Footprint charts helped me reinvent myself as a day trader after I had already been professionally trading for close to a decade.
Today we’re going to look at the critical edge footprint charts can provide to help build context around your trades, validate setups, and better time your entries and exits.
What is a Footprint Chart?
A Footprint Chart displays the amount of volume that traded on the bid and ask for every price increment of a security. Variations of the traditional Bid/Ask footprint include the Delta footprint and Volume footprint.
The Need for Footprint Charts
In 2008, I was 5 years into my career trading for GPC in Chicago. The majority of the day traders at the firm back then were purely Level II traders.
My trading setup included a Level II and a basic candlestick chart with volume… that’s it.
I would use a Level II in order to determine when large buyers or sellers were entering the market, creating imbalances, as well as to identify critical support and resistance levels.
I profited by following the moves of other time frame participants as they bought and sold. Additionally, I would identify key support and resistance levels that local traders were leaning on as their out, take out the entire level, and cover into the locals panic.
2008 was an important year, as it marked the first time in history that algorithms accounted for more than 50% of the average daily trading volume. Algorithm’s were a major market disruption which completely changed the trading game for Level II traders.
Algorithms’s are constantly adding and pulling orders from the book, decreasing the transparency, and ultimately the overall effectiveness of a level II.
It became much more difficult for level II traders like myself to profit solely off a level II. I reached a point where I had to develop new strategies or I would be searching for a new career path.
From 2009 to 2011, I was trading an algorithm that arbitraged an opportunity that existed at some of the retail forex brokers that were popping up everywhere online at that time.
The algorithm required very little of my time. I spent all of my spare time focused on developing new strategies.
Having experienced the increase in algorithmic trading first hand, I wanted my strategies to primarily focus on executed orders versus advertised orders.
I began studying and experimenting heavily with volume and volume related indicators. I even paid to have some developed.
After thousands of hours of trading and screen time, I developed new strategies. Footprint charts helped mimic what a level II used to provide me…
The ability to see and feel the pulse of the market. Footprint charts brought market supply and demand back to life for me.
For the past decade they have remained the primary tool I use in my edge.
You can use footprint charts to trade any market including stocks, futures, forex, crypto, you name it. They’re great for day trading, swing trading, and even long term investing.
How to Read the Footprint Chart
Let’s cover some of the basics so you can begin to understand how to read a footprint chart.
The price of any security depends on whether you wish to Buy or Sell.
When you want to buy a security, the price you will pay is the Ask price. It’s the price the counter-party is willing to sell at.
If you wish to sell a security, the price you will receive is the Bid price. It’s the price the counter-party is willing to buy at.
In this example, If you were looking to buy an eMini S&P 500 contract, you would pay the Ask price of 3010.50.
If you were looking to sell an eMini S&P 500 contract, the price you would receive is the Bid price of 3010.25.
Trading Terminology – The act of buying with a market order is known as “taking the offer” or “lifting the ask”. The act of selling with a market order is known as “hitting the bid”.
Next, let’s take a look at a Trading DOM, which stands for Depth Of Market.
The DOM shows all of the resting limit orders in the market, also known as the advertised prices. In the above example, the current market on the ES (eMini S&P 500) is 3010.75 by 3011.00.
Sellers are prepared to offer 380 contracts for sale at 3011.00 – the Ask price.
Buyers are prepared to purchase 1,156 contracts at 3010.75 – the Bid price.
Note: Since the introduction of algorithms, a lot of the orders resting in the book (seen above) will never trade.
Footprint charts give us the ability to see the data that I’m actually interested in, executed orders. Not the transactions that are being advertised on the DOM.
The chart above is a basic Bid/Ask footprint chart. Let’s zoom in and study the ins and outs of a footprint candle.
The volume highlighted in green, is the amount of volume that traded as a result of market orders hitting the bid at the corresponding price.
