NexusFi: Find Your Edge


Home Menu

 





Understanding Footprint Charts / Number bars


Discussion in Traders Hideout

Updated
      Top Posters
    1. looks_one Silvester17 with 16 posts (120 thanks)
    2. looks_two Grantx with 12 posts (58 thanks)
    3. looks_3 josh with 9 posts (65 thanks)
    4. looks_4 RickW00716 with 7 posts (12 thanks)
      Best Posters
    1. looks_one Silvester17 with 7.5 thanks per post
    2. looks_two josh with 7.2 thanks per post
    3. looks_3 Grantx with 4.8 thanks per post
    4. looks_4 Botts with 4.5 thanks per post
    1. trending_up 51,975 views
    2. thumb_up 408 thanks given
    3. group 308 followers
    1. forum 105 posts
    2. attach_file 52 attachments




 
 

Understanding Footprint Charts / Number bars

 
 Meklon 
New York, USA
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Sierra Chart
Trading: RTY, ES, YM, NQ, CL, NG, GC, HG
Posts: 61 since Oct 2016
Thanks Given: 53
Thanks Received: 197


Grantx View Post
I need some help understanding footprint charts (number bars in Sierra). I hear FT71 talks a lot about it and @trepidation briefly described it in his YOLO journal here

It appears to be an excellent way to guage what is truly going on in terms of volume and positioning. In the screenshot at number 1, there is a delta of -1433 showing and that bar appears to have had stronger selling pressure than buying pressure.

At point 2, the delta is 3306 and the market appears to be moving up off those lows. This makes sense in my world, positive delta = more buyers hitting into the offers than there are sellers hitting into the bids, and therefore the market moves up.

At point 3 however, there is heavy negative delta showing, yet the market still moved up. A cursory look through the individual volume at each level appears to show more selling pressure than buying. How does this happen?

My sierra numbers bar configuration is set to show: 'Bid Vol X Ask Vol'
The calculated values at the bottom are set to show:
  1. 'Delta - Ask volume Bid volume difference'
  2. 'Negative delta sum'
  3. 'Positive delta sum'



Can anyone recommend a good resource for learning how to read footprints?

What you need to learn and understand is the concept of absorption. The green is not always green and red is not always red. There are many layers of data manifested by Foot Print chart and you need to understand what the market is telling you. You may have heavy selling or buying and the market will still continue moving the opposite direction. This called absorption and means you have a strong passive buyer or seller on the opposite side.


Can you help answer these questions
from other members on NexusFi?
My NT8 Volume Profile Split by Asian/Euro/Open
NinjaTrader
The space time continuum and the dynamics of a financial …
Emini and Emicro Index
Deepmoney LLM
Elite Quantitative GenAI/LLM
Exit Strategy
NinjaTrader
New Micros: Ultra 10-Year & Ultra T-Bond -- Live Now
Treasury Notes and Bonds
 
Best Threads (Most Thanked)
in the last 7 days on NexusFi
Get funded firms 2023/2024 - Any recommendations or word …
61 thanks
Funded Trader platforms
38 thanks
NexusFi site changelog and issues/problem reporting
26 thanks
GFIs1 1 DAX trade per day journal
19 thanks
The Program
18 thanks
 
 buylosellhi 
new york
 
Experience: None
Platform: SierraChart
Posts: 77 since Dec 2010
Thanks Given: 4
Thanks Received: 44


Meklon View Post
What you need to learn and understand is the concept of absorption. The green is not always green and red is not always red. There are many layers of data manifested by Foot Print chart and you need to understand what the market is telling you. You may have heavy selling or buying and the market will still continue moving the opposite direction. This called absorption and means you have a strong passive buyer or seller on the opposite side.

well said @Meklon ! The way the question was framed by @Grantx it sounded more like a question re: Cumulative Delta. You can read all about regular and hidden divergences of price vs cumulative delta chart. Similarly, you can read about exhaustion and absorption on a footprint chart. But without proper understanding of location and context, none of these will yield any result and if anything make it harder, by making the problem multi-dimensional. There is no CumDelta/Footprint "pattern" or "setup" one can learn that will make money.

Thanked by:
 
 Meklon 
New York, USA
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Sierra Chart
Trading: RTY, ES, YM, NQ, CL, NG, GC, HG
Posts: 61 since Oct 2016
Thanks Given: 53
Thanks Received: 197



buylosellhi View Post
well said @Meklon ! The way the question was framed by @Grantx it sounded more like a question re: Cumulative Delta. You can read all about regular and hidden divergences of price vs cumulative delta chart. Similarly, you can read about exhaustion and absorption on a footprint chart. But without proper understanding of location and context, none of these will yield any result and if anything make it harder, by making the problem multi-dimensional. There is no CumDelta/Footprint "pattern" or "setup" one can learn that will make money.

Yes, very true. Context is everything. Order Flow (Foot Print) is an excellent tool and gives experienced trader a lot of information. But at the end of the day it's only a tool and many people introduced to Order Flow think that this is some kind of Holly Grail indicator that will flash green or red light when to buy or sell. There is more to it than just learning what the Delta does.

 
 
Swishy27's Avatar
 Swishy27 
Orlando, FL
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Sierra Chart, BookMap
Trading: ES, NQ,YM, ZB, ZN
Frequency: Several times daily
Duration: Minutes
Posts: 71 since Dec 2009
Thanks Given: 108
Thanks Received: 88

@Grantx,


See the attached Book from Mike Valtos. Teaches you the basics. Was helpful to me. Easy to find via a google search.


Hope this helps.




