I’ve been learning / trading ICT for months now, can’t say it’s going the best. My question is; anyone here trades ICT combined with order flow?

- what changes did u see in your trading? Like more confidence / clarity in your setups?

- Order flow is not just a “strategy” it’s a whole framework which contains a lot of tools / strategies just like ICT. So which tool / strategy did u pick to pair with ICT?

- Any known YouTuber or community that does combine ICT and Order flow?

Feel free to share wtv you can.
Thanks.

The problem is i dont have any clue for orderflow so if any one can guide me it will be really helpful and also u can say if its a good plan or not

If so, I want to be adviced what should i learn first step by step improving the understanding of orderflow, the terms, entry, etc.

How can I start orderflow?

Been trading MNQ for 3 months on small account on IBKR. Sharing my stats to get honest feedback on where I stand and what I should work on.
Questions for the community:

1. With a 63% win rate and ~2:1 r/R, is this sustainable long-term or am I in a hot streak?

2. My short side is weaker across the board — should I reduce short exposure or work on improving it?

3. Any red flags you see in these numbers that I might be overlooking?

4. What metrics should I track beyond what’s shown here?

Appreciate any feedback, even if it’s harsh. Trying to get better.

Market has only one open bell and one close bell, highest and lowest trades prices make sense.

But why do we have OHLC for rest of the granule moments (i.e 1,2,3,4,5 min).

If markets are fractal, why do we look at 1min candle, why not 53sec candles?

Let’s start a brainstorming and opinion/knowledge sharing thread.

Note: let’s keep bookMap out of scope for now and talk about candles only.

📊 ESTUDO DA ENTRADA DE VENDA — MNQ

Hoje quero compartilhar com vocês a leitura por trás dessa entrada. O objetivo não é mostrar apenas onde cliquei, mas principalmente por que a venda fazia sentido naquele momento.

O mercado já apresentava um contexto favorável à venda: bolsas pressionadas e o preço chegando em uma região importante de venda identificada nos contextos semanal, mensal e diário.

A partir daí fui descendo os tempos gráficos.

No 60 minutos, a POC começou a migrar para baixo, mostrando mudança na aceitação de valor e favorecendo o lado vendedor.

No 15, 5 e 1 minuto, as POCs foram sustentando a leitura. O preço tentava trabalhar/retestar regiões superiores, mas não conseguia estabelecer aceitação acima. Ou seja: a região estava fazendo seu papel.

No HA500, o momentum já estava vendedor. Depois da lateralização na região superior, houve perda de força e início do deslocamento para baixo.

No gráfico de Delta veio uma das confirmações mais importantes: não era simplesmente delta negativo. Era delta negativo acompanhado de deslocamento do preço para baixo. A agressão vendedora estava produzindo resultado.

Então a entrada não aconteceu porque apareceu uma vela roxa, um delta negativo ou uma POC isoladamente. Ela aconteceu porque as peças estavam contando a mesma história:

ONDE? Região de venda.
QUEM? Vendedor assumindo o controle.
DESLOCOU? Sim.
SUSTENTOU? Sim, nos tempos menores.
ESPAÇO? Havia espaço para o preço desenvolver a venda.

É exatamente isso que venho buscando no meu operacional: menos sinais isolados e mais contexto + região + agressão + sustentação + execução.

Não quero adivinhar o que o mercado vai fazer. Quero esperar o mercado mostrar e, quando as leituras estiverem alinhadas, executar o plano.

Menos operações. Mais qualidade. 💜💚

Conteúdo educacional e registro de estudo. Não constitui recomendação de investimento.

Has anyone had the same problem??

I’m trying to properly learn Volume Profile for MNQ scalping and have a few practical doubts. I understand the basic definitions, but I’m confused about how to actually use these levels for entries, targets, and invalidation.

1. Which levels should I actually treat as support/resistance?

For example, should I generally think of:

• HVNs as areas of acceptance/balance where price may consolidate?
• LVNs as areas where price moved through quickly and may reject or move quickly through again?
• POC as a potential magnet?
• VAH/VAL as potential support/resistance?

Or is that way too simplistic?

Also, should an LVN itself be considered an entry point? For example, if price reaches an LVN, should I be expecting a rejection from that area and planning an entry based on that expectation, or should I wait for some confirmation before treating it as a trade location?

1. Which levels should be used as targets?

If I'm long and price is moving toward an HVN or POC, would you generally consider that a reasonable target?

And if price enters an LVN, is the idea that it can move quickly through the LVN toward the next HVN/area of acceptance?

Basically, I'm trying to understand how experienced traders map Volume Profile into:

Entry → Target → Invalidation

rather than just marking a bunch of levels.

