events.
You can also calculate the spread at any recorded moment by subtracting the bid price from the ask price.
Spread = Ask price − Bid price
For example, suppose the historical data shows the following XAUUSD quotes:
Timestamp | Bid | Ask | Spread |
14:30:00.100 | 2,650.00 | 2,650.15 | 0.15 |
14:30:00.250 | 2,649.80 | 2,650.05 | 0.25 |
14:30:00.500 | 2,649.50 | 2,649.90 | 0.40 |
Illustrative figures only. Not actual Exness tick data.
In this example, the spread widens from 0.15 to 0.40 over a fraction of a second.
By examining historical bid and ask prices, you can see how spreads behaved during a particular market event, rather than relying on a general average.
Step-by-step: How to verify Exness bid and ask prices
Let's assume you've reviewed a previous trade and want to understand the pricing conditions at the time it was executed.
Here's how you can investigate using Exness tick history.
Step | What to do | What you can check |
1. Select your instrument | Open the tick history page and choose the exact instrument and date range. | The historical pricing data for the instrument you traded. |
2. Download the data | Download and extract the ZIP file. | The recorded bid and ask quotes for the selected period. |
3. Find the timestamp | Search for your trade’s time frame, including nearby ticks. | How quoted prices were moving around the time of execution. |
4. Compare the prices | Open your account's trade history alongside the tick data. | How your recorded trade price compares with historical quotes. |
5. Check the spread | Subtract the bid price from the ask price. | The quoted spread at the selected moment. |
6. Ask for clarification | If something still doesn't add up, contact Exness Support with the instrument, timestamp, and relevant details. | Whether further investigation is needed to explain the difference. |
Check every tick
Review our millisecond-level historical pricing and verify the data for yourself.
The aim is to give you a way to investigate historical pricing independently, using publicly available data.
Why verify bid and ask prices against historical ticks?
Prices and trading conditions change. Historical tick data helps you understand what happened by showing how bid and ask prices moved over time.
Checking spreads during volatile markets
Spreads can be affected around major economic announcements, market breaks, or weekends.
Historical tick data shows you exactly how bid and ask prices moved during these periods, giving you a clearer picture of actual pricing conditions.
Reviewing the price context around a stop out
If a trade stops out, tick data can help you check whether prices moved sharply or spreads widened around the event.
Remember that stop outs also depend on factors like account equity, margin requirements, and open positions, which tick data alone can't explain.
Investigating an unexpected price
If an order executes at an unexpected price, tick data lets you compare the execution price with historical bid and ask quotes to see whether prices moved rapidly or spreads changed.
How to compare your trade prices with historical ticks
To compare execution prices with tick data, you'll need your trade history and the corresponding historical ticks.
Access your trade history through your Exness trading platform, including Terminal, MT4 or MT5. Then identify the instrument, execution time, and price.
Make sure the timestamps match. Trading platforms may use server time rather than your local time, so account for any time-zone differences.
Finally, compare your execution price with the relevant bid or ask quotes, including ticks immediately before and after execution. This gives you a clearer picture of price movements, especially during volatile markets.
Why might your execution price differ from the tick data?
Tick history shows quoted prices, while trade history records the prices at which your orders were executed. These won't always match due to several factors:
- Market movements: Prices may change between order submission and execution, especially during volatility.
- Available liquidity: Liquidity at the time of execution can affect your fill price.
- Order type: Market and pending orders have different execution conditions.
- Timing: Even small differences in timestamps can affect price comparisons.
A difference doesn't necessarily mean an execution issue. Tick data helps you review historical pricing, but it doesn't capture the full execution process.
If you have concerns about an order, you can always contact our Support team for help.
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Using tick history for backtesting and spread analysis
Tick history can help you better understand how instruments have behaved under different market conditions.
That makes it very useful when developing or refining a strategy. Here are a few practical applications.
Testing strategies against historical pricing
Tick data lets you backtest automated strategies and Expert Advisors (EAs), particularly high-frequency strategies where small changes in trading costs matter.
Just remember that backtesting can't fully replicate live execution, and past performance doesn't guarantee future results.
Compare spreads across trading sessions
Liquidity and volatility vary across trading sessions.
Tick data helps you analyze spreads during Asian, London, and New York trading hours to understand historical trading costs and refine your strategy.
Research pricing across brokers
When comparing brokers, tick data lets you examine historical prices and spreads under specific market conditions, beyond advertised averages.
Just make sure you're comparing equivalent instruments, account types, and time periods. Differences in pricing feeds and execution models can also affect results.
Tips for handling large tick data files
Monthly tick data files can contain thousands or even millions of records. Here's how to work with them more efficiently:
- Focus on relevant periods: Select specific days for the current month or filter by timestamp for older data.
- Use search: Find specific prices or timestamps using the tick history report's search function.
- Check spreadsheet limits: Large files may exceed spreadsheet row limits.
- Use analysis tools: Consider scripts or dedicated data analysis tools for large datasets or repeated backtests.
Oour approach depends on your goal. For example, reviewing a single trade is simpler than backtesting a strategy over several years.
How tick history supports fair trading at Exness
At Exness, we believe fair trading starts with conditions you can understand and verify.
That's why we make over a decade of historical tick data publicly available, so you can examine how our prices and spreads behaved in different market conditions.
While transparency can't make markets predictable or guarantee execution prices, it gives you the data to review our pricing, ask informed questions, and make better-informed trading decisions.
Where tick history fits into your trading toolkit
Historical pricing data is even more useful when you combine it with other Exness tools.
Your trading platform gives you access to your order and trade history, which you can compare against the tick archive.
The Exness trading calculator can help you calculate trading costs and other position parameters.
If you're reviewing trading costs across different account types, you can also explore the conditions available on our Pro accounts.
If you'd like to become more familiar with the process before trading live, you can use an Exness demo account to practice reviewing trades and comparing pricing information.
Together, these tools give you a more complete view of your trading activity, from planning a position to reviewing it after execution.
Frequently asked questions
How far back does Exness tick history go?
Exness provides public tick data dating back to 2015, covering historical bid and ask prices for available instruments.
What file format does Exness tick history download in?
Tick data downloads as a ZIP file. Extract it to access historical prices and search for specific timestamps.
Why might my executed price differ from the tick data?
Tick history records quoted prices, not executions. Differences can result from market movements, liquidity, order type, or timing, and don't necessarily indicate an issue.
Can I calculate spreads from tick history?
Yes. Subtract the bid price from the ask price to calculate the quoted spread at a given timestamp.
Can I use tick history to verify the price on one of my trades?
Yes. Compare your execution price with historical bid and ask quotes for the same instrument and time. However, tick data doesn't capture every aspect of execution.
How do I open the downloaded tick file?
Download and extract the ZIP file, then open the data using a compatible text or analysis tool. For large files, dedicated tools may work better than spreadsheets.
Is tick history the same as my live trading data?
No. Tick history records past quotes, live data shows current prices, and trade history records your individual orders and executions.
Does historical tick data guarantee future prices or execution?
No. Past prices don't predict future market movements or guarantee spreads, execution prices, or trading outcomes.
This article does not constitute investment advice. Past performance is not indicative of future results. The information, data, prices, and market conditions presented in this article are accurate as of the publication date and may change over time. Your capital is at risk. Please trade responsibly.