The volume highlighted in red, is the amount of volume that traded as a result of market orders taking the offer at the corresponding price.
Considering a price quote is made up of a bid and an ask price, you have to look at the figures diagonally.
For example, when price was at 2874.00 x 2874.25, 113 contracts traded on the bid at 2874.00, and 173 contracts traded on the offer at 2874.25 as seen above.
We will look at how you can use imbalances in your trading shortly.
Point of Control (POC)
The Point of Control, also know as the POC, is the price level where the highest level of volume traded for a user defined interval.
On the chart below you will notice yellow rectangles highlighting the POC’s of every 5 minute session.
We will use the Point of Control shortly to help tell us determine whether buyers or sellers are the aggressor during a given session and to spot areas of support and resistance.
Let’s get into the three primary footprint chart types and some strategies you can use with each of them.
Bid/Ask Footprint Chart
There are three primary styles of footprint charts including: the Bid/Ask Footprint, Delta Footprint, and Volume Footprint.
We’ll start with the bid/ask footprint (seen above), which is the traditional footprint chart that you’re probably most familiar with, or have at least seen.
We use the bid/ask footprint to spot market imbalances as well as unfinished auctions.
Buy and Sell Imbalances
On the bid/ask candlestick below, you will notice some of the volumes are highlighted in green or red.
The ones highlighted in green are buy imbalances, because they occurred on the offer and were over 300% higher than the corresponding bid.
For example, notice the buy imbalance highlighted in green of 166. A total of 166 contracts traded on the offer (ask price) versus 44 contracts that traded on the bid.
166 divided by 44 = 3.7, which is a buy imbalance of over 300%, so the offer is highlighted green.
The one highlighted in red is a sell imbalance, because the volume that traded on the bid was over 300% higher than the corresponding offer.
A total of 376 contracts traded on the bid versus 72 contracts that traded on the bid.
376 divided by 72 = 5.2, which is a sell imbalance of over 300%, so the bid is highlighted in red.
300% is the setting I personally use for my buy and sell imbalances. Most footprint charting platforms will allow you to specify what you want to use for an imbalance.
Stacked Buy and Sell Imbalances
We can use large imbalances and stacked imbalances to find high probability support and resistance levels where price could potentially reverse.
Stacked imbalances are simply multiple imbalances spread across a few price increments in a tight range, as seen above.
Large buy imbalances will tend to act as support if price retraces back to test the level, and large sell imbalances will act as resistance.
Below we have an example of using a buy imbalance to find a support level for an entry.
Price breaks out to the upside establishing a new trend. We could have used the stacked buy imbalances to look for a long entry as price retraced, found support and began to rally again.
Above we have some stacked sell imbalances. Notice how price retraces back to these levels and is rejected, and once again continues the downward trend.
Next, we can use the bid/ask footprint to find finished and unfinished auctions in the market.
Finished & Unfinished Auctions
Up auctions, bullish moves, end at a price level above which no active buyers are willing to buy. The price has become too unattractive to the buyers.
This is notated on a bid/ask chart by a zero on the bid at highs. Price couldn’t go a tick higher because there were no passive buyer’s looking to buy. This would be considered a finished auction.
Down auctions, bearish moves, end at a price level below which no active sellers are willing to sell. This is notated on a bid/ask chart by a zero on the offer at lows as seen here. Price couldn’t go a tick lower because there were no passive seller’s looking to sell. Once again we have a finished auction.
Unfinished Auctions are represented by volume trading on the bid as well as the offer at a session high or low as seen below.
They can provide logical areas for price to revisit in order to complete the market’s auction process.
I wouldn’t fade a move simply because you see an unfinished auction. Where you will find value in unfinished auctions is using them as a take profit.
Let’s assume you had a trigger that got you into a long position somewhere down near the double bottom seen on the chart above. You could use the unfinished auction as your take profit.
