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Footprint

A footprint replaces a candle's body with the detail of what traded inside it, price level by price level, separating what was bought at market from what was sold at market. Where a candlestick keeps four figures, footprint keeps the whole distribution.

The formula

Each candle opened into two columns: what was bought at the ask and sold at the bid, level by level.

How to read it

The trace of what ACTUALLY executed, where the DOM only shows waiting.

You look for imbalances: a level where buyers clearly dominated, a candle high with no aggressive transaction at all, absorption where heavy volume goes through without price moving. It is fine-grained reading, which needs a liquid market and an execution platform.

The classic mistake

Adopting it before having a plan. Footprint adds a considerable amount of information to every candle, and for a trader without written rules it mostly produces more reasons to enter. It refines an execution, it does not replace a method.

To go deeper on this : read the full guide. Every term is gathered in the glossary.