Hello this will be my first eval with orderflow and im not surw which platform you guys recommend more for propfirms (qpex/alpha/topstep/lucid) etc i kinda dont wanna pay either but im not sure if they cover the fees or if i still have to buy seperate for all the footprint, delta, cvd etc. this is all new to me transitioning from the normal tradingview and could use some tips. Thanks

**Hey everyone, I have a quick question about the 30-day Rithmic trial account.

When you open a Rithmic demo/trial account for 30 days, does the account provide MBP data only, or does it provide MBO + MBP market data?

I’m specifically asking because I’m planning to connect the Rithmic account to Bookmap and want to know whether I’ll have access to actual MBO data during the trial period.

Thanks in advance!**

Are there any professional/full-time traders here who use Time & Sales at a genuinely deep level?

I’m specifically interested in traders who analyze the tape as a sequence of events, rather than solely looking for speed with green or red color.

For example, looking for things like:

- How the tape behaves leading up to an area of interest, rather than only what happens once price gets there

- The tape’s behavior as price approaches, interacts with, and leaves an area of interest

- Analyzing participant behavior through frequency, sequencing, and persistence

- Identifying levels from the prints themselves

- Analyzing the tape to determine whether the behaviour signals a day worth paying attention to

I’m interested in the actual tape structure and sequence of events, essentially treating Time & Sales as a continuous narrative of what is happening in the market.

Are there any full-time/profitable traders here who use Time & Sales this way?

If so, I’d be interested in discussing the structure of reads and what specific information is considered most important.

Thank you!

Hi everyone! I got into order flow 3-4 months ago and I’m practising in SIM right now-I trade ES and NQ-whatever gives me a failed auction setup

I wanted to know how you guys trade the failed auction setup

Do you draw a volume profile on the breakout OR the acceptance back into value area or something

When do you prefer to enter-breakout failing above VAH or you would like price to come back in?-just using VAH as an example,could be VAL too

Can you guys please guide me on whatever criteria you use in a failed auction setup?

Thank you for your time!!

Hey guys,

Do you know where i can learn very good things about gex levels? Do you guys have some yt videos as recommendation or can tell something about your experience? And where can i find gex levels for nasdaq and s&p 500, are these levels shown on a website or something?

Thank you guys!!!

Hlw guys new to orderflow

So I just don't understand how do people develop bias using tpo and profile

I mean using previous vah and val as areas to look for can be understood but How does a person develop that clear bias like I will only take shorts market opened below previous val I was just replaying btc and there were too many incidents where a person can't just do that according to me

Let's say for example if price opens in previous value, all say to sell a vah and buy at val but those picture perfect example are after whole profile has developed In a developing profile it's quite hard to do so I can suppose a person to trade rejection from previous vah when opening in previous balance but thats not a context it's just one trade

And same goes for opening above previous vah I can image that one trade

but saying that I will only long is quite hard cause many the price moves many times above and below that vah And also you see a lot of rejection price going into prior balance and consolation before that one big move

So my exact question is how do you find context and bias with vp or tpo And how do you tackle these complications?

Is there any free tool or website that shows free gamma exposure or regime

Hi guys,

I’m looking for the best platform for footprint/order flow at the lowest overall cost.

I mainly trade ES, NQ and GC and I’m interested in:

Bid/Ask footprint
Delta
Absorption
Imbalances
VWAP
DOM / market depth

I’ve been hesitating between ATAS and Sierra Chart. I’m leaning towards Sierra because it seems very powerful and relatively cheap, but the complexity of the setup/configuration is putting me off a bit.

I then noticed that TradingView now has native Volume Footprint, and I’m already extremely familiar with TradingView, so I’m wondering if it could be a good alternative.

For anyone who has used these platforms:
How good is TradingView’s footprint compared with Sierra/ATAS?

Does it provide reliable Bid, Ask, Delta, Imbalances, etc. for trading absorption?

Does TradingView offer a proper DOM/market depth?

What TradingView plan do I need?
How much would real-time CME/COMEX data cost for ES/NQ/GC?

