What is an iceberg order?

An iceberg order is a large limit order that shows only a small part of itself in the order book. When the visible slice is filled, another slice of the same size appears at the same price, and so on until the whole order is done. It lets a large participant buy or sell at one price without advertising the full size — and the only way to notice it is that a level keeps absorbing far more than it ever showed.

What it looks like on the chart

TapeHawk does not detect iceberg orders, and nothing on the chart claims to. Exchanges do not mark them, and the public order book shows only the visible slice. What you can see is their footprint in the trades. The heatmap above carries Absorptions marks: places where aggressive size kept trading while price stayed pinned in a narrow band — +2529.3k and +1509.3k of buying absorbed near the highs. Absorption on a level whose visible size is small is exactly the trace a hidden order leaves: far more traded there than the book ever showed.

How traders read it

• Traded more than it showed. A price that absorbs aggressive orders well beyond the size resting there is being refilled — by an iceberg, or by someone re-placing orders as they fill.
• It is a level, until it is not. An iceberg defends a price; when it finishes or is pulled, the level can give way fast.
• Be careful with certainty. Refilling can also be several traders adding to the same price. The trades show the effect, not the order type.

On TapeHawk

There is no iceberg indicator. The closest tools are Absorptions, which marks aggressive size piling up without moving price, and the heatmap itself: trade bubbles printing into a band that stays bright, rather than shrinking, is size being refilled at that price. Liquidity Changes follows the largest visible walls, which an iceberg by definition is not.