Order flow can look like a wall of numbers when you first open a chart. Bids, asks, volume stacking up on every price — it's a lot. The good news: a few well-chosen indicators turn that wall into something you can actually read at a glance.

This guide walks through the ATAS indicators worth knowing for order flow trading, what each one shows, and when it helps. No hype, no "secret setup." Just the tools that make the chart clearer.

(Quick note: nothing here is financial advice. These are tools for reading the market — how you trade is always your call.)

First, what does "order flow" even mean?

Order flow is simply the record of orders hitting the market — who's buying, who's selling, and at what price. Instead of guessing where price might go, order flow shows you what's happening right now, trade by trade.

The catch is that raw order flow is noisy. That's where indicators come in. A good one doesn't add information — it organizes the information already there, so the important levels stand out and the noise fades back.

ATAS is one of the better platforms for this, because order flow is built into its core rather than bolted on. If you don't have it yet, you can grab ATAS here — the free trial is enough to follow along with everything below.

The core: reading volume and levels

Volume profile and the Point of Control (POC)

Volume profile shows where the most trading happened, not just how much. The single price with the heaviest volume is called the Point of Control (POC) — think of it as the market's center of gravity for that session.

Why it matters: price tends to respect these high-volume prices. They act like magnets and like walls. Knowing where the POC sits gives you a level to watch instead of a blank chart.

A HTF POC & VA indicator (higher-timeframe Point of Control and Value Area) plots these levels from bigger timeframes onto your trading chart, so you're always aware of the levels that the whole day — or week — actually cares about.

Naked POCs

A "naked" POC is a Point of Control from a past session that price hasn't returned to yet. Traders watch these because unfinished business tends to get revisited — price often drifts back to test them.

A Naked POCs indicator marks these untested levels automatically, so you're not scrolling back through days of candles trying to spot them by hand. It's a small thing that saves a lot of squinting.

Session and opening levels

Where a session opens, where the previous day closed, the high and low of the range — these simple levels quietly shape a lot of price action. Session Levels and Opening Levels indicators draw them for you, cleanly, so your chart shows the map without you redrawing it every morning.

Going deeper: footprint and candles

Footprint charts

A footprint chart shows the buying and selling inside each candle — how much traded at each price, and whether buyers or sellers were in control. It's one of the clearest ways to see who actually won a move.

A HTF Footprint indicator brings that footprint view onto higher timeframes, which helps you read the bigger story without losing the detail. Great for spotting where a push runs out of steam.

Higher-timeframe candles on a lower-timeframe chart

Sometimes you want to trade a fast chart but keep one eye on the slower one. HTF Candles overlays the bigger candles right on your trading chart, so you never lose the higher-timeframe context while you're zoomed in.

Keeping it simple: structure and entries

PO3 (Power of Three)

PO3 is a simple way to frame a move in three phases — accumulation, the move, and distribution. A PO3 indicator marks these out so the day's shape is easier to follow, especially if you like a clean, structured read of the session.

Signal candles

Not everyone wants a busy chart. A Signal Candles indicator keeps things quiet and just marks the candles that meet your entry rules — a clean printer for the setups you're already looking for, nothing more.

So which ones do you actually need?

Honestly? Not all of them. Start small:

You can build all of this yourself over time, or skip the fiddly setup. The Edge Bundle packages these ten indicators together for one small monthly price — it exists because setting each one up by hand is tedious, and bundling them was cheaper and simpler than selling them one by one. Use it or don't; the concepts above work no matter what tools you run.

If you'd rather just try things on your own chart first, there are also some free ATAS chart templates you can install to see how a clean order flow layout looks.

The bottom line

Order flow isn't about having the most indicators — it's about having the few that make the market readable to you. Volume and POC levels to see where the market cares. Footprint to see who's winning. A structure or entry tool to keep it clean. That's really it.

Pick one or two, learn them properly, and add more only when the chart still feels unclear. Simpler charts almost always trade better than crowded ones.