At a glance
The short version
Order flow trading is the claim that volume shows intent before price does — a level defended with size, a push that gets absorbed, a POC that price keeps returning to. Those claims are testable, and the only way to test them without paying for live data and live losses is to replay real volume and decide before the next candle shows you. CRTLAB gives you three volume views on the same replay: a footprint beside the chart, a volume profile on it, and volume bars under it.
Three ways to read the same volume
Volume profile stacks the volume of everything on screen by price: the point of control, the 70% value area, and the high- and low-volume nodes that act as magnets and gaps. It recalculates as you replay and as you scroll — more on the volume profile.
Footprint does the same inside each 1H, 4H or daily candle, so you see where a single candle did its business and whether that business moved price — more on the footprint.
Volume bars are the plain time series: how much traded each bar, coloured by direction — more on real volume.
Order flow setups worth testing first
Return to POC. When price leaves a high-volume level, how often does it come back within a session, and is the return a trade or a trap? Mark the prior session's POC and count.
Absorption at a level. Heavy volume on a small body at a prior high or low — does it reverse, or is it a pause before the break? The footprint flags every one for you; your job is to record what happened next.
Low-volume gaps. Thin areas in the profile are where price tends to travel fast. Does a break into one run to the next high-volume node often enough to trade?
What the volume is
Volume is real traded volume, not tick counts: for indices, forex, gold, silver and oil it is the matching futures contract's exchange volume, minute by minute; for crypto it is exchange volume (Coinbase); for US stocks it is the exchange's trades in regular hours.
It is traded volume by time and price, not a bid/ask tape: CRTLAB does not reconstruct aggressor side, so delta and imbalance ratios are not part of it. Everything that depends on where and how much traded — profiles, POCs, absorption, volume spikes — is.
Frequently asked questions
Can I practise order flow trading for free?
CRTLAB is free to try. You get the footprint, volume profile and volume bars on every market, with every tool the product has, for your first 10,000 candles of replay — roughly two hours of stepping through a chart, no card needed. After the sample, unlimited replay is $14.99 a month, cancel any time.
Is this a bid/ask order flow tool?
No. It reads real traded volume by time and price — volume profile, footprint POCs and absorption — without splitting it into buyers and sellers.
Which markets have volume?
All 38: indices, forex, gold, silver and oil (futures volume), crypto (exchange volume) and US stocks (exchange trades).
Does the replay leak future volume?
No. Volume profile, footprint and bars only include candles up to your replay cursor; the forming candle counts only minutes already played.