Module 5: Order flow and auction market theory
17 lessons, in reading order.
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Auction Market Theory Basics: Balance, Value, Rotation
Plain-language intro to Auction Market Theory: two-way auctions, value, acceptance and rejection, balance and imbalance, rotation, and initiative activity.
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Volume Profile Explained: POC, Value Area, HVN, LVN
How a volume profile shows volume at each price: point of control, value area high and low, high- and low-volume nodes, profile shapes and value migration.
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Opening Types and Day Types: A Descriptive Guide
How to describe where a session opens versus prior value, four opening types, initial balance, and balanced, trend, neutral and double-distribution days.
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Order Flow Basics: DOM, Time and Sales, Delta
What the DOM and time and sales show, bid/ask volume, delta, cumulative delta, absorption, icebergs and spoofing, and the limits of retail order flow data.
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How to Replay a Trading Session: A Worked Example
A constructed session replay combining structure, levels, volume, VWAP, profile and order flow, plus a checklist for reviewing your own sessions.
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TPO Profile Basics: Letters, Periods and Profile Shape
How a TPO profile builds a session from letters, one per time period, how to read split and collapsed profiles, and how TPO and volume profiles can differ.
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Initial Balance and Range Extension: How They Are Measured
What the initial balance is, which settings set its start and end, and how to measure the IB range, IB midpoint and range extension with worked arithmetic.
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Excess, Poor Highs and Lows, and Single Prints Explained
What profile readers mean by excess, tails, poor highs and lows and single prints, which settings create or erase them, and what none of them proves.
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Reading Delta and Imbalance on a Bid/Ask Volume Chart
How a bid/ask volume chart shows bid volume, ask volume and delta at each price, how diagonal and stacked imbalances are calculated, and what changes them.
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Reference Levels from Prior Sessions: High, Low, Close and Value
Which prior-session prices traders mark, from prior high, low and close to prior value area, how data choices move them, and how to use levels as a map.
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Reading the DOM Honestly: Spoofing, Icebergs and Hidden Size
What a depth of market display shows, how queue position works, why the visible book can mislead with spoofing and icebergs, and how to describe it.
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Composite Profiles and Value Migration: Reading Several Sessions Together
Learn how composite profiles combine several sessions and how value migration is described as higher, lower or overlapping, with a fictional example.
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Bid/Ask Volume Charts: Reading Volume at the Bid and Ask by Price
See how a bid/ask volume chart splits volume by price into bid and ask, how bar delta, imbalances and absorption are read, and what the grid leaves out.
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Cumulative Delta and Its Limits
Learn how cumulative delta is built from bar delta, why it resets, what divergence describes and why platforms disagree, with a fictional diagram.
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Liquidity, Sweeps and Stop Runs: A Descriptive Look
Learn what resting liquidity, liquidity sweeps and stop runs describe, why the labels come after the fact and why stop hunting claims cannot be checked.
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Overnight Inventory and the Overnight High and Low
Learn how overnight inventory is described against the prior settlement, what an inventory correction is and how opens are framed by the overnight range.
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Three Fictional Session Replays: Applying Auction Market Theory End to End
Walk through three fictional sessions, a balance day, a trend day and a failed breakout, using one auction market theory checklist from open to close.