trading the tape,
with precision_

A candle only shows where price went. Orderflow shows how it got there: every trade has an aggressor: a buyer who lifts the ask or a seller who hits the bid. Read those trades and you see who is pushing the market.

The bid is where buyers wait, the ask is where sellers wait. A market buy lifts the ask, a market sell hits the bid. Price moves when the orders at the best bid or ask are used up or pulled.

Passive traders place limit orders and wait. Aggressive traders send market orders and take what is there. The aggressor decides the direction of a trade; the passive side provides the liquidity.

A footprint splits each candle by price level and shows the volume traded on the bid and on the ask. Instead of one candle body you see where the volume actually happened. The level with the most volume is the POC (point of control).

Delta = ask volume − bid volume, so aggressive buys minus aggressive sells. Positive means buyers were more aggressive, negative means sellers were. Delta alone does not tell you who is winning: compare it with what price did.

CVD is the running total of delta. It shows whether aggressive buying or selling has been building up over time, not just in one candle. When price makes a new high but CVD does not confirm it, aggressive buyers are not keeping up. That is a divergence: a warning that the move may be running out of fuel, not a signal on its own.

If the ask volume at one level is at least 3× the bid volume one level below, that is a buy imbalance: buyers were clearly more aggressive. The mirror case (bid at least 3× the ask one level above) is a sell imbalance. The 3× ratio is a common default, not a rule.

Three or more imbalances at neighbouring price levels in a row are called stacked imbalances. They show initiative: one side kept pushing through level after level. Traders often watch these zones when price comes back: stacked buy imbalances as possible support, stacked sell imbalances as possible resistance.

Big volume but no price progress: aggressive orders keep hitting a large passive order that soaks them up. The aggressors are absorbed. It can be an early sign that a move is running out of fuel, but it needs confirmation from price.

Traders who chase a breakout and get hit by a quick reversal are trapped: their entry is now underwater. When they give up, their stops and exits (market orders) add fuel to the move in the other direction. Orderflow shows it as heavy aggressive volume at the extreme, followed by no follow-through.