Placement Flow & the core line

Placement Flow

Passive Flow is the change in the resting book. A trade removes resting size, so Passive Flow already contains the executions. Placement Flow takes them out:

Placement Flow = Passive Flow − Aggressive Flow

What is left is what traders placed and cancelled. It is the fourth line of the Flow mode and is hidden by default, so nothing changes until you switch it on.

One limit: a trade is added back at its full size. Size that traded from an iceberg or hidden order never showed in the book, so Placement Flow over-credits it by that amount.

Placement Flow is new and has not been studied as a signal. Treat it as a way of looking at the book, not as a tested edge.

The core line

The core line is the line you trade from. Choose Total Flow (the default), Passive Flow or Placement Flow. Four things follow it:

• the Flow Resistance / Flow Support band, sized from that line's own variability,
• the price-chart arrows,
• the console headline, the four-window ladder and the per-window alerts,
• the global notifications.

The console tile names the line it is reading, so you always know which line a σ figure refers to.

Why each line has its own band: the lines move by different amounts. Placement Flow can move much less than Total Flow, so read against Total Flow's band it may rarely reach either edge. Read against its own band, a σ figure means the same thing whichever line you trade from.

Aggressive Flow is not offered as a core line.

Changing the core line

• Bookmap: Parameters → Core Line (Flow mode). It applies at once, no restart. Bookmap cannot redraw a line backwards, so the band steps on the chart where you changed it.

Showing and hiding lines

• Bookmap: the gear at the top of the widget pane, as for any line. Placement Flow is listed there and starts hidden.

If you hide the core line, its band is hidden too and it draws no arrows.

In Buy / Sell mode

The Buy / Sell mode has its own choice, Buy / Sell Lines: With executions (the classic lines) or Placement only, where each trade is added back to the side it consumed. Buy Line minus Sell Line is Passive Flow for the first and Placement Flow for the second.

Next: line modes