Order flow, and where it works

What it is

Order flow means looking at the trades themselves rather than only the candles: who was aggressive, where large orders were resting, and how much traded at each price. A trade happens when an aggressive order (a market order, the taker) meets a resting limit order (the maker). Each trade is labelled by its aggressor: a buyer lifting the offer or a seller hitting the bid.

That needs exchange data, trade by trade. CME futures (ES, NQ, CL, GC and the micros) have it, and so do crypto exchanges, each for its own venue. Spot forex and broker CFDs don't: there is no central exchange, and the 'volume' on an MT4, MT5 or cTrader chart is tick volume, the number of price changes your broker recorded. Footprints, delta, the DOM and heatmaps can't be built from it.

Forex traders can get part of the picture from the matching CME currency futures (6E for EURUSD, 6B for GBPUSD), but that is only a slice of the market. Index and gold CFDs follow ES, NQ and GC closely, so those futures' order flow is a reasonable guide.

How to spot it

• Check what your platform's volume really is: exchange volume, or broker tick volume.
• Order flow tools on a candle chart that has no tick data are estimating; TradingView's footprint, for example, splits volume by whether lower-timeframe candles closed up or down.

How to use it

• If you trade futures, add order flow at your levels to see whether buyers or sellers are really stepping in.
• If you trade forex CFDs, use the currency future as a proxy and keep to tools that work on any chart, such as the Market Profile and candle-volume indicators.

Common mistakes

• Reading a footprint or delta on spot forex as if it were real.
• Expecting order flow to predict; it shows what is happening now, at a level you already chose.

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