What is pulled liquidity?

Pulled liquidity is resting size that leaves the order book without being traded. A large bid or offer sits at a price, other traders see it and react to it, and then — often as price approaches — it is cancelled. What looked like a wall was shown, not offered, and once it is gone the way past that price is thinner than it looked.

What it looks like on the chart

The heatmap above carries Liquidity Changes. Down the live edge at 14:17 is a column of circles, each with a plate: Liquidity -37 near 77,930, -22, -26, -15 near 77,690, -20 near 77,610, then -36, -44 and -56 further down the book near 77,450, 77,310 and 77,150. Each circle is a large wall withdrawn — the minus sign is the size that left the book without trading. The circles sit at the live edge because the indicator follows the book from the moment the panel opens.

How traders read it

• A wall pulled as price approaches was never meant to be filled. Moves often speed up through the price where it stood.
• Walls that stay are the opposite: size committed enough to be tested. Price often slows as it gets close.
• Placed and removed, again and again, at the same price describes someone managing a level rather than trading at it.
• Pulled is not traded. A wall eaten by market orders is absorption or a sweep; a wall that vanishes with no trades printing is a cancellation. The heatmap's trade bubbles tell the two apart.

On TapeHawk

The Liquidity Changes indicator follows only the very largest resting orders on the symbol — what counts as large is learned from the book itself — and marks a square when such a wall has appeared and stood for a while, and a circle when a wall that had stood is withdrawn without being traded. It reads the book in your browser, so it starts when the panel opens; a wall that lives for less than one book update is never seen, and a wall already standing at the start never gets a square but still gets a circle if it is pulled.