Delta Footprint Chart
The next style of footprint chart is the delta footprint. Delta is an extremely powerful tool for day traders, and an important indicator I have used in my scalping strategy for the past 10 years.
Volume Delta is the difference between buying and selling pressure. It’s calculated by taking the difference of the volume that traded at the offer price and the volume that traded at the bid price.
Volume Delta = Offer Volume – Bid Volume
If delta is greater than 0, buyers are the aggressor, as more contracts traded on the offer than the corresponding bid.
If delta is less than 0, the sellers are the aggressor, as more contracts traded on the bid than the corresponding offer.
The bid/ask footprint seen above is the exact same candle as the delta candle on the right.
26 trades took place on the bid at the lowest price point on the Bid/Ask Footprint, and 0 on the offer as seen below.
0 – 26 = Delta value of -26, as seen on the delta footprint above.
Let’s do the delta calculation for the price level second from the bottom.
341 trades took place on the offer and 481 trades on the bid.
341 – 481 = Delta reading of -140
Delta and price will typically move in the same direction. Which makes sense right?
If buyers are aggressively taking the offer then price should go up, and if sellers are aggressively hitting the bid price should go down.
So what’s occurring in this example there’s divergence between price and delta?
In this example price is in a downtrend and begins to retrace and test the prior swing high.
Notice how we have positive delta and a large print signifying an influx of buy market orders, but price actually closes lower.
When we have a divergence like this, sellers are aggressively selling on the offer with limit orders, enough so that it can hold off the influx of buy market orders. A sign of a potential reversal, which is exactly what occured.
Here’s another example of divergence. There’s a large negative delta print at lows, but price closes higher. Buyers are stepping in on the bid faster than the sellers are hitting the bid, and once again the trend resumes.
Note: Trades that occur on the bid represent seller aggression and decrease delta. Where as trades that occur on the offer represent buyer aggression and increase delta.
Volume Footprint Chart
The final footprint style we’re going to take a look at is the volume footprint, sometimes called volume imprint, or just simply a volume profile.
Volume always has a story to tell. In fact, I believe it’s the most important story the market has to tell you.
If you’re interested in trading order flow, I would begin by learning how to use volume profiles.
I use volume profiles to build context around my trades. You can think of context as the CEO of your trading business, it looks out above the trees and says, “We’re going that way!”.
Volume profile provide us with four critical pieces of information.
High Volume Nodes (HVN): Area of high volume relative to surrounding nodes
Low Volume Nodes (LVN): Area of low volume relative to surrounding nodes
Point of Control: Price level where the highest level of volume traded for a given session
Distribution: Price in relation to HVN’s
High volume node’s act like gravity. They tend to attract price and try to hold it there.
Conversely, low volume nodes are areas with very little gravity. The market often rips right through these levels, not staying for long due to low liquidity.
Let’s take a look at some examples of how you can use volume profiles in your trading.
Prior points of control, and high volume nodes will act as support or resistance when price is retracing back into them.
You can look to play reversals at high volume nodes in the direction of a trend as seen in the example below.
HVN’s can also be use in your trade management.
When long, you can trail your stops below HVN’s as the position moves in your favor, as seen above.
When short, you would simply trail your stop above HVN’s until you’re taken out.
b&P Reversal Profiles
We can also use the distribution of volume profile quickly spot potential reversals.
“b” shaped volume profiles, where the majority of the volume went off in the circle and price closed above, are a sign of a potential bullish reversal as price goes into discovery away from the mean.
“P” shaped volume profiles, where the majority of the volume went off in the circle and price closed below, are a sign of a potential bearish reversal.
You can use these to validate your current setups or create an entirely new strategy with them.
Footprint Chart Software (Updated 2023)
It’s time for you to get your hands dirty by trying out some footprint charting platforms! Here are a number of options for you to consider.
MotiveWave – I’ve been using MotiveWave for the past couple of years and think it’s a very solid platform. It’s the platform you have seen used through out this guide.
