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Price Action & Order Flow (Gold|Silver|Copper)

  • #241
  • Feb 20, 2026 6:02am Feb 20, 2026 6:02am
I want to show you guys something interesting.
In the first image, I marked roughly where large offers got filled (red), where large offers are sitting (orange), and where large bids are starting to come in (green)
In the second image, I marked the total area where large bid clusters are sitting, showing real demand.
Do with this information as you will, I personally wouldn't hold onto longs for dear life. This is a very dangerous imbalance situation.
In Silver it's worse, the bid clusters stretch to around 55.
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  • #242
  • Edited 9:49am Feb 21, 2026 9:33am | Edited 9:49am
I want to explore with you guys the behavior of big players in the Gold (and Silver) market, and how demand and supply are distributed at the moment.
Starting from the 29th Jan. to 2nd Feb., notice the vacuum in demand. It was on the 20th I think, when the market was approaching 4800, that I said ''nobody really wants to buy at these prices''. Now, I said that because I was looking at the DoM, and the DoM showed no real demand at higher prices, and the only thing that was sustaining that rally was a layering algo on the offers; meaning, no real buying, no real demand, momentum on low volume overall (I'm talking about institutional)
Only after the flush did the bulk of demand appear generally in the range 4500 - 4600 give or take.

Notice what attracted the market after the flush, and how ''buying'' loses momentum when the attractor disappears and what happens after...another stop-run. Now, that stop-run was interesting because it happened a day before the CPI figure, of course they held price, but just enough buyers seem to have accumulated for Asia and London to drop it on liquidity around 4860. New York consolidated and turned on the layering algo again, which of course pulled the market all the way above 5100 while no real demand was actually supporting that move, but some large offers got filled here and there.
Notice the vacuum forming on the bids again and delta divergence.

Looking at the COT data from last week, we also don't see real positioning on these prices. The 200K+ are probably positions below 4500, and notice how the crash stopped at 4400...just a market rejection right? Sure...

What do I think will happen next? What always happens next. Real demand starts from 4900.
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  • #243
  • Feb 22, 2026 10:31am Feb 22, 2026 10:31am
Fucking hell...look at Silver.
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  • #244
  • Feb 23, 2026 5:27am Feb 23, 2026 5:27am
How's the week starting for you guys?
  • #245
  • Feb 24, 2026 8:11am Feb 24, 2026 8:11am
The layering algo in Gold shifted below price.
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  • #246
  • Edited 4:21am Feb 25, 2026 3:24am | Edited 4:21am
There seems to be a disconnect in the markets. I don't know how to express it properly but some behaviors aren't adding up to market conditions and come out of the blue. Of course when you just look at price you see support/resistence, breakout, trend, seemingly a continuation by the price action. But the underlying traded volume makes no sense. I suspect we're in the phase of distribution (closing positions/taking profit) because large sell volume is seen in the order flow but the market isn't reacting + all large offers were filled both in Gold and Silver, while interest doesn't seem to show on higher prices (thin liquidity) I don't know, it's a bit confusing at the moment, but I think next week will tell.

