Next let’s take a look at a Trading DOM, which stands for Depth Of Market. The act of selling with a market order is known as hitting the bid. Note: The act of buying with a market order is known as taking the offer or lifting the ask. If you were looking to buy you would pay 3010.50. In the example above, if you were looking to sell a eMini S&P 500 contract the price you would receive is 3010.25. If you wish to sell, the price you will receive is the Bid (price the counter-party is bidding). When you want to buy a security the price you will pay is the Ask (price the counter-party is asking).

The price of any security depends on whether you wish to buy or sell. Let’s take a look at some of the basics and how to read a footprint chart. Footprint charts allow you to interpret order flow, similar to how I used Level II quotes in the past. Introducing Footprint Charts – Key Conceptsįootprint charts brought market demand and supply back to life for me. Like most other pure Level II traders, I reached a point where I had to develop new strategies or my career would have been over. The algo’s resulted in a lot of false or fake orders being advertised in the Level II that would get pulled, making a Level II MUCH less transparent and very difficult to read.

Then things changed, real quick… In 2008 algorithms began to account for a majority of market volume. I would cover my position into their panicking. I profited by following other time frame traders as they entered the market or by taking out S&R levels that I knew a lot of short term traders were leaning on as their out. I would use the Level II in order to determine when large buyers or sellers were entering the market creating imbalances as well as to identify key support and resistance levels. The majority of us at the firm were pure Level II traders.Ī Level II quote gave us the ability to read order flow as well as determine logical levels for stops and take profits. In 2008, I was 5 years into my professional trading career at GPC in Chicago.

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