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Glossary / Market structure

Order flow

Definition

The live stream of orders and executions hitting the book.

Why it matters

Order flow traders read absorption and imbalance rather than indicators. Journaling the flow read at entry turns a feel into a testable tag.

Example

A 500-lot resting bid absorbing repeated selling without price breaking is the order-flow read that a level is being defended.

How to track it in a journal

TradeStack calculates the core performance numbers — win rate, average win and loss, profit factor, expectancy, drawdown and consistency — automatically from imported trades, so order flow stops being something you estimate and becomes something you read.

Related terms

Slippage
The difference between your expected fill price and the price you actually get.
Spread
The gap between the best bid and the best ask.
Liquidity
How much size a market can absorb without moving price.
Volatility
How much price moves over a given period.

Keep reading

Trading journal guides
Expectancy, profit factor, drawdown, backtesting and the PDT rule.
Free trading calculators
Position size, risk-reward, expectancy and options profit.
Expectancy calculator
Expected profit per trade from your own numbers.
Broker CSV export guides
Step-by-step exports for Tradovate, NinjaTrader, IBKR and more.
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