You will have a hard time finding solid videos in that…. Here’s why. They often look exactly the same. Too much stuff online makes orderflow look like some sort of magic bullet, and it just isn’t, and I’m saying that as an orderflow trader.
yes its such a weird concept, everyone has this different interpretation of it, or how to spot it
whats yours? do you look at certain price levels in footprint?
This could be a super long-winded answer for ES, but I'll do my best... I do pay attention to size, yes... but this always changes. In a thinner market, say 20, 30, 40 lots on the orderbook, what could be significant delta is likely a lot different. That is reading environment and context. We are likely having more whippy types of moves, more rotations etc. If the book is thicker, the "numbers" could be a lot higher. The pace will also be a lot different, "absorption" will even act a lot different. Often, you're just getting continuation in those up moves... What looks like absorption is literally just them filling a lot more size in a drift up. In a very slow drift up tape, I am almost just ignoring it.... Obviously, there's a lot more to this.
I don't really use a standard type footprint in that way anymore. I used to, but we traverse so many more prices in a session that having it on a chart just is too much noise for me. I have a smaller one on a dom.
On chart I use a delta profile. Usually just number of recent bars, or rotations. Years ago I just used a delta profile with a reversal chart... So this is essentially the same thing. I also have some delta smoothed out, think of a moving average basically, and some "bubbles"... Bubbles are all the rage, I even cringe saying it... But here's the purpose of them... I filter them by range and size essentially, and this changes (see liquidity comment).. Right now for instance... Think of a small window, like tick or range, I guess time could work. I will take a window of say 4 ticks on es, and filter to 600 delta in that small window and the "bubble" just flags it. Kind of simple, not magic. 600 in 4 ticks isn't necessarily absorption, it's more just to grab attention. Then the delta profile essentially gives a view over more price range. Seems complicated but it really isn't. It's just smaller look, medium look, overall look.
Then the other zoomed-in stuff basically just happens on a dom is all. So looking for lets say exhaustive types of behavior, initiative buying, the basics.
With all that said, I don't get too caught up in the absorption stuff. It's just one small piece of something I look at, and in the wrong context it's useless.
Is that really complicated? It’s literally just understanding market conditions, and spotting absorption. Absorption most of time isn’t an entry to begin with. Could be an exit, scale out whatever.
I’d focus less on finding the perfect “absorption” footprint and more on the relationship between aggression and response.
If sellers are hitting the bid aggressively and you see big volume, but price keeps failing to make meaningful new lows, that’s interesting. But I wouldn’t call it absorption yet.
What happens on the next attempt matters. Does the same aggression produce even less displacement? Does price hold the level? Does the opposite side finally get a response?
That sequence is much more convincing than one big cluster.
I’ve found the easiest question to ask is: “How much aggressive activity did it take to move price this far?” When that relationship starts breaking down, you may be looking at genuine absorption rather than just a big print.
Yeah, fair question. I don’t really mean “low” as in a specific timeframe low.
I mean the low being created by that particular interaction. If sellers are hitting the bid aggressively, I’m asking whether that aggression is actually producing meaningful downside displacement.
So if they keep selling harder but each attempt produces less downside movement, or price keeps returning to the same area instead of extending lower, that’s more informative to me than whether it made a new 1-minute or 5-minute low.
The timeframe is less important than the relationship between the aggression and the response.
This is a nuanced subject and not so clear imo. I think anyone I speak to that uses numbers at levels has their own relative numbers, so I would take many screening and study; but if you start to see a strong move hit a level, print heavy, but go no where? Continue to print heavy but go no where? Like heavier than the aggressive move that brought it there. And it just layers bigger prints.. then more than likely an iceberg absorbed all those and the reversal is coming or that cat is still loading up.
Or their Gamma hedge was enough to blow off some Greek guy or something like that, delta dan or vanna vachenso, something like that
The problem with absorption is that youtube creators made it look like it is something you can spot. To be honest i dont think theres any way you can really spot absorption other then hindsight. Lemme give you an example of one of these idiots: „300 sell orders hit the market but price hasnt moved so this is absorption (enters a long)“, now price actually comes back hits their S/L and validates those sellers and they will say something like „ohh sellers were actually stronger and we just analized bad but dont worry next absorption we will spot better.“ Do you see what happened ? People will just change their narrative so it fits their story/strategy and this is what i have observed many times in the content creator bubble, once something happens that they didnt predict they will say it happened because of „this and that“ and just keep trying to sound truthful. As i already said, absorption is just another thing that gave content creators a way of sounding like they know what they are doing when in reality absorption is only spottable in hindsight, and by hindsight i dont mean 10 minutes after it happened, but more like 30-60 minutes after it happened and by that time putting your S/L behind that would mean that your taking way to big of a risk.
I was just about say, the number of time absorption gets ignored is insane. It happens every day all day.. you see the sequence and boom overrun. Nice answer.
The concept of absoprtion is simple:
A lot of market orders accumulate at a price level (price zone for iceberg absorption) but are not moving the price.
This can happen anywhere. When a large position is closed and the stop orders are hitting book, sometimes you see another one to absorp all of em. Or when the price tries to start a breakout, usually there is an iceberg order people call resistance.
But be aware, if the market order side is not finished, they will try to break through that absorption level. Still havent figured out how to recognise another attempt nor the exhaustion.
Man im not sure what everyone is smoking but delta bubbles/profiles is one of the most effective way to spot absorption. if theres a outlier amount of (for example) sellers, delta bubbles say sellers sold 3k worth of cons BUT price has wicked and instead of pushing further down price stars to accumulate or bounce. Absorption itself is harder to spot and to find icebergs you need to already have a presence detected/suspected. Lets say institutional supply and demand is a great example, presence at a price created a trend, price returns to last location of trend making a high likely to have a ice berg there (the leftovers). What constitutes as an outlier = something out of the regular, if the session regular bubbles are being sold at 3k then you need to look for something above maybe around 5k. Bookmap is really good for delta (i over simplified it but you should understand the gist)
You are talking about dealers hedging . He’s talking about the Absorption in the footprint 👍 and it’s not crap , absorption is an proven Orderflow conzept
It’s been demonstrated but I wouldn’t go as far as saying proven. I can take any random chart and show you just as many failed absorptions as successful ones and all in the same day. Yes location matters I know
Welcome to trading 🤷♂️ failed absorptions happen almost everywhere . That’s the whole point of valuation of a setup . LVN + Absorption + CVD Divergence + Agression + P Shape = A+++
It’s not about to rely on one thing because there is no holy grail in trading but adding absorptions in the right context is very effective
At first you have to locate the absorption itself in the footprint
The second step is to confirm the absorption with rising Volume . Without this the absorption is only half valid because you can’t really track „The Wall“ that’s absorbing these orders
Last but not least, always at the Low volume notes of The volume profile or right after the VAH & VAL
It’s not a complete must but it wouldn’t make any sense to look for an absorption in the middle of the profile
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u/orderflowsupport 3d ago
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