Generally people talk about volume exhaustion. From my experience I've never seen this, there are usually orders on both sides even when direction changes. Since direction is determined by market orders, how does a decrease in orders somewhere modify anything? Explaining it differently, stuff normally looks like this: Lots of orders lots of orders lots of orders current price lots of orders lots of orders lots of orders Nonetheless, if price looked like this: lots of orders lots of orders lots of orders current price no orders no orders no orders I would guess price would go elevated.
Lots of orders (bid) lots of orders (bid) lots of orders (bid) current price lots of orders (ask) lots of orders (ask) lots of orders (ask)
You have to think like a market maker, if prices become so unstable that they can't estimate fair value, they will pull both bids and asks. There is no way they can estimate an ask but not the bid. If a liquid product spread widens and they can still estimate fair value, they will step in and offer both sides and capture the spread...
There is what is seen and what is not seen. There is balance and unbalanced. What you are not seeing is the pace where each of the BBid BAsk is being resupplied at limit. There is balance across the spread which is an ebb and flow. Then there is unbalance. The unbalance can come from market volume entering or limit resupply diminishing on either side. The minority steps across the spread with market orders, leaving the majority of ‘lots of orders’ unfilled at trend turning points. Most see the orders being put and pulled not at BBid BAsk which is distinct from the above. At some point a wall is seen, whether market orders eat through it or retreat from it is the first flag. What volume does with follow through determines if the BO was a success or a fail.