Order Flow (Footprint, Delta and Profile)

See who pushed price at each level: footprint, delta, volume profile, and CVD. The core idea is simple: Each candle of the chosen timeframe becomes a COLUMN.

19.1 Overview and concept

Order Flow is a chart view mode for reading a symbol's order flow (for example, the WINV26 mini-index). The core idea is simple:

The candlestick chart shows WHERE price went (open, high, low, close). Order Flow shows WHO pushed price at each level: how much was buying aggression and how much was selling aggression.

This reading is built from real, live trades — the broker's Times & Sales feed. Each trade arrives with four pieces of information: time, price, size, and aggressor side (whether the buyer or the seller took the initiative and "crossed the spread"). Delta, imbalances, POC, and CVD are calculated from that aggressor side.

Important warning: Order Flow is a market READING tool, not an automatic buy or sell signal. It helps you interpret the fight between buyers and sellers, but the decision is yours. Before trading with real money, test your interpretations on a paper trading account.

19.2 Glossary (read before the fields)

Aggressor — in every trade there is someone resting in the book (a waiting limit order) and someone who took the initiative to trade against it. The latter is the aggressor. If the aggressor was the buyer, there was buying aggression (upward pressure); if it was the seller, selling aggression (downward pressure). Delta — the difference between buying aggression volume and selling aggression volume: Delta = aggressive buys − aggressive sells. Positive delta (green) = buyers dominated; negative (red) = sellers dominated. Footprint — the way of showing, inside each candle, how much volume traded at each price level, separating the buy side from the sell side. Imbalance — when, at a price level, one side far outweighs the other (by the configured ratio, 3x by default). POC (Point of Control) — the price with the highest traded volume, for the whole session (in the left profile) or for a candle (inside the column). CVD (Cumulative Delta) — the sum of delta over time, forming a curve. Volume profile — the volume by price histogram: it shows which prices concentrated many trades ("accepted") and which had little volume ("rejected").

19.3 How to open

Order Flow is a mode of the chart itself, always with the same symbol/server:

Right-click the chart. Open Chart type. Choose Order Flow (to go back, choose Candlestick; the active mode shows as Active).

Important: the reading is built from the trades received. While nothing has traded in the window, No trades on the tape appears — outside market hours the tape resumes at the open; if the market is open, check the server connection.

19.4 Header — session indicators

At the top, four indicators sum up the session

Last Price — the price of the most recent trade received. Session Delta — the accumulated sum of (aggressive buys − aggressive sells) since the reading started. Positive (green) = buyers dominate the session; negative = sellers dominate. Current Delta — the same calculation, but only for the candle being formed. Session POC / Vol — the POC (price with the highest session volume) and the volume.

19.5 Session profile (fixed column on the left)

A horizontal volume-by-price histogram, accumulated over the session. Each row is a price; the bar length is the total volume traded at that price.

The longest bar is the session POC, highlighted. Prices with long bars traded a lot = "accepted" prices (they tend to pull price back). Prices with short bars had little volume = "rejected" prices (the market moved quickly through them).

19.6 Footprint cell by cell

Each candle of the chosen timeframe becomes a COLUMN. Inside the column, each row is a price level and shows two numbers in the Bid × Ask format:

Bid (left) = volume traded by SELLING aggression at that price. Ask (right) = volume traded by BUYING aggression at that price.

Elements of each column

Candle footer — each column has a box with the time, the Delta, the CVD, and the Volume of that candle. Imbalances — when, in a cell, one side outweighs the other by the configured ratio (3x by default), the cell is highlighted in color: green = BUYING imbalance (Ask far above Bid); red = SELLING imbalance. Candle POC — the most traded price of that candle, outlined. Forming candle — the current candle can be included or hidden with the "Include active candle" option.

19.7 CVD — Cumulative Delta and divergences

The CVD is the curve of delta accumulated over the session. It answers: overall, who is winning the fight?

CVD rising with price = buyers sustaining the rally. CVD falling with falling price = sellers sustaining the decline.

The classic use is divergence: when price and CVD disagree. Example: price makes a new high, but CVD makes a lower high. This suggests weak buying / absorption and may precede a reversal. The same applies in reverse at lows.

CVD can also be turned on in the candlestick chart from the context menu: Flow > CVD (cumulative delta).

19.8 Position overlay

If you have a position or order on this symbol, the screen draws the entry, Take Profit (TP), and Stop Loss (SL) lines over the footprint, mirroring the candlestick chart. You see your entry and targets in the context of the flow.

19.9 Interactions

Zoom — the mouse wheel zooms the footprint candles in and out. LIVE — when you move away from the latest candles, the LIVE button follows the most recent trades again. Context menu — right-clicking opens, besides the chart items, the Order Flow shortcuts: Reset session data — clears delta, profile, and POC and restarts accumulation from zero.

19.10 "Order Flow Settings" window

Identified by the "Footprint, Delta and Profile" chip. At the top, two read-only fields confirm the context: Asset and Server / account.

"Structure" section

Minimum highlighted volume — the volume from which a cell is highlighted. It cannot be negative. Increase it to "clean up" the noise. Imbalance ratio — how many times one side must outweigh the other to mark an imbalance (default 3; minimum 1.2). Lower ratio = more sensitive; higher = only extreme imbalances. Visible candles — how many columns show at the same time (from 4 to 18).

"Displayed readings" section (turns each layer on/off)

Show footprint — the Bid×Ask columns. Show imbalances — the colored imbalance highlight. Show session profile — the session profile on the left. Show cumulative delta — the CVD curve. Include active candle — includes (or not) the current candle in the reading.

Click Apply to use the changes.

Validation messages

Enter an imbalance ratio greater than or equal to 1.2. The minimum highlighted volume cannot be negative. Enter at least 4 visible candles.

19.11 Practical readings (examples)

Selling imbalances stacked at the high — price rises to a top and, at the highest levels, you see several red cells (Bid >> Ask). This is selling pressure hitting buyers at the top: the rally may be rejected. New high with falling CVD (divergence) — price makes a new high, but the CVD makes a lower high. This is weak buying / absorption. A warning of a possible reversal. POC as a magnet / support — the session POC tends to pull price back and, in trends, to act as support/resistance. Current delta against the candle — the candle is rising, but the Current Delta is negative: the rally is happening without buying dominance — be suspicious of continuation.

Remember: none of these patterns is a guarantee. They are context readings to support your decision — always validated first on a paper account.

19.12 Frequently asked questions (FAQ)

Why is the screen empty? The reading is built from the trades on the tape. Outside market hours, or without a server connection, No trades on the tape appears. Why did the delta (or the profile) suddenly reset? Either you used "Reset session data", or the flow reconnected. What is the difference between Session Delta and Current Delta? Session Delta accumulates since the reading started; Current Delta is only the forming candle. What do the two Bid × Ask numbers in a cell mean? Bid (left) = selling aggression volume at that price; Ask (right) = buying aggression volume. Why don't I see imbalances? It may be off in "Show imbalances", the Imbalance ratio may be too high, or the Minimum highlighted volume may be filtering the cells. Does Order Flow give buy/sell signals? No. It is a reading tool. Test your conclusions with paper trading before trading with real money.

Learn the concept on the blog

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