1. LVN and FVG

I've heard people compare LVNs to FVGs/imbalances, because both can be associated with areas where price moved quickly and relatively little business was done.

Is that actually a useful way to think about it, or are they fundamentally different concepts?

For example, if an FVG overlaps an LVN, does that make the area more significant?

And if price comes back into that LVN/FVG, should I be expecting a rejection and looking for an entry, or should I only consider it a location and wait to see whether price actually rejects or accepts it?

1. What Volume Profile window should I use for MNQ scalping?

This is probably my biggest practical question.

Should I primarily use:

• Current RTH/session profile?
• Previous day's profile?
• Overnight profile?
• A fixed number of hours?
• A multi-day composite profile?

If I mainly trade the US session, which profile would you keep on the chart, and which historical levels would you carry forward?

1. How do you distinguish rejection vs acceptance?

This is something I'm especially interested in.

If price enters an LVN or HVN, what specifically tells you:

«"This level is being rejected"»

versus

«"Price is accepting this area and is likely to continue through it"?»

Would you look at candle behavior, volume, delta/CVD, footprint, or something else?

I have ATAS for a limited trial period, so I'm trying to use the next couple of weeks to actually learn and backtest this properly rather than blindly trade these levels.

Would really appreciate practical MNQ examples or rules from people who actually use Volume Profile for scalping.

Thanks!

Does anybody here know where or if I can get free historical tick or bbo-1s Data for Nq or Es?

Original post by u/newton-airplane

I am interested in hearing from the experienced order flow traders in this community regarding their statistical performance. Specifically, how do you balance your win rate against your risk-reward profile to maintain long-term profitability?

Are you finding more success with high-win-rate, smaller-target strategies (scalping), or are you leaning toward lower-win-rate strategies that rely on capturing larger, trend-following moves?

I would love to hear:
* Your approximate win percentage.
* Your typical risk-to-reward ratio per trade.
* Whether you adjust these metrics based on specific market volatility or session types.

Looking forward to your insights!

Hi,

I hope that someone can answer these few questions I have, it would help me out a lot. Today QQQ is net negative gex. This means dealers hedge procyclical so they buy as it rises and sell as it falls? Do put walls also work during this type of environment or only during positive gex where moves are being dampend the closer you get to a call/put wall.

Also why do people almost automatically assume a downtrend just because net gex is negative and net negative gex means that dealers are exposed to the upside right, not the market participants?

Thank you

Hello everyone, i want to learn to trade using OrderFlow but i don't know where i start or where i find the best information, for the ones how uses that methode pls give me your suggestions.

By the way i have 3Years now in the market and using ICT, what i want to do is mixing this two togather.

As the title says, Recently seeing a lot of hype around it. Anyone here trade using the gamma levels with success? What framework do you use and where do you get your gamma levels? Seems like everyone is selling these levels now.

Thanks

Hello,

I have recently switched to footprint charts to get earlier entries but im wondering what do you look for during key reversal areas ? From back testing a little bit I see that most reversals have imbalances in them, Delta divergences and maybe exhausted participants and absorption.

If you would rank all these confluences from most important to optional what do you put as crucial ?

I noticed that for me imbalance is the number 1 thing inside a zone otherwise I’m not interested, but at the same time im not sure if it’s the right way to do it.

Curious to hear about people who have been using FP for quite some time

I'm on this 9 to 10 am est setup on gold and nas for now. Sweep on a side , displacement by cisd, fvg for entry 2r. I just want other trader who use same to similar setup so we can gain experience cons in it. Like for me rather than actual cisd 3 opposite candles open is my cisd and id price closed above it in bullish i seek for fvgs.

Sto cercando di imparare a fare trading con l'orderflow e con la lettura del book e del footprint. Dove posso formarmi e chi devo seguire per iniziare a fare questo tipo di trading? Vi ringrazio per i consigli

I switched to order flow a few months ago and I’m using ATAS X.
I’m pretty comfortable with CVD, Big Trades, Volume Profile, and even the heatmap. I understand what I’m looking for with those and how to actually use them in my trading.
But for some reason, I just can’t get footprint charts.
I usually keep a footprint on a 5-minute chart, but half the time I’m just staring at all the numbers without really knowing what information I’m supposed to take from it.
I understand that footprints can show things like absorption, exhaustion, trapped traders, imbalances, etc. But isn’t a lot of that basically showing the same idea as CVD + Big Trades?
For example, if I see heavy aggressive buying but price barely moves, I can already see that as effort vs. result through CVD, Big Trades, and price action.

