
The Order Book: What Sits Behind a Two-Number Quote
July 16, 2026 · 14 min readAn order book is the live, constantly updating list of pending buy and sell orders for a stock, organized by price — it's the raw data behind every quote you see.
EDITORIAL HIGHLIGHTS
Gordon Scott is a financial education consultant, active investor, trader, and technical analysis specialist with more than 20 years of experience in investing, trading, and financial education. He has traded and provided education covering securities, futures, forex, and penny stocks. Scott has more than 15 years of experience as a trading coach and has held roles in financial education, instructional design, content management, and academic instruction. He has developed educational programs designed to help individual traders and investors understand financial markets and trading strategies. From 2013 to 2018, Scott served as Managing Director of the Chartered Market Technician (CMT) designation’s examination program for the CMT Association. The CMT designation is a recognized professional credential in technical analysis. Scott previously served as a content manager at Investools, where he developed online curriculum and oversaw educational content related to trading strategies. He also spent 10 years with IBM, developing instructional materials and working on business process refinement, and served as an adjunct instructor in organizational strategy and leadership at Brigham Young University. Scott is the co-author of "Invest to Win" with Toni Turner, a book covering investment approaches and the GainsMaster Investing method. He earned a Bachelor of Arts in Technical Writing from Brigham Young University and a master’s degree in Instructional Technology from San Jose State University. He is a Chartered Market Technician (CMT) and a member of the CMT Association.
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