(edit)
Silver rose on thin liquidity, low volume, and no large offers were filled, but consistent bids appeared (liquidity for a selloff?)
There's an offer at 92 but it's not large (iceberg?)
Gold is pretty much the same thing, just a push up on low volume, maybe they want to fill again at 5250? The dips seem to be bought just to keep price up.
I'm telling you man this is sus activity right there.
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  • #247
  • Feb 25, 2026 9:52am Feb 25, 2026 9:52am
https://y.yarn.co/79d720a6-82f8-4528...00095_text.gif
  • #248
  • Feb 25, 2026 11:49am Feb 25, 2026 11:49am
I would say profits are taken on these highs and that they are positioning for a selloff. Every large bid is ignored as the price pushes higher except for chasing algos (no real support on demand), while all large offers are getting filled, and large aggressive sells don't move the market. I noticed that every little dip from those sells is bought to keep price from falling, meaning that the sells aren't actually new positions but rather exits, while the accumulation is on the offers.
We still have 5240 and 5250, a smaller one on 5260, that would be up until 5240 on Spot (approx. $20 difference)..we'll see.
Does anybody have any helpful info in this situation?
  • #249
  • Feb 26, 2026 4:08am Feb 26, 2026 4:08am
Not much buying on that dip, also large buys are starting to lose strength on higher prices, a lot of them got trapped.
If my analysis is correct, the market is now waiting for the trigger. Could be Jobless Claims, could be Friday next week.
  • #250
  • Feb 26, 2026 7:39am Feb 26, 2026 7:39am
Quoting duksi
There seems to be a disconnect in the markets. I don't know how to express it properly but some behaviors aren't adding up to market conditions and come out of the blue. Of course when you just look at price you see support/resistence, breakout, trend, seemingly a continuation by the price action. But the underlying traded volume makes no sense. I suspect we're in the phase of distribution (closing positions/taking profit) because large sell volume is seen in the order flow but the market isn't reacting + all large offers were filled both in Gold...
I completely agree, things haven't been adding up every since the big drop. I've also been watching the massive bids sitting far below current prices.
Something I've been curious about, is CVD, I've noticed that it nearly always is negative.. If you have any insights on that would be greatly appreciated. The constant and instant dip recovery is quite infuriating, all I can tell is that ask/offers are continously being lifted although I don't have good enough data feeds to see how "valid" the matching is to that. Yesterday's trading halt just adds to the sus activity, with Jane Street being the world's biggest holder of SLV currently if I'm not mistaken..
  • #251
  • Feb 26, 2026 9:25am Feb 26, 2026 9:25am
Quoting zaldurthi
{quote} I completely agree, things haven't been adding up every since the big drop. I've also been watching the massive bids sitting far below current prices. Something I've been curious about, is CVD, I've noticed that it nearly always is negative.. If you have any insights on that would be greatly appreciated. The constant and instant dip recovery is quite infuriating, all I can tell is that ask/offers are continously being lifted although I don't have good enough data feeds to see how "valid" the matching is to that. Yesterday's trading halt...
I don't know what you mean by CVD being always negative. If you're referring to the current situation, CVD is staying in negative territory because not only are large profits being taken (which is registered as market sells right) but more people are shorting the market. In some markets like Copper, CVD will generally be negative because the buyers don't enter aggressively but on bid, where a market maker or liquidity provider or hedging firm will sell to those bids right.
In other words, you gotta look at the context, CVD only tells whether there are more aggressive buyers or sellers in a given period.
The situation in Gold is a divergence, price going up CVD going down, meaning there is more selling as the price trends higher. This is seen as an early sign of weakening buyers right. Again, the context is important, because if CVD was going down but large bids were getting filled as price goes up, then we have support on demand; so that's actually a bullish sign.
Do ask any questions, I'll try to answer them.
  • #252
  • Feb 26, 2026 10:14am Feb 26, 2026 10:14am
Quoting duksi
{quote} I don't know what you mean by CVD being always negative. If you're referring to the current situation, CVD is staying in negative territory because not only are large profits being taken (which is registered as market sells right) but more people are shorting the market. In some markets like Copper, CVD will generally be negative because the buyers don't enter aggressively but on bid, where a market maker or liquidity provider or hedging firm will sell to those bids right. In other words, you gotta look at the context, CVD only tells whether...
Sorry for being vague!

What I meant was that across all the assets I've checked, equities, futures, crypto, commodities I've never seen a single case where CVD has been positive. The only exception is if the time span is quite short. So, to be specific, that CVD from what I've seen atleast is always negative given enough time(enough being rather short).

So the only logical conclusion I arrive at, assuming I've looked at enough cases, is that market orders, mostly consist of sells.

I don't have anything specific in mind with this, just wanted to hear your thoughts and if you see any implications from this.

I'd also like to ask for your input on my idea of price.

The best I've been able to come up with is:
- Price is just where the last trade was cleared
- Trades as far as I know can only be cleared at limit orders

If so, then I have a hard time wrapping my head around (combined with the CVD discussion) what market orders really tell us.

Or, if the idea of aggressiveness really matters, as it's the makers (limit orders) that "ultimately" decide where price even can be in the first place.

