Learn order flow
Order flow glossary
The words you meet on every order-flow chart — from delta, footprint and absorption to VWAP, stop runs and spoofing — each explained with a real TapeHawk chart.
Reading order flow
order flow
Order flow is the stream of executed trades and resting orders behind every price move, read to see who is pushing the market and where.
footprint
A footprint chart opens each candle by price, showing how much traded at every level and whether buyers or sellers were the aggressors there.
delta
Delta is aggressive buying volume minus aggressive selling volume, over a bar, a price level or a stretch of time.
CVD
CVD is the running total of delta: aggressive buying minus aggressive selling, added up trade by trade over time.
aggressor
The aggressor is the side of a trade that crossed the spread: a buyer paying the offer or a seller hitting the bid, against a passive limit order.
imbalance
An imbalance is a price where aggressive buying or selling was several times larger than the other side, compared diagonally on a footprint.
stacked imbalance
A stacked imbalance is a run of consecutive price levels all imbalanced the same way — one side overwhelming the other across a stretch of prices.
absorption
Absorption is aggressive buying or selling that trades in size without moving price, because resting orders on the other side soak it up.
sweep
A sweep is one aggressive order that trades through several price levels of the order book in a single motion, taking all the size in its way.
large trade
A large trade is a single execution big enough to be one participant’s decision rather than the tail of a stream of small orders.
tape reading
Tape reading is reading the trades themselves — each execution’s price, size and aggressor side — rather than a summary of them such as a candle.
relative volume (RVOL)
Relative volume is a bar’s traded volume as a multiple of what the bars before it usually traded — 1.0 is normal, 2.0 twice as busy.
Profiles and price levels
POC
The point of control is the price that traded the most volume within a bar, a session or any chosen range.
volume profile
A volume profile is a horizontal histogram of how much traded at each price over a session, showing where the market accepted price and where it passed through.
value area
The value area is the band of prices around the point of control that holds most of the traded volume — 70% by convention.
HVN and LVN
Volume nodes are the peaks and valleys of a volume profile: prices where volume piled up (HVN) and prices the market crossed with little trading (LVN).
TPO (Market Profile)
TPO, or time price opportunity, marks each price with a letter for every period of the session it traded in, drawing the session’s shape by time.
VWAP
VWAP is the average price paid since a starting point — usually the start of the day — with each price weighted by the volume traded at it.
Order book and liquidity
heatmap
A liquidity heatmap draws the order book over time: price up the side, time across, each cell coloured by how much size was resting there.
DOM
The DOM, or depth of market, is the live list of resting buy and sell orders at each price around the current price.
liquidity
Liquidity is the size resting in the order book, ready to trade — the limit orders waiting at each price for someone to take them.
market depth
Market depth is how much size rests in the order book beyond the best bid and ask — the limit orders waiting at each price above and below the market.
bid-ask spread
The bid-ask spread is the gap between the highest bid and the lowest ask — the cost of trading immediately.
order book imbalance
Order book imbalance compares the size resting on the bid and the ask near the current price — resting demand against resting supply.
pulled liquidity
Pulled liquidity is resting size that leaves the order book without being traded — a wall cancelled, often as price approaches it.
spoofing
Spoofing is placing large orders you do not intend to fill, to suggest demand or supply at a price, and cancelling them before they trade.
iceberg order
An iceberg order is a large limit order that shows only a small slice in the order book and refills it at the same price as each slice is filled.
Orders and execution
market vs limit order
A market order trades immediately at the best available price; a limit order waits in the book at a chosen price until someone trades against it.
stop run
A stop run is a fast move that triggers a cluster of stop orders, each forced order pushing price into the next ones.
liquidation
A liquidation is a leveraged position the exchange closes by force when losses eat through its margin — a forced sell for a long, a forced buy for a short.