Over the last few years or so, “order flow” has become something of a new buzzword in retail trading circles. It’s almost as if there’s an air of mystery surrounding the idea, a code that (once deciphered) might give one trader a significant “edge” over another. The irony in all this is that order flow is one of the oldest, most basic, and almost primal functions of the market. There are traders who are willing to buy or sell at a given price limit, as in “I want to buy or sell at this price or better,” and then, there are traders who are willing to cross that limit, buying or selling at the best available price. That’s order flow in a nutshell. If order flow is mysterious, it’s because its nuances are not easily understood, or for those who do understand it, the data is not always accessible, save for special software and data feed. But regardless of whatever tools you may have to decipher and interpret order flow, you can never anticipate the buyers and sellers who jump in “out of nowhere” at a given moment, making the market environment more dynamic. In this this first installment of our series on Order Flow, we’ll cover the basics of order flow and its practical use as a possible market movement indicator. What is Order Flow?