Major FX pairs are deep enough that a single retail order rarely moves the tape. Exotic pairs are not. In this post we construct a practical

Major FX pairs are deep enough that a single retail order rarely moves the tape. Exotic pairs are not. In this post we construct a practical liquidity map for six liquid exotic crosses and show how dealer balance sheets change during Asian, European, and US sessions. The key insight is that banks hedge their directional exposure in correlated majors first, leaving exotic order books thinner than they appear on the screen.We then explain how to read that thinness: bid stack distribution, visible versus hidden liquidity, and the tell when a dealer is about to gap through a stop cluster. As...