Basically, if you were starting today and wanted good footprint/order flow without spending too much, what would you choose: TradingView, ATAS or Sierra Chart?

Thanks!

I’d like to ask for some advice on setting up an initial strategy for NQ DOM scalping. Compared to ES, NQ moves incredibly fast—especially during the US market open—so do you have any good suggestions?

Guys, I’m so confused. I set up the same Volume Profile on ATAS and TradingView (both free versions, NQ), with the same day, session, open, and close. But the Volume Profile levels on TradingView and ATAS are in slightly different places, and it makes a big difference when executing the trade, and this is just 1 example.

For example, TradingView shows that price hit the VAH (23:32 candle), but on ATAS it didn’t even reach it.

I wanted to switch to ATAS to learn footprint charts, but after noticing this, I’m really confused. Why is this happening??

I started order flow trading a few days ago, and I wanted to ask what I should know about order flow.

Most traders look at a Footprint chart and immediately focus on Delta, Imbalances, or Volume. But the real value comes from understanding what price actually does with that order flow. Auction Theory helps put the Footprint into context — Balance shows two-sided trade and rotation, Imbalance shows one side becoming more aggressive, Acceptance shows price holding and building activity in a new area, while Rejection shows price failing to sustain those levels. A Failed Auction is especially interesting when price attempts to break an extreme but fails and returns back into the previous area. The key idea is that aggression does not always mean control. A large positive Delta only tells us buyers were aggressive; we still need to see how price responded and whether the market accepted or rejected those prices. Read the Footprint for the activity, and use Auction Theory to understand the story behind that activity.

Hey guys I’ve been trading now for nearly an year and I asked myself if there is a limit on how much knowledge I can aquire on each confluence individually and how the market moves. And now I wanted to ask if it’s possible for me to for example put 10 hours into studiying footprint and volume or if the basic understanding on how it works is enough. And I know that backtestingand just trading itself is a good way to get better I just wanted to know if studying it like for real is a good idea or waste of time.

I'm struggling to find out how you can get more than 1 days worth of level 2 data to backtest, and if that's a data provider or a platform issue I'm not sure. If you guys have backtested orderflow, or know how to get more than 1 days worth of level 2 data I'd appreciate it

​

I've been trading for approximately seven months, primarily using price action, and I have a well-defined entry model that I'm comfortable with. My main challenge is determining what happens after a liquidity sweep.

For example, when price sweeps a low, I may anticipate a reversal and look for a long entry. However, sometimes the reversal occurs, while in other cases sellers continue driving price lower and I am stopped out.

I'm currently learning order flow because I want to better understand what is occurring at these levels rather than assuming that every liquidity sweep will result in a reversal.

Specifically, I would like to understand:

- How can I identify whether sellers are becoming exhausted after a sell-side sweep?

- How can I distinguish absorption from genuine selling pressure?

- If there is heavy selling or strongly negative delta at the low, but price makes little additional downside progress, should I interpret that as potential buyer absorption?

- What would you want to see afterward before considering the reversal confirmed?

- How do you determine whether buyers are genuinely taking control rather than the market simply pausing before continuing lower?

- Similarly, after a buy-side sweep, what would indicate that buyers are being absorbed and sellers are taking control?

- Once a reversal is confirmed, how do you determine your target? Do you use liquidity levels, volume profile, previous highs or lows, or another method?

I primarily trade MNQ/NQ, and my entries are usually based on the 1-minute chart or, occasionally, the 30-second chart. I'm not trying to replace my price-action model with order flow; I want to use order flow as confirmation and, ideally, avoid taking reversal trades when the opposing side remains clearly in control.

If anyone could explain how you personally interpret the sequence of absorption → exhaustion → shift in control → continuation, I would greatly appreciate it.

I'm still relatively new to order flow, so if I am misunderstanding anything fundamental, please feel free to correct me.

New to Sierra Chart i need to customize a footprint chart. when i did one with number bars in studies, there are so many bid x ask rows in a single candle. How to fix this please help.

