In a
securities market, the list of
buy and
sell orders that are active at any time. These are either posted on the exchange, available for any direct market participant (as on
NASDAQ with
level II quotes), are kept in a separate list with a
specialist to execute it, or only the best ask and bid price are available from the exchange.
In electronic form, the common way to display an order book is to have a list of the best bids on the left, and a list of the best asks on the right, with color coding for each price.