The pulling and stacking indicator by Stack Signal
See the trading order book move before the price.
The pulling and stacking indicator by Stack Signal decomposes the raw order flow (every resting order stacked or pulled, every aggressive execution) into one normalized signal you can read at a glance. On Bookmap and NinjaTrader 8.
A technical indicator based on order flow
Raw volume tells you what was already traded. Flow tells you what the market is getting ready to do: liquidity stacking up to defend a level, or quietly pulling away before it breaks.
One signal, two components
Every market event is decomposed exactly, without smoothing, filtering, or repainting.
Total Flow
Passive book changes plus aggressive executions: the headline.
Passive Flow
Resting liquidity stacked (+) or pulled (−) across the book.
Aggressive Flow
Executed volume delta (buys − sells), the classic tape delta.
Total Order Flow = Passive + Aggressive
Exactly indicated, on every event. Two familiar concepts added in one exact sum.
The order flow signals you get
The sigma (σ) readout: future trading order flow in a unit that means something
Raw order flow in contracts is meaningless across symbols and sessions. Every number is normalized against its own trailing band, so “+4.2σ” means the same thing on ES futures at 2 a.m. and NQ futures at the open, and it ports to any instrument with a book, no calibration.
The multi-window ladder: burst or campaign?
Four windows (2 / 3 / 5 / 10 minutes), side by side, each colored by direction. A spike in the 2-minute cell that the 10-minute cell ignores is a burst. All four cells lit the same color is a campaign. Persistent vs. transient is the distinction that matters, and it reads in half a second.
Support & Resistance bands: when flow is stretched
The ±3σ band of Total Flow, drawn as Resistance (upper) and Support (lower) lines. Flow tagging the band is statistically stretched against the last 25 to 50 minutes of its own behavior, context you would otherwise have to keep in your head.
Bands are context, not trade calls.
Independent buy & sell lines: see both sides
Watch buy-side and sell-side flow as separate lines instead of only their net. One side going vertical while the other flatlines is a very different market than both rising together, and the net alone can’t tell you which.
On by default on Bookmap; enabled via “Show Buy Line / Show Sell Line” on NT8.
The deep-book warning: top of book fighting the deep book
A validated finding from our research pipeline: when top-of-book flow opposes deep-book flow, adverse-excursion risk is elevated. The indicator computes the signal twice, at depth 1 and depth 10, and warns when they fight. It is a caution flag, deliberately not an entry arrow, and no L1-only competitor can compute it.
Absorption vs. initiative: book against tape
When the book stacks bids while the tape sells into them, that’s absorption. When book and tape lean the same way, that’s initiative. The indicator labels the state as context, not as a signal; we tell you plainly which parts of the product carry validation evidence and which don’t.
It tells you when it doesn’t know
Most indicators pretend they always have an answer. Ours tells you when it doesn’t.
WARMING UP 62%, band needs 25 min
Until the statistical band is fully seeded, the indicator says so instead of plotting garbage that looks plausible.
STALE, last event 09:41:07
A dead data feed renders as “flow went quiet” on other tools. We grey out and timestamp the outage.
Never filtered, never repainted
The indicator reflects the raw stream. What you see at the close is what it showed live.
Same numbers on both trading platforms
One engine, two platforms, provably identical: every release replays the same recorded session through the Bookmap and NinjaTrader implementations and verifies the outputs match to float round-off. A Bookmap user and an NT8 user watching the same tape see the same numbers.
Yes. The indicator measures the order book itself, so a depth feed is required on both platforms.