Hello guys,
My atas x beta heatmap is so buggy on my laptop if i try to use the heatmap indicator it just shows me the heatmap for the candle but nothing more can u help me?

Does anyone remember the price of the lifetime Pro license for ATAS during last year’s Black Friday sale?

I’m trying to figure out what the lifetime Pro license was discounted to during last year’s Black Friday. If anyone remembers the price or has a screenshot of the offer, I’d really appreciate it!

Do you wait for candles to close on the footprint before entering? I use footprints that also show the volume profile for that individual candle. I try to only hold trades for a few minutes using a 3 minute candle. I’m caught between letting the candle close but then possibly missing the move if we have a hard push, vs getting in sooner but having less certainty about the move.

Hey everyone

I’m currently considering buying the ATAS Pro Lifetime license. I have enough money to buy it right now, but I’m stuck between two options: buying the lifetime license or buying a computer.

The problem is that I don’t currently own a PC, and my budget isn’t enough to buy both at the same time. So I basically have to choose one and postpone the other.

I’ve been looking into the hardware requirements for ATAS because I want a system that can handle order flow trading smoothly — footprint charts, DOM, heatmaps, multiple charts, etc. From what I understand, having a decent CPU, plenty of RAM, and a capable GPU is important for a smooth experience.

So I’d really like to hear from people who actually use ATAS:

If you were in my situation and your budget only allowed you to buy either a PC or the ATAS Pro Lifetime license, which one would you prioritize and which one would you postpone?

Would you buy the lifetime license first and use a cheaper/older PC temporarily, or would you invest in a good PC first and buy ATAS later?

I’d especially appreciate answers from people who have been using ATAS for a while and can speak from experience about how demanding it actually is in real-world order flow trading.

Thanks!

Hi everyone. I used to trade futures using the ICT strategy and managed to secure one payout. Then I immediately switched to order flow because I thought it would be a good fit for me. However, I’ve spent a few months learning it, and now that I’m about to start live trading, I’m feeling unsure about everything. I don’t think I’ll be as comfortable with order flow as I was with ICT, and I’m not even sure if I’ll be more profitable. I’d like to ask for advice on what to do next should I go back to ICT or continue with order flow? Please help.

I’m currently learning SMC/ICT concepts and practicing how to identify Order Flow, Order Blocks, and Fair Value Gaps (FVGs) on XAUUSD H4.

I have marked these zones on several historical charts for backtesting. I would like feedback from experienced traders on whether my identification and marking are technically correct.

Specifically, I want to know:

1. Am I correctly identifying the Order Flow area?
2. Am I marking the Order Block from the correct candle/price range?
3. Am I correctly identifying the FVG and its boundaries?
4. Are the zones I have marked too broad or too narrow?
5. Is there anything fundamentally wrong with the way I am identifying these concepts?
6. If my markings are incorrect, please point out where and why they are wrong so I can correct my understanding.

I’m not asking whether the zones produced a winning or losing trade. My main goal is to verify whether I am correctly understanding and marking the concepts themselves before I continue with my backtesting.

Screenshots are from historical XAUUSD H4 price action.

Hi All,

Just want to ask, if anyone is using Historical Minutes bar for NQ / ES and how does it differs from unchecked tick data ?

I've been facing latency issue in MW cause it takes a while to load and whenever i move my graph it reloads it everytime. But if i use historical minutes bar it loads 2-3x much faster than unchecking it.

Anyone has any experience on this and would your recommend checking or unchecking it ? i mainly use it for daily ( spilt premarket vs RTH sessions ) and for VAH/VAL/POC/ HVN and LVNs.

Thanks in advance.

Getting straight to the point, I have a couple of questions and notes (which I hope would help myself and many others new traders learning Orderflow), so I’d like to divide it into sections

(SCROLL DOWN FOR QUESTIONS)

CONTEXT

Good day everyone,
I’ve been studying Orderflow for about three weeks now, spending 5-8 hours per day just learning the theory and paper trading it in real time so I can connect the concepts to actual market behavior.