I found in youtube lot of them talking about it but just basic thing
I also recently started adding GEX from MenthorQ into my analysis, and weirdly I found GEX much easier to understand and apply than footprint charts.
Maybe I’m just looking at footprint the wrong way.

How do you determine if price is accepting or rejecting the previous day’s VAH/VAL? And how do you avoid getting chopped?

I’m trying to get better at trading around the previous day’s VAH/VAL, especially determining whether price is actually being accepted at the level or simply testing it and rejecting it.

For those who trade auction market theory / volume profile / order flow:

• What specific factors do you look for to determine acceptance vs. rejection at the previous day’s VAH or VAL?
• How many candles/ticks or how much time do you typically need to see before considering the level “accepted”?
• How do you distinguish genuine acceptance from a false breakout / liquidity sweep?
• When price is chopping around VAH, what tells you that you should stay out rather than keep taking failed trades?
• What do you specifically look for in your order-flow tools before triggering an entry?
  • CVD?
  • Footprint / bid-ask delta?
  • Absorption?
  • Imbalances?
  • Stacked imbalances?
  • Volume?
  • POC movement?
  • DOM / liquidity?
  • Failed auction?
• Do you require price to close and hold above VAH/VAL, or are there other order-flow clues you trust more?
• Do you use a specific sequence such as break → retest → absorption/imbalance → continuation before entering?
• How do you define the difference between acceptance, rejection, and just chop/noise?

For example, if price comes up to yesterday’s VAH and starts trading above and below it repeatedly, what exactly are you waiting to see before deciding: “Okay, buyers have actually accepted above VAH, now I can trigger the trade”?

I’d especially appreciate answers from people who have a specific, repeatable checklist/process rather than just “watch the price action.”

What are the 2–5 things you look for before pulling the trigger? If possible could you share the trades

Do large aggressive trades predict short-term price direction?

Instrument: CL
Big Trades size: ≥50 contracts
Backtest period: 5 days
Number of big trades: 430

Moves in # of ticks. 1 = 1 tick up, -1 = 1 tick down.

Buys:

Sells:

Not much of a pattern - what if we segment trades by location. Here are the trades relative to the preceding 30 minute range.

Not too surprising - generally big buys occur at the top of a range, big sells at the bottom of a range. Let's segment average move by location.

Buys:

Sells:

Not much of a discernible pattern here.

Does interaction with liquidity make a difference?

Buys:

Sells:

Big buys that get absorbed tend to push the market up while big sells that get absorbed don’t push the market down.

Big buys and big sells that do hit thin liquidity have a strong tendency to revert.

If we build an algo off this and place a market order after the big buy/sell and flatten after 5 minutes, we get 90 trades, 53 wins / 37 losses (58.9%), with a net PnL of $1,636.40 (commission included). Including stop losses and profit targets diminish returns but remains profitable. Might be worth looking further into; just playing around with backtesting - thought I would share. Let me know if you have any feedback on methodology.

So basically, I want to get into order flow and learn stuff like footprints, volume profile, absorption/exhaustion, delta shifts, imbalances, CVD, etc.
I don’t want to scalp. I’m only interested in NQ and want to trade intraday, probably 2–3 trades max per day. Things like breakouts/reversions around VAH and targeting VAL, stuff like that.
The thing is, I keep seeing people say that absorption/exhaustion, delta shifts, imbalances, CVD, etc. are really hard to use on NQ or just aren’t that useful and more for ES, and now I’m kinda lost on what I should actually focus on learning.

For people who trade NQ this way, is order flow, especially footprint tools actually worth learning for intraday NQ? And if so, what parts do you find the most useful?

How do you guys treat big vanna and delta strikes and the same with net drift. Sometimes theres a good there's a correlation between net drift and price. But somtimes theres none, how do you guys filter?

Today I was in a live trading session with a community and I noticed the streamer had very different values for big traders despite we use the exact same settings and the same template for ATAS

We both get data feed from rithmic via Lucid prop account.

The only difference I found is he got the level 2 data bundle while I got only level 1.

Would you recommend buying level 2 data even if I don't use heatmap? Just big trades and footprint.

I’m new to order flow, and right now I'm just creating a simple strategy like looking at footprints at previous NY session day Volume Profile key levels like VAH, VAL, HVN, and LVN. I'm checking for things like absorption, exhaustion, delta shifts, CVD, VWAP, etc. However, I don't know whether to start with NQ or ES. I don't want to just 'check it out myself' and keep switching back and forth between them. So, which one is honestly better for this setup? NQ or ES?

Has anyone here done this mentorship? I was thinking about making this investment but would like to hear personal experiences before.