If you’re looking to trade order flow, I highly recommend this software.
Sierra Charts – I used Sierra for about 10 years until I made the switch to MotiveWave. Sierra calls their footprint indicator number bars. The majority of brokers support this charting package. (View Broker List Here)
Sierra’s GUI is a little outdated but it’s still an amazing platform. It’s lightening fast! I would still be on Sierra most likely if they had built a version for Mac OS.
You can still run Sierra on a Mac with Bootcamp or Parallels, which is what I did for years.
Quantower – A fairly new order flow software, but gaining steam fast. I have demoed the product and liked what I saw.
You can get a free demo with a live feed through Optimus Futures, who white labels Quantower and calls it Optimus Flow.
Bookmap – Bookmap is a highly visual trading platform for order flow traders. Through some creative heatmap looking charts you’re able to visualize market liquidity through advertised orders.
The three prior charting platforms mentioned all offer heatmaps as well now.
Exocharts – Web based charting platform with a lot of order flow tools. I don’t have any experience with them but they are popular in the crytpo community.
Unfortunately, Think Or Swim and Trading View do not offer footprint charts at this time.
Final Thoughts
Footprint charts have played a key roll in my trading over the last decade. Implement them properly, and I’m confident you will see the edge they can provide. .
Build an entire trading strategy around footprint charts or you can use them to validate your current trade setups.
If you would like my MotiveWave chart templates and some other tools, become a JT Insider, it’s FREE!
Great write up! It’s funny my footprint chart has gravitated towards a similar setup. I also overlay a heatmap of the DOM orders to show large resting paper, sort of a liquidity magnet.
Hey Pat! Thanks for the comment! That’s awesome! If you’re not already, you should look into using volume delta as well. I will be writing a post on it shortly.
Hey Adam, I liked your article on the footprint chart tried to download your charts but all I got was a 1 min candlestick chart I am with Infinity broker and have the latest version of SC? Great material and thank you for sharing. would like to learn more from you.
Shawn
Thanks for the comment Shawn. In order to get number bars with Infinity you have to make sure your charting package is on the correct level. I believe it’s level 5.
Bonjour et merci pour ce travail de partage, je suis débutant moins de 6 mois sur les futurs.
Bruno
Hello Bruno! Unfortunately I don’t speak French, but google translate does! Thanks for the kind words!
Awesome article Adam! I would love to see a blog post, or a video, on exactly how you set up your chart in Sierra. And may I ask if you know a good chart template to download? Thanks for all you do!
Hey Bryan, thanks for the comment! I will make a video in the near future on how to install it but you can hop on youtube and do a search and find some examples as well. For the footprint template I personally use you can download it when you become a JT Insider.
Thanks Adam! Your blog is awesome and I really appreciate all the info you share with us!
Thanks Bryan! I appreciate the kind words!
Adam, this is the best footprint tutorial online by far, it’s really clear and concise, thank you.
I’m also trying to learn Sierra Chart, and was interested to see your numbers/footprint chart, however the link ‘JTFootprintChart’ seems to be a Pivot Point’s chart.
Many thanks
Dan
Morning Dan! Thanks for the comment!!!! I just checked on my end and it is the correct file. I think what may be wrong is you aren’t setup for Level 5 Package with Sierra Charts at your broker. Either message your broker or simply throw the number bars study on a chart. If it doesn’t work you’re not setup on Level 5 for Sierra Charts. A few months back they made the change that you have to have Level 5 for number bars.
Hey Adam, I wanted to invite you to take a look at the footprint custom system study I created using the evaluation methods you provided. I’d like your input since you are obviously more experienced with the method. The source code is there and open source, in case you think I’m some nefarious internet goon lol. But please take it for a spin and let me know what you think. The install and study instructions are in the Read Me.
Feel free to e-mail me with feedback!!
https://github.com/FutTrader/footprint-system
Morning Pat! Wow looks pretty awesome! I haven’t installed it yet but I will and will leave some feedback after messing around with it. Super cool!