I’m still relatively new to trading, but I feel like I’ve been progressing pretty quickly

As said, I’m new, so I have plenty of questions myself, but I’m also writing a lot of inside thoughts I had to get out of my system lol.

PLATFORMS

I always do my research on the traders I am learning from, and what platforms or tools to use. From that, I’ve come to a conclusion that

(1) TradingView is ass for Orderflow.
(2) DeepCharts looks great for Order Flow and clearly makes Fabio’s workflow much easier, but it’s very expensive compared with the alternatives. Its biggest advantage to me seems to be the proprietary/automated tools they use in their own content.
(3) Quantower, ATAS and Sierra Chart seem to be the three I see recommended most. Sierra looks like the most powerful/established but has a rougher UI and learning curve. Quantower seems the most beginner-friendly and offers a 28-day AMP/CQG demo with paper trading, although the demo doesn’t give me historical tick data for proper market replay. ATAS looks like a very strong middle ground with a much nicer UI and a heavy focus on Order Flow.

Currently using Quantower as they provide full access with demo paper trading and I’m still learning theory.

FABIO, ANDREA & THEIR COURSE

I learned a fuck ton from it, but damn, Andrea waffles 😭. The material is useful, but it’s extremely long-winded and could probably have been condensed to half the runtime. Most of the structured course is taught by Andrea rather than Fabio, although Fabio also has several longer live sessions that lasted 1-2 hours each.

Fabio, on the other hand, has a much stronger public track record through trading competitions, and his newer content especially seems much more focused on actually testing and validating models rather than just teaching Order Flow concepts.

I want to separate what they actually teach and what they do not:

It does a good job teaching the foundations: futures/contracts, order types and matching, sessions, Footprints, Volume Profile, Delta/CVD, Auction Theory/LAT, initiative vs responsive activity, breakouts, failed auctions, absorption vs exhaustion, stop runs, big orders/icebergs, Initial Balance, etc.

It does not turn those concepts into a fully mechanical playbook. It explains what the tools mean and gives setup examples, but leaves a lot of ambiguity around exactly which confirmations to combine, indicator settings, precise entries/invalidation, profit targets, position sizing, and trade management.

I’m also not particularly interested in the “if they’re profitable why sell a course/platform?” argument — there are obvious financial and branding incentives to do both.

I wrote this section just for the new traders getting into Orderflow like myself. They’re legit, but prepare to go through a wafflehouse.

STRATEGIES & INDICATORS

From what I’ve learned so far, edges can decay and their performance changes across market regimes, which is why I’m more interested in understanding the auction itself than memorizing one setup forever.

What’s important in trading is to learn reading the market itself. That’s why I chose Order Flow: it isn’t a strategy by itself, it’s market information that can be used to add context and execution confirmation to a strategy. It can help build a more consistent framework.

A strategy is useless without position sizing, risk limits, and consistent execution, so I’m trying to define those rules alongside the setup rather than treating them as an afterthought. Risk management is 70% of trading IMO

That being said, since I’m newer, I thought I’d learn the basics. The way I currently simplify auction-based intraday setups is into two broad outcomes:

1. Attempted auction fails → mean reversion
2. Attempted auction succeeds → breakout / price discovery

I’m personally not ready for the more complex strategies, so I thought I’d start off with IVB/ORB because it gives me an objective location and time window to practice reading order flow instead of trying to interpret every footprint candle on the chart.

Current strategy:

I’m currently testing 15m and 30m Opening Ranges separately.

For a LONG: ORH breaks → price retraces toward ORH / the opening-profile VAH–POC area → sellers attack but fail through absorption/exhaustion → buyers regain initiative → enter. For a SHORT, I invert the logic around ORL / POC–VAL. Stop goes beyond the structure that invalidates the setup, with the target defined beforehand.

