Volume candles and volume footprint charts: how to read them
Volume candles and volume footprint charts in SuperCharting: how they are built, buy and sell volume per price row, delta, imbalances and how to read them.
Volume candles and volume footprint charts put volume inside the price bars instead of in a separate pane. Volume candles make each candle wider or narrower by how much traded; a volume footprint splits each candle into price rows and shows how much volume traded at each row and on which side. Both are chart types in SuperCharting's chart type menu.
Volume candles
Volume candles are ordinary candles whose body width follows volume. The bar with the most volume among the bars on screen gets the widest body, and every other body is drawn in proportion, so a bar with a quarter of that volume is a quarter as wide. Colours, borders, wicks and Color bars based on previous close are set in Settings > Symbol, as for candles.
How to read volume candles
- A wide candle with a long body is a move with participation behind it, often the bar that starts or confirms a breakout.
- A wide candle with a small body and long wicks means a lot traded without price getting anywhere: a sign of absorption near support or resistance.
- Narrow candles drifting in one direction show a move on thin volume, which many traders treat with caution.
Because width is relative to what is on screen, zooming out to include a very heavy day (an index rebalance or an expiry, for example) makes everything else thinner. Zoom to the period you are studying.
Volume footprint
A volume footprint shows, for every candle, the volume traded at each price row, split into sell volume (left) and buy volume (right), with the candle drawn thin in the middle.
Where the footprint data comes from
The broker feeds behind SuperCharting supply candles, not every individual trade, so the footprint is built from finer bars inside each chart bar. The finest interval that keeps the request reasonable is used:
| Chart interval | Bars used inside each candle |
|---|---|
| 1, 3, 5 and 15 minutes | 1 minute |
| 30 minutes, 1 and 2 hours | 5 minutes |
| 4 hours and 1 day | 15 minutes |
| 1 week and 1 month | 1 hour |
Each finer bar that closed above its open counts as buy volume, one that closed below counts as sell volume, and one that closed unchanged takes the side of the bar before it. Its volume is spread across the price rows it covered. This is the same method charting sites use for historical footprints when they have no tick data, and it is an estimate: it is not a record of trades at the bid and the ask. On a 1-minute chart each candle holds a single 1-minute bar, so the footprint becomes much more informative from 5 or 15 minutes upward.
Finer bars are loaded for the part of the chart you are looking at, at most 15,000 per request, and more are fetched as you scroll back. Where the feed has no finer history, the chart shows plain candles and says so.
Footprint settings
Open Settings > Symbol with the footprint chart type selected:
- Row size: Auto (ATR) makes each row one fifth of the 14-bar ATR, rounded to the price step; Manual sets Ticks per row (default 10).
- Display: Cluster fills each row's cell with a colour whose strength shows its volume; Profile draws the cells as bars whose length shows the volume.
- Type: Buy and sell (both sides), Delta (buy minus sell per row), Total (both added) or Ladder (only the larger side of each row).
- Value area (70% by default) marks the rows around the busiest price that hold that share of the candle's volume; POC outlines the point of control, the row with the most volume.
- Show summary info prints the candle's total volume, its delta and sell × buy under the bar when the column is wide enough.
- Imbalance (300% by default) highlights a row where buy volume is at least three times the sell volume one row lower, or sell volume three times the buy volume one row higher. Stacked levels marks runs of three or more imbalances in a row. Minimal volume and Ignore zeros keep thin rows from being flagged.
How to read a footprint
- Point of control: where most volume in the bar traded. A POC near the top of a red candle can mean buyers were active high up and were overrun.
- Delta: positive delta on a falling candle, or negative on a rising one, shows the estimate of buying and selling disagreeing with the move.
- Stacked imbalances: three buy imbalances stacked on top of each other often become a zone traders watch on a later retest.
- Thin rows inside a candle show prices that were passed through quickly.
How to open a volume footprint chart in SuperCharting
- Open the symbol, for example NSE:NIFTY1! or NSE:RELIANCE, on a 15 minutes chart.
- Click the chart type button in the top toolbar and choose Volume footprint (or Volume candles).
- Wait a moment while the chart says it is loading 1-minute bars for the footprint.
- Zoom in with the mouse wheel until each candle is wide enough to show numbers.
- Click Settings, open Symbol, and set Type to Delta if you want one number per row.
Example
On a 15-minute NSE:RELIANCE chart, a candle closes near its low after a fall. The footprint shows the POC in the lower third, a summary delta of a few thousand shares positive, and two buy imbalances stacked at the lowest rows. Read together, that suggests buyers met the fall at those prices. It is a reason to watch that zone on the next visit, not a signal by itself. Compare it with a volume profile over the whole session, or with a VWAP, for context.
The other intrabar types
The same chart type menu offers Time price opportunity, which marks each price a session touched with the letter of its 30-minute block, and Session volume profile, which shows each trading day's volume per price row with its value area. Both use the same finer bars as the footprint. These chart types are not available on formula charts such as NSE:RELIANCE/NSE:TCS, and they need a symbol whose feed reports volume.
Frequently asked questions
Is the footprint real order flow?
It is an estimate built from finer candles, as described above. It does not see individual trades at the bid and the ask, so treat buy and sell volume as an approximation.
Why are older candles shown without a footprint?
The feed has no finer bars that far back. SuperCharting draws those candles plainly instead of inventing rows.
Why are the numbers not visible?
The numbers need room. Zoom in until each candle is wide, or switch Display to Profile and read the bars instead.
Which interval works best?
15 minutes to 1 hour on liquid symbols gives each candle enough finer bars to be useful while keeping the chart readable. See chart types for simpler views.