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The Footprint Candle
Seeing Inside Every Candle
A standard candle shows you four data points: open, high, low, close — the outside of the building. A footprint candle opens the doors: you see every price level where buyers and sellers actually fought, and who was more aggressive at each one.
From Closed Candles to Open Data
Regular candle
“What happened?”
“What happened?”
| BID | PRICE | ASK |
|---|---|---|
| 42 | 21875 | 118 |
| 28 | 21874 | 165 |
| 35 | 21873 | 140 |
| 155 | 21872 | 310 |
| 90 | 21871 | 105 |
| 65 | 21870 | 88 |
| 45 | 21869 | 72 |
TOTAL BID460
DELTA+538
TOTAL ASK998
Footprint candle
“How did it happen?”
“How did it happen?”
The Four Components — Every Candle
① Bid volume — left column. Contracts sold at bid: aggressive sellers hitting the offer. Magenta.
② Ask volume — right column. Contracts bought at ask: aggressive buyers lifting the offer. Cyan.
③ POC — Point of Control. The price with the most total volume (bid + ask, per row — just a sum). The highlighted row: where the battle was fought.
④ Delta = Total Ask − Total Bid. The candle's scoreboard: positive = buyers won, negative = sellers won.
Delta Reference Guide
| DELTA | READS AS | MEANING |
|---|---|---|
| +520 | Positive | Buyers aggressive — buyers won the candle (690 − 170) |
| +13 | Balanced | No conviction either side — the market breathing (373 − 360) |
| −485 | Negative | Sellers aggressive — sellers won the candle (210 − 695) |
Price tells you where the market went. Delta tells you who had to work to get it there — and who got trapped along the way. A green candle with negative delta means price is lying. Delta doesn't lie.
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The Diagonal Read
Imbalances, Multipliers & Absorption
Two questions, two different math operations. Where did the most trading happen? — the POC: add bid + ask across each row, biggest total wins. Who actually won the fight? — imbalances: compare diagonally, never the same row. The bid and ask on the same row never met — the real matchup is the ask at one price vs. the bid one row below.
The Diagonal Read — Drawn
BIDPRICEASK422187511828218741653521873140155218723109021871105118 ÷ 28 = 4.2x ▶165 ÷ 35 = 4.7x ▶140 ÷ 155 = 0.9x ● ABSORBED310 ÷ 90 = 3.4x ▶ ★EVERY ARROW = ASK AT ONE PRICE ÷ BID ONE ROW BELOW — NEVER THE SAME ROW
Imbalance Multiplier Reference Guide
| MULTIPLIER | SIGNAL | USE CASE |
|---|---|---|
| < 3x | Noise | Normal back-and-forth — ignore |
| 3x – 4x | Real imbalance | One side overpowered — mark the level |
| 4x – 10x | Strong imbalance | Institutional-size aggression — 3 stacked = high conviction |
| 10x+ | Oversized | Rare — becomes support/resistance for the day |
| < 1x | Absorption | The wall — resting orders ate the aggressor; often marks reversals |
What Makes This Candle a Story
Buyers came in hard at the bottom — 3.4x at the POC (21872).
At 21873 a wall of 155 bids absorbed the pressure — the diagonal died at 0.9x. Someone defended that level.
Buyers regrouped and broke through anyway — 4.7x at 21874, 4.2x at 21875. The defender got run over.
Delta (+538) told you buyers won. The footprint told you they had to fight through a defended level to do it. That's the difference between price action and order flow.
The 3-Second Read — Every Candle, This Order
| STEP | CHECK | QUESTION |
|---|---|---|
| 01 | Delta | Who won the candle overall? |
| 02 | POC | Where did most of it happen? |
| 03 | Imbalances | Where did one side overpower? (diagonal, 3x+) |
Note: a footprint row = one price level, not always one tick. On NQ, rows shown 1 point apart are 4 ticks each. The mechanic never changes: ask of one row vs. bid of the row immediately below.
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Knowledge Check
4 questions — instant feedback