As I see it, participants based on the information they have, post orders at prices they're willing to buy/sell, this is a discussion in itself, as there's a lot of sophistication around all this, especially with HFT's.

I think that for us retail with limited information and tools, the only thing that might be useful for us is to take on the perspective that these limit orders will be placed where the makers believe they'll get a match. Their placement is therefore an anticipation of willingness to trade, hence, the typical retail idea of stop runs.

I apologize for the rant, but I think this thread is the most productive material I've seen over the years, so thought I'd take the chance to discuss and learn .
  • #253
  • Feb 26, 2026 11:36am Feb 26, 2026 11:36am
Quoting zaldurthi
{quote} Sorry for being vague! What I meant was that across all the assets I've checked, equities, futures, crypto, commodities I've never seen a single case where CVD has been positive. The only exception is if the time span is quite short. So, to be specific, that CVD from what I've seen atleast is always negative given enough time(enough being rather short). So the only logical conclusion I arrive at, assuming I've looked at enough cases, is that market orders, mostly consist of sells. I don't have anything specific in mind with this, just wanted...
I think I understand what you're saying.
So, regarding long term CVD in basically bull markets, think about what is easier to do when taking profits: to wait for a fill on your TP or to just close the position. If the big players prefer to get positioned on the limits, they will generally prefer to exit aggressively because not only is it easier but there may not be enough buyers to fill their TP's on longs. So a lot of ''sell volume'' in those markets is actually profit taking, and because they mostly enter on bids there's less ''buy volume'' right, so CVD will naturally tend to go negative over time. Another thing is Commercial (non-speculative) positioning, which is hedging. The Commercial in Gold for example is mostly on shorts, now I didn't go deep into risk hedging strategies, but I know that they will buy physical but sell the paper, so some of the sell volume in Futures is them.
The next thing you touch on is a mixture of market mechanics, institutional strategies, and the actual importance of the Book. So, limits do not decide anything, they just sit there; aggressive orders is what moves price. The price is determined by the trades on the best bid/ask, and you don't need massive volume to move price, this is because the liquidity provider aka market maker provides thin liquidity, just enough to allow trading and they don't actually participate in the market, it is the large market maker aka big player that participates. The limits of the big players give insight into their targets and entries, and it is they who will move the market to their targets and entries. They don't really care about rules, if they want to lift the price to their target they will lift it, so their placements are not anticipation for trade. They couldn't care less about the willingness to trade at specific prices, they move price in their favor for their benefit. If for example a cluster of offers is at 100, you would assume that there is willingness to trade there, but the big players already got filled from 90 to 95, so they simply start dropping price because their goal was achieved; they don't care about that cluster at 100.
I think what you're trying to figure out is how to differentiate events in the market. There's really no way to define it but 'complicated'. You said "...where the makers believe they'll get a match." The thing is, is that the makers operate with multiple accounts and firms, so they will make their own matches. If for example we see a large bid at the bottom of a market, the player of that bid is able to fill his own order with another account or communicate to another player to fill his bid. I see this all the time in the DoM. So they are basically taking the whole market to themselves. If we take all of retail to be the liquidity for their orders, they wouldn't get filled 95% of the time hahaha. Retail is like the nucleus of an atom in terms of available liquidity, but the stop runs are done by self-learning algorithms to make fast profits. The big players don't really care about stops.

Hopefully I answered some of your questions, tell me if I missed something. I'm glad you post here, this is a good discussion, good questions.
  • #254
  • Feb 26, 2026 1:07pm Feb 26, 2026 1:07pm
I got something interesting for you guys.
So, in the first image we see cumulative big trades over 30 (kind of a middle point for Gold, not too noisy) without price, and with CVD on that period.
The second image shows the DoM heatmap but only the largest limits (over 50), and the third image shows price (bars) and the heatmap.
Now notice, how many large bids were fully filled in this consolidation? ...only two, and it was short-term; the third one got rejected.