Pat, thank you for this! I have followed the project on GitHub. Are you planning on making any further enhancements to system? I would also be interested in contributing if needed. You can reach me at deff.vader@gmail.com. Thanks!
Hi Eric
You mentioned you were going to publish a post on Cumulative delta and absorption/exhausion? Also, your template for Sierra Charts does not have any numbers bars studies in it. Could you please provide this as I am trying to replicate your footprint charting in my platform.
Thanks Sam
Thanks for the comment Sam. I’ve just been really busy, hope to get to it in the next week or so. You have to make sure you have level 5 charts for Sierra in order for number bars to work. Contact your broker to check. If you still have a problem and you’re on Level 5 charts let me know.
Hi Adam, Yes I have a subscription to Package no 5 (Delayed data with Numbers bars) so not sure what the problem is. I am plotting Numbers bars at present but cannot replicate the format you have shown which I believe is a lot more effective because of it’s simplicity. Thanks for your help!!
Sam I just downloaded and reinstalled it and it works for me. Make sure you’re on the right chart in the chartbook. There’s actually three in total: A Footprint Chart, Chart of Nyse Tick and chart of the A/D.
Absolutely fantastic description of your footprint chart. Great read.
In case anyone still needs this, I had a similar issue opening up the template. Comes up blank but if you look under Studies they will be there. Just save them as a study collection and reapply them or open up a new chartbook and apply it there. Worked for me.
Thanks Craig! To install the template you download the file and put it in the Data folder. Location may be different on your computer but the folder on mine is Disk (C:)>SierraChart>SierraChartTransactMA>Data. After you have placed the file in the data folder you can open up sierra charts and go to File>Open Chartbook>JTFootprintTemplate.Cht>Open
Belíssimo artigo!Para mim uma nova maneira de melhorar a performace nos traders.
Obrigado!
Awesome :)
Thanks Sid!
Hi Adam!
Thanks for great info and amazing site!
Do you know what is the case these days (Aug 2020) for foot-print chart
out of the box for TradeStation or Think-or-swing?
Cheers,
Elad.
Hi Elad!
I’ve never traded with TS nor have I ever used TradingView for any sort of live trading. If you do a google search for trade station footprint charts it looks like there is a third party app for Trade Station. Best bet is to email them both directly and see if it’s something they plan on developing. Sorry I can’t be of more help.
Hi Adam,
Thank you for making footprint charts easy to understand+interpret, and this guide really helped with “smart tightening” of my stops on those
For tick (or volume/range) chart traders who want to involve footprint charts more, do you recommend still using a 5/15min footprint or have it consistent with the chart type we trade?
Hi Raman, thanks for the comment. No doubt you can use volume or range bars with footprints. I guess it depends on your strategy and what you’re trying to accomplish with footprints. If you’re looking for key support levels and ways to manage your position then I would go a little longer time frame.
Hi Adam, appreciate the fast response and yep, S/R levels for risk management is what I’m going for. Especially finding the prices within large reversal candles where heavy imbalances were, to place a stop loss within rather than above/below them.
Mainly I trade ES on a 2000 tick chart so going to experiment with 4000-8000 ticks for the footprints.
Morning Raman, I also suggest you add a volume profile to your bars and pay attention for b and p profiles. May work as an additional confirmation for whatever your trading system is….
Hi Adam, yep doing exactly that (unfortunately my platform can’t show bid x ask and vol profile at the same time so have to do it in two charts).
Thanks again for all the recommendations!
Anytime!
Hi Danushka. I am not familiar with open drive analysis. I also only trade futures and it is a 24 hour market just like the spot forex market. What is your question exactly?
Amazing!!! Tks a lot Adam!!!
Thanks Ricard!
Hi Guys
I just wanted to put it out there, that after learning Adam’s system, I got accepted into a USA prop firm to trade a large account live.
