Order Flow
Also called: tape reading, DOM trading
The real-time stream of buy and sell orders hitting the market — used to read short-term supply and demand.
Definition
Order flow analysis studies the actual orders entering the market — size, aggression (market vs limit), and direction — rather than just looking at price on a chart.
Pure order-flow trading requires Level-2 / Depth-of-Market data, which is rare in retail FX (the market is decentralised). Most retail ‘order flow’ is approximated via tick volume and footprint charts.
Example
A large buy market order absorbs the offer at 1.0800 and lifts the next 3 levels of the order book in a single tick — an aggressive buyer is in control.