Why do I show this? Well, somebody may ask "Why is the market consolidating now?" Here you see it.
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  • #255
  • Feb 26, 2026 2:14pm Feb 26, 2026 2:14pm
Quoting duksi
{quote} I think I understand what you're saying. So, regarding long term CVD in basically bull markets, think about what is easier to do when taking profits: to wait for a fill on your TP or to just close the position. If the big players prefer to get positioned on the limits, they will generally prefer to exit aggressively because not only is it easier but there may not be enough buyers to fill their TP's on longs. So a lot of ''sell volume'' in those markets is actually profit taking, and because they mostly enter on bids there's less ''buy volume''...
The ease of profit taking absolutely makes sense!

I'd still expect profit taking with TP/Limits, as if it's a larger position etc, slippage might be a concern for example.

In regards to the limit orders, is there not a lot of literature showing that something 95% of orders never get filled? I've always been quite skeptical to the idea of aggressiveness (market orders/consuming liquidity) actually moving price. Going back to my idea of price being the level of last cleared trade, then price can only clear where there is liquidity, a limit-match or market order just "accepts" the offered price. In the DOM, there's many cases of orders just being re-filled etc.

Isn't there like only 3-4 main liquidity provider for nearly all markets, Citadel being the largest, whom also accounts for nearly half of all trading volume? I don't remember what the source was, but it also talked about these liquidity providers having 60-70% of the orders in the book.

I think we have the same idea of their placement of limit orders, what I meant with anticipation of willingness to trade is; If you want to get a guaranteed fill, it would be best to just post at a price where you know for a fact someone is willing to trade at, for example stop losses or liquidation clusters.

I am not too certain about these points though, as I've read just like you said, that price is determined by best bid/ask, or national best bid offer (NBBO), it'd be interesting to learn how that affects price. Because they must have some sort of sync across exchanges etc? or is the sync just there due to the market effectivizing the arbitrage...

Agreed, it's all very complicated, your perspective and mindset is very insightful, it would be very interesting if one could quantify it or systemize it somehow and do some sort of pilot to study the market.

Thanks for the answers, greatly appreciated, not a lot of good resources on the book, I've learnt a lot from this thread!
  • #256
  • Feb 26, 2026 3:27pm Feb 26, 2026 3:27pm
Quoting zaldurthi
{quote} The ease of profit taking absolutely makes sense! I'd still expect profit taking with TP/Limits, as if it's a larger position etc, slippage might be a concern for example. In regards to the limit orders, is there not a lot of literature showing that something 95% of orders never get filled? I've always been quite skeptical to the idea of aggressiveness (market orders/consuming liquidity) actually moving price. Going back to my idea of price being the level of last cleared trade, then price can only clear where there is liquidity, a limit-match...
Great commentary. Although I don't get the point you're making with what's moving price, it's basic market mechanics. I suggest Bookmap educational videos on YouTube, they explain the mechanics.
The slippage on their profits is basically non-existent, they can just hold price; but when they exit with limits, we can observe that most of the time as "icebergs."
Yeah the market makers I mean that's just big banks doing their jobs yknow. A liquidity provider is not the problem, the problem is when that same maker has a profit-making floor. When I talk about big players I'm talking about the profit-making side of big banks and also big hedge funds/firms.
This is interesting what you said at the end, what do you mean by systemizing it and making a pilot?
  • #257
  • Feb 27, 2026 7:38am Feb 27, 2026 7:38am
Quoting duksi
{quote} Great commentary. Although I don't get the point you're making with what's moving price, it's basic market mechanics. I suggest Bookmap educational videos on YouTube, they explain the mechanics. The slippage on their profits is basically non-existent, they can just hold price; but when they exit with limits, we can observe that most of the time as "icebergs." Yeah the market makers I mean that's just big banks doing their jobs yknow. A liquidity provider is not the problem, the problem is when that same maker has a profit-making floor. When...
I'll try to explain a bit better, and if anything still is unclear just point it out and I'll elaborate further.

I do understand what you mean with the whole market mechanics things, altough I heavily question the weight of these and honestly, most things that you can consider general consensus in the trading sphere.

My main points is essentially that most people in the trading world don't apply any logical framework to the things we're discussing here, especially price.

If we try to improve this by formally defining price, which really only is the level where the last trade was cleared, then the validity or relevance of nearly all common explanations, such as market mechanics etc start to be questionable.

I am happy to elaborate on this further if you'd like.