It really is a concise and powerful method and once you have put in enough screen time you will start to auto-trade with great confidence.
If you are on the fence, then its time to “jump” into Jumpstart trading! :)
Thanks Arshad!
Hi,
I’m interested more in footprint charts and Forex. Are these footprint charts applicable to Forex and how do you access them?
Hi Joe,
Yes you can use footprint charts to trade Forex but there is one caveat. There’s no centralized exchange for Forex so you’re always going to question the quality of your data. There’s a lot of charting packages that offer footprints like such as Sierra Charts and MotiveWave to name a few.
Hello
Thank you. Are there foot print charts for spot forex?
Hi Geoffrey. You can get footprint charts for Forex but there’s no centralized exchange for Forex so you’re always going to question the quality of your data. There’s a lot of charting packages that offer footprints. Sierra Charts, MotiveWave, Ninja Trader are a few you can check out.
Hi,
Thank you for this detailed explanation!
I’ve noticed some traders have 3 lines displayed at the bottom of the chart showing the delta, can you explain what these mean and how you are using them?
Also, you may want to correct this: “708 divided by 198 equals 9.56”
Thanks for catching that Guy. I have a post on delta in the blog that you can read. In terms of 3 lines displayed on delta I’m not sure. May just be a horizontal marker for something like the 0 line and maybe one above and below that some traders may consider breakout zones.
Thank you Adam. I appreciate your reply and advice.
Hi Adam,
thank you for this GREAT job ! I didn’t read such a crystal clear guide to footprint before yours ! I tried to join the JT Insider but i didn’t receive the email … I’d like to use your Sierrachart footprint templates ;-)
Thank you for your help
Amazing job…Thank you…Been trying to learn footprint trading for years…. I’d like to use your Sierrachart footprint templates if possible ?
Thanks for the comment Chris. Sign up as JT Insider and you get emailed templates for MotiveWave and Sierra.
Hi Adams, Just read through your article on footprint chart and it’s good to gain more knowledge on it. I trade BTC and i use Exochart for footprint. When you are using the footprint chart on the lower time frame, what tick size do you use? Also is it on the same time frame you draw you horizontal identifying support/resistance with stack imbalances, Unfinished auctions. when you talk about reversal bullish/bearish, is it just anywhere on the chart you look for this reversal or you want to look at it when price hit a key level, eg Daily level, fibonanci levels, former highs and lowers, POCs
Thanks for the comment. I personally don’t use a stacked imbalances or tick charts in my trading.
I personally look for setups near high volume nodes, prior day h/l, overnight h/l, swing h/l, VWAP….
Thank you adams for the reply. How do you get your overnight H/l, swing H/L. And what settings do you use on your vwap. When you talk about high volume nodes, are you taking about the volume profile on footprint.
Overnight H/L it depends on your charting package. Swing H/L you just look for them and plot them on your chart. VWAP I use 1 day. I look at high volume nodes on all different types of timeframes. You can start with the daily chart. Again, all of this really depends on your strategy. What I personally use may not be relevant to you.
Hi Adam do you have a recommendation of tick size footprint on the ES and NQ. Also you did a great job explaining he daily footprint for key levels it looks great. Thanks.
Thanks Peter! I personally don’t use tick charts.
Hi Adams, like you say, the zero is unfinished auction.. how do you decipher and use the information of the zero on a footprint chart candle as a trading strategy.. What timeframe do you look to enter your trade setup when there is?
I personally don’t use unfinished auctions, I’ve just never seen the value in them. That doesn’t mean that you won’t though!
You can use them as price targets like I mention in the post.
Do footprint charts work with spot Forex? I am obtaining strange charts with traded volume only on the bid side on NinjaTrader platform. Is this an anomaly?