Grantx View Post
I need some help understanding footprint charts (number bars in Sierra). I hear FT71 talks a lot about it and @ trepidation briefly described it in his YOLO journal here

It appears to be an excellent way to guage what is truly going on in terms of volume and positioning. In the screenshot at number 1, there is a delta of -1433 showing and that bar appears to have had stronger selling pressure than buying pressure.

At point 2, the delta is 3306 and the market appears to be moving up off those lows. This makes sense in my world, positive delta = more buyers hitting into the offers than there are sellers hitting into the bids, and therefore the market moves up.

At point 3 however, there is heavy negative delta showing, yet the market still moved up. A cursory look through the individual volume at each level appears to show more selling pressure than buying. How does this happen?

My sierra numbers bar configuration is set to show: 'Bid Vol X Ask Vol'
The calculated values at the bottom are set to show:
  1. 'Delta - Ask volume Bid volume difference'
  2. 'Negative delta sum'
  3. 'Positive delta sum'



Can anyone recommend a good resource for learning how to read footprints?


Attached Thumbnails
Understanding Footprint Charts / Number bars-tradingorderflow768.pdf  
 
 Futuretrader2 
Bremen / Germany
 
Experience: Master
Platform: NT,TS,IB
Broker: NT,TS,IB
Trading: ES,GC,CL,6E
Posts: 7 since Oct 2011
Thanks Given: 4
Thanks Received: 4

Good stuff

Thanks for posting !

Thanks and Greeting from Germany
Mike (not the Big one...)
Follow me on Twitter
 
 joe s 
sacramento ca us
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Ninja Trader,Trade Station
Trading: es
Posts: 163 since Aug 2015
Thanks Given: 133
Thanks Received: 105

Thanks for the info

 
 
makusan's Avatar
 makusan 
Long Beach, CA
 
Experience: Advanced
Platform: Sierra Chart
Trading: Futures
Posts: 43 since Jun 2010
Thanks Given: 10
Thanks Received: 37




Quoting 
Can anyone recommend a good resource for learning how to read footprints?

First of all the Foot print was never created to be red-light,green-light or when this line crosses over this line I buy or sell. What it gave was a window into the actual auction process! You could now see the liquidity and orders being matched. This was a major step up from the candle stick representation of the auction. I have been a user of the FP, and have discovered that even the FP does not give you the complete behind the scenes what is going on. I strongly erge you to spend some time at Jigsaw Trading or NO BS Trading. Look up on YouTube, Gary Nordon, and watch all of his videos. He is one the Big Boys, and up to this point what you have had for tools, has crippled you from having a real opportunity to be successful! Indicators are DEAD! And the professional traders do NOT use indicators! All of the 80-90% who fail in business were sold a bill of goods, by the unregulated trading-guru pretenders, selling their "proprietary" indicators, which if you follow their rules you will become wealthy! Total and Complete BS. I have given you the path to the water. -namaskaram

Thanked by:
 
 Blaster666 
Buenos Aires Argentina
 
Experience: None
Platform: TWS
Trading: Micro ES
Posts: 48 since Mar 2018
Thanks Given: 32
Thanks Received: 30


josh View Post
An example of a trade based on the above idea of a ledge. The trade is a scalp.
I got home just in time to see 3019 being bought repeatedly over the course of a half hour. This may be my favorite trade setup, because it's as close to guaranteed to work as anything you will ever see. See the attached DOM picture for the real "ledge" view.




I don't have any quantitative data on this, because it doesn't happen this cleanly too often, but when I see this, I take it every time, no matter what, no questions asked. The market just does not let someone buy like that and never tick down. In this environment it's good for a few points.



The trade you are describing, you entered short, didn't you? That's to say, you saw:

* Several bars with finished auctions at 3019
* This value 3019 acting as a "support" for a while
* Then you entered short because for some reason (I can't understand it yet) the price would go lower than 3019 for a couple of points

I looked at the DOM image you attached; it showed the most volume traded at 3019 at that moment.

Follow me on Twitter
 
 redneck4Christ 
Vancouver, WA
 
Experience: Intermediate
Platform: Jigsaw, MC.NET, ToS, SC
Broker: APEX,IronBeam/Rithmic, ToS
Trading: Emini ES & CL
Posts: 88 since Apr 2019
Thanks Given: 1,032
Thanks Received: 146

If my markups come through, this volume divergence is another indicator price may go down.

Attached Thumbnails
Click image for larger version

Name:	2020-03-14_16-53-09 vol div in ftprint.png
Views:	1037
Size:	182.1 KB
ID:	290415  
 
 
Silvester17's Avatar
 Silvester17 
Columbus, OH
Market Wizard
 
Experience: None
Platform: NT 8, TOS
Trading: ES
Posts: 3,603 since Aug 2009
Thanks Given: 5,139
Thanks Received: 11,527


last wednesday we had a good example. big passive buyer at 2,694. using a 10 range chart, that level got tested again shortly after.



so what we know is, there's a big buying order. what we don't know, how big or how much is left from that order. I do like that setup to go long. not saying that's going to be the low of the day, but normally it's good for a nice scalp. market went up to 2,708 and then the same setup on the short side. also good for a nice scalp.



 



Last Updated on May 14, 2021


© 2024 NexusFi™, s.a., All Rights Reserved.
Av Ricardo J. Alfaro, Century Tower, Panama City, Panama, Ph: +507 833-9432 (Panama and Intl), +1 888-312-3001 (USA and Canada)
All information is for educational use only and is not investment advice. There is a substantial risk of loss in trading commodity futures, stocks, options and foreign exchange products. Past performance is not indicative of future results.
About Us - Contact Us - Site Rules, Acceptable Use, and Terms and Conditions - Privacy Policy - Downloads - Top
no new posts