What is order flow trading, and why do traders use it?

Most traders focus on candlesticks, support and resistance, and indicators. Order flow takes things a step further by examining buying and selling activity behind price movements.

Some useful tools include:

• Footprint charts to examine volume traded at individual prices.

• DOM to view resting limit orders.

• Cumulative Volume Delta to track the difference between aggressive buying and selling.

• Volume profiles to identify areas of high and low trading activity.

The goal isn't to predict every move. It's to understand how the market is behaving and look for evidence that supports a trade.

Price tells you what happened. Order flow can help explain how it happened.