Hi Geoffrey, you would have to contact NinjaTrader. You could have a few spots where nothing traded on the offer because of a large market order hitting the bid…. However, considering Forex isn’t a centralized exchange, there’s always going to be questions regarding the validity of the data.
Hi Adam,
Your article is real gold. Can we use footprint chart for stocks like TSLA and AAPL ? Does your course cover trading strategies for techs?
Thanks for the valuable information.
Thanks for the kind words Zena. You can definetely use them to trade stocks.
Hi Adam thank you for this very detailed documentation and overview of your footprint strategies and application. I also have Sierra Charts however I’m fairly new to footprint and struggling with all the different options and variations on setting up the Footprint on SC. Would it be possible for you to assist? I would be extremely grateful for any advice.
Kind Regards
M
Hey Moe, sign up to become a JT Insider, you get my template for Sierra.
Hello Adam ,
i read through your content on footprint and its pretty informative Waooow thanks alot.
I am going to signup and try make a setup. Have seen few traders using footprint recently and are dong pretty well.
Thanks for the good work.
Will return incase i struggle with settings.
Stay safe!
Thanks Maggie!
What broker do you use that includes Sierra Charts?
Hi JR, I no longer use Sierra Charts. A ton of brokers have Sierra but if you’re looking to trade a smaller account, checkout Optimus Futures or EdgeClear. I personally trade at Interactive Brokers.
Hi Adam,
I really enjoyed reading your view of footprints. Thanks a lot! My questions is: Do you usually wait for the candlestick you are looking at to close? Often times they are too big and there is not a good R:R ratio in the trades I take, thankss!
Thanks for the comment Daniel. I personally don’t all the time but it depends on your trading strategy. There’s not a right or a wrong way as long as your strategy is profitable.
Thanks for the great information Adam!
Forgive me if you’ve already answered this in another area and I missed it. I am a fellow Mac user and am very interested in using Motivewave for order flow. Obviously a broker/feed is needed for this platform. Which do you use for Motivewave? I’m leaning Amp which offers Rithmic, but would appreciate any input on the subject.
Also, do you use any mobile (Ipad) platform on the road since Motivewave doesn’t offer this?
Hi Scott, thanks for the comment. For data I use dxFeed, check out my post on market data feeds.
As for the mobile platform I don’t.
Hi Adam,
I am looking to learn footprint charts. Between Sierra Charts vs Motivewave, which one would you recommend? I use Windows.
Appreciate your time.
CD
Hi CD, thanks for the comment. Sierra is a great platform and lightening quick, I traded on it for seven or eight years but I wanted something native to Mac so I switched to MotiveWave. Sierra’s only knocks is their GUI is dated, but still a great platform.
Hi
I wonder if this system (footprint charts) are working with swing trading (Shares) in particular.
Cheers
Hi Sirag, thanks for the comment. Footprint are definitely useful for swing trading stocks. I’d check out volume imprints for S&R longer term.
Hey Adam, stumbled on this blog and its great! Thanks for sharing your knowledge and everything mentioned were well explained, concise and made a lot of sense. Im a mac user and am looking at motivewave, do you know of a minimum plan I need that will have all the tools you mentioned in this article? Looks like there’s Community, Standard, Order Flow and Pro. Which one of these are sufficient just for charting purposes? Thanks!
Hi Huy, thanks for the comment! The Order Flow package at $49.
Thanks Adam! so i’ve checked out motivewave and this may be the best thing ever. Im a programmer as well and the api it provides with java sdk is great.
Another super cool thing, even tho TDAmeritrade doesn’t have footprint charts, Motivewave integrates with TDAmeritrade so you can directly use your datafeed on trade on your tdameritrade account through motivewave. Awesome stuff!
Thanks for the comment Huy! I’m glad to hear you like it, I’m a big fan as well.
Thanks for the post, enjoyed it. Came here because I was searching for a viable alternative to the order book (the “tape”) for very short term trades – do you think footprint analysis could replace reading the tape ?