But this brings me to the last thing you brought up, systemizing some things.

I am trying to be non verbose here, so I'll skip most details for now, but considering my points above, the best conclusion I've gotten to is that you mindset/perspective or way of looking at the market, really is what I believe to be the most useful or productive way of looking at it.

I think that with some collaborative work on this, one might be able to define some systematic approach to study the markets to find valuable insights into how things work.
  • #258
  • Feb 27, 2026 8:22am Feb 27, 2026 8:22am
Quoting zaldurthi
{quote} I'll try to explain a bit better, and if anything still is unclear just point it out and I'll elaborate further. I do understand what you mean with the whole market mechanics things, altough I heavily question the weight of these and honestly, most things that you can consider general consensus in the trading sphere. My main points is essentially that most people in the trading world don't apply any logical framework to the things we're discussing here, especially price. If we try to improve this by formally defining price, which really...
Basically we are talking about the same thing regarding price, but saying it differently hahah. I mean yes, price is the last level that was cleared, that's the mechanics. We have a price and the spread on that price, if the best bid or ask doesn't get filled, price doesn't move, but only when the best bid or ask is cleared does the price move, and that requires a market order that hits the limit. I mean that's all there is to it, that's what we refer to as market mechanics, simply how the price action operates.
Now regarding the systematic approach, it's already well established with order flow. We look at the relation and behavior between market participants, Bookmap explains it all in their videos, I recommend to check them out. In the study of a market through order flow, you'll hear terms like absorption, attraction, sweeps, flips, etc. Order flow is already a systematic approach. But if you're referring to a broader picture, then we have to look at a whole basket of things, and that basket is deep. However, if you're aiming at something new, like a new system to be made, I do have an idea that can be realized regarding a method of calculating probabilities. Do expand on your thoughts.
  • #259
  • Feb 27, 2026 9:02am Feb 27, 2026 9:02am
Quoting duksi
{quote} Basically we are talking about the same thing regarding price, but saying it differently hahah. I mean yes, price is the last level that was cleared, that's the mechanics. We have a price and the spread on that price, if the best bid or ask doesn't get filled, price doesn't move, but only when the best bid or ask is cleared does the price move, and that requires a market order that hits the limit. I mean that's all there is to it, that's what we refer to as market mechanics, simply how the price action operates. Now regarding the systematic...
I'd be happy to work on something together if that's something you'd find interesting.

My background is in pure mathematics, although I've done a lot of work in modelling weather, natural disaster occurances such as earthquakes.

Most of this sort of work in the finance world is of course very saturated, but a lot of it is very compute heavy and built on assumptions of near-complete market efficiency.

I do however believe that it might be possible, to create something quite good on taking opposite assumptions, and leaning more on a less compute heavy and logical framework.

Yes, I completely agree, we're talking about the same thing haha. I guess what I am trying to get to is that it'd be interesting to take a quite formal approach from questions such as: If we define price as such, then we really do need to take every possible scenario in consideration, such as incoming market buy orders, into an empty book... Specifically the implications of it, like in that case price would simply be decided of what the first-come limit order would like to be matched at...

The point here is that this one example scenario, out of many possible ones, do give quite a lot of insight to what could be possible in practice. This is one of the reasons I question the importance of market orders, to me they should matter much less, as they don't decide where they'll be matched. HFT here really does complicate things. As well as the fact that there are two figure amounts of different order types that we retail don't even have access to... I think the nasdaq exchange offers 20 something automated behavior limit order as a base package...
  • #260
  • Feb 27, 2026 9:23am Feb 27, 2026 9:23am
Quoting zaldurthi
{quote} I'd be happy to work on something together if that's something you'd find interesting. My background is in pure mathematics, although I've done a lot of work in modelling weather, natural disaster occurances such as earthquakes. Most of this sort of work in the finance world is of course very saturated, but a lot of it is very compute heavy and built on assumptions of near-complete market efficiency. I do however believe that it might be possible, to create something quite good on taking opposite assumptions, and leaning more on a less compute...
The importance of market orders regards strategy at the end of the day. Without context, the market is just random distribution.
Regarding a potential collaboration, we shall discuss it privately.
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