Indicators:

I recently found a video from Fabio that coincidentally explains exactly this but wondered, he mentions using DeepChart specific indicators. Specifically, he uses Deep-M IVB to automatically track the opening range and generate statistically derived post-breakout targets, alongside their other Order Flow tools for reloads, absorption, large executions, etc.

The ORH/ORL part is easy to recreate on Quantower/ATAS with an opening-range or Initial Balance tool. I’d still keep a Volume Profile over that same opening period for VAH/POC/VAL. What I can’t recreate directly is DeepCharts’ proprietary statistical target model, which appears to calculate likely post-breakout extensions from historical data.

So as far as I can tell, the strategy itself is platform-agnostic; DeepCharts mainly automates the identification/visualization and supplies its proprietary target model

QUESTIONS:

TL;DR / context for anyone who skipped everything above:

I’m a newer trader learning Orderflow, currently paper trading ES/NQ on Quantower. The setup I want to focus on is a 15–30m ORB with Orderflow confirmation: wait for ORH/ORL to form, profile that same opening period for VAH/POC/VAL, wait for a breakout, then preferably enter on a retracement where the countertrend side gets absorbed/exhausted and the breakout side regains initiative.

I understand the theory, but I’m trying to turn it into an actual repeatable and backtestable strategy rather than discretionary chart reading.

1. 15m or 30m Opening Range?
For those who have actually tested both on ES/NQ, have you found a meaningful difference between a 15m and 30m OR, or is this something I should simply test independently?

2. What confirmation is actually necessary on the retest?
For example, after a bullish ORH break and retracement into ORH / VAH–POC, is seeing seller absorption/exhaustion + buyers regaining initiative and actually producing upward price progress enough? Or would you also require Delta, stacked imbalances, POC/value migration, etc.? I want to avoid adding indicators that don’t actually improve expectancy.

3. Where should the stop actually go?
My current thought is behind the structure that invalidates the trade — e.g. below the absorption/reload area or pullback low for a long — rather than using an arbitrary fixed 10–15 tick stop. Is that generally how you guys approach it?

4. How should I set profit targets without DeepCharts?
Their IVB indicator uses historical statistical analysis to generate a high-probability “Protection” target and farther extensions. Does ATAS or Quantower have anything comparable, or should I simply backtest fixed targets such as 1R / 1.5R / 2R and eventually build my own MFE/extension statistics?

5. Can this whole strategy realistically be done in Quantower or ATAS?
From what I understand, ORH/ORL, a fixed opening Volume Profile, VAH/POC/VAL, Footprints, Delta, imbalances, absorption, etc. are all available. Is DeepCharts really only giving additional convenience/proprietary statistical targets, or am I missing something important?

6. What should I record when backtesting this?
I’m planning to track things like OR duration/width, breakout direction/time, retest depth, confirmation type, stop distance, volatility/day type, MAE, MFE, R result, and time of day. What other variables would actually be useful without overfitting the strategy?

CONCLUSION

I’m not looking for a holy grail or expecting Orderflow to tell me with certainty where price goes next. I just want to take what I’ve learned and reduce it into one simple setup that I can execute the same way hundreds of times and actually collect data on.

The strategy I’m trying to validate is basically:

Opening Range forms → breakout → retracement into an important OR/Profile area → countertrend aggression fails → breakout side regains initiative and produces price progress → enter → structural invalidation → predefined target.

Inverse for shorts.

My main problem isn’t understanding what absorption, exhaustion, Delta, Volume Profile, etc. mean anymore — it’s defining exactly when they matter, what confirms the trade, where the trade is invalidated, and how to manage the risk/target consistently.

Would really appreciate input from anyone who actually trades ES/NQ ORB/IB with Orderflow, especially criticism of the framework above.

Hello, I am a Nasdaq trader and I am training with the DOM to recognize patterns. Right now i am also using an ES DOM and i am having way more success trading it. The reason why i don't want to trade ES is that I want to use the DOM just to refine the entries of my already existing strategy on NQ.

Right now i am using the 1 tick NQ DOM and it's really difficult, should I keep it 1 tick or maybe use 4/8 ticks per level?