Thanks for the comment Chris. I don’t think it will replace a Level II, as advertised pricing (bids and offers) is still valuable information.
Hi Adam. Great post! I have a question regarding footprint charts and Forex trading. This is something that also confuses me.
Some people above have asked you about the applicability of footprint charts to Forex trading. In your answers you have mentioned that, in such case, one should question the quality of the data (data used to build the footprint, I guess) because the Forex market is not centralized (there is not any exchange for the Forex market – like, for example, the NYSE – from where every and each broker get identical data, right? ). By saying that, do you mean that the footprint chart in a Forex trading platform (say Metatrader or NinjaTrader) would be less useful as for price movement predictions, because it is based only on the data our broker have access to, i.e.. buy and sell orders of our broker’s clients worldwide?
In that case, if we change broker, we would get a different footprint chart for the same currency pair and time instant. The same would be true for a volume profile. Am I right?
Thanks!
Hi John, thank you for the comment! Check out the market data feed post I just published, should answer all of your questions regarding data.
This has been a really great read for me. Thank you very much for the information Adam and you explained so well. High recommendation read to some friends.
No onto questioning. I by nature am a swing trading type of person. I have been made a day trader for about a year now. I still swing but not as often. The problem I’ve had with day trading is spotting trend reversals or pull back continuations. What timeframe and professional direction you can give me that would help me secure more on my trades?
Hi Bari, thanks for the comment! I will give you a few ideas, but this is a tough question to answer in a comment. Volume analysis is at the core of everything I do. Try setting up some volume profiles on an hourly chart and looking for some of the patterns I discuss in my Volume Profile post.
Second, subscribe to my YouTube channel. I’m going to start a free day trading course next month.
Thanks for a great explanation, Adam. What higher bar size would you recommend to determine where the air pockets are ( HVN vs LVN), if the execution timeframe is a 12 hour or daily candle.
Thanks
Hi Neil, thanks for the comment! I’m personally not a swing trader but if I was going to do some testing I’d start with weekly and monthly for context. If you’re trading futures I’d recommend looking at 8 hour profile as well. It will give you a good snapshot of the overnight session.
Hi Adam,
Thanks for sharing your wisdoms with us. I read your article and currently free trialing MotiveWave. I connected it to my TD Ameritrade account, and I couldn’t find Volume Footprint anywhere, only Volume Imprint. I only trade stocks so would need a software that does Volume Footprint for stocks. Do you know what software has the feature for stock with real time data and can you point me to the right direction? Thanks.
Of course! The volume imprint study on MW is the footprint. If you trade with Ameritrade you may need an additional quote feed. Check out this video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDbl3qm7h3M
Hey Adam, thanks for the amazing content. I am a mid to long term swing trader, but want to get into order flow trading in order to find better entries/exits. I have the ultimate MW edition and connected it to my IBKR account. I tried to set up a footprint chart (for stocks, I mainly trade those), but could not get the amount of data I wanted to. Do I have to buy an add on like dxfeed in order to get good market data or am I just using wrong settings? Thanks a lot!
Tom
Hi Tom, watch this video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDbl3qm7h3M
I use DxFeed with IB.
Hello Adam,
Thank you for all the great content you’ve put out here as well as on YT. I’ve been going through all of your videos, including the one with market data feed and I’m not sure what I should choose as data for Quantower. I’m only going to use Cluster (Footprint) charts, not the DOM, TPO, Time and Sale. Do I need Level 2 (Market Depth) or Level 1 (Top of the Book) data for this? Can you help me with an answer. Thank you so much!
Hi Catalin, top of book will be fine.
Hello Adam,
I stumbled across your channel while doing research on your volume profile. First, thank you for the amazing content you upload. i literally watch all your videos on YouTube.
i have decided to use motivewave as well, Just one question
How do i setup a candlestick volume profile for each candel stick (five minute time frame)
looking foward to your response
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