Market Depth
Visualize the limit order book directly on your chart: bids and asks rendered at price with sizing, change highlights, and fading "ghost" trails so you can track liquidity shifting in real time.
What you get
📚
Depth at price, on-chart
Bids and asks are drawn as horizontal bars at their exact price levels, so the ladder context stays on your chart.
⚡
Added/removed emphasis
Stacking and pulling are highlighted with delta overlays, helping you see where liquidity is building or disappearing.
🧼
Balanced display + stale safety
When one side stops updating, the display avoids keeping old levels visible.
👻
Ghost trails that fade out
When levels fall out of view, they can linger briefly as fading trails so you can track what just left.
👁️ How to read the chart
- Bar width = more resting volume at that price.
- Color separates bids vs asks (and can use brighter "added" colors when size increases).
- Pulling (negative delta) can render as a removed marker to the left of the main bar.
- Ghost trails show where liquidity recently disappeared from the visible set; they fade out over time.
⚙️ Key settings to tune
- Update Interval (ms): how often a new snapshot is built for rendering.
- Depth Levels Each Side: how far above/below price to display (in ticks).
- Max Bar Width and Right Margin: control how much chart space the ladder uses.
- Fade Duration (s) and Show Outlines: control the trail feel and readability.
🚀 Get started in seconds
- Add to chart and make sure your data feed provides live market depth for the instrument.
- Start simple: Depth Levels = 10–20, Update Interval = 200–300ms, Fade Duration = 2–4s.
- Adjust layout: increase Right Margin if labels feel cramped, reduce Max Bar Width if it dominates price action.
- Optional: enable Show Outlines for clearer separation on dense books.
Pro tips
🎯Anchor to best bid/ask
Watch changes near the inside market first; that's where intent often shows up earliest.
⏱️Tune update interval
Faster snapshots feel more responsive but cost more CPU. Increase the interval if running heavy chart layouts.
👻Use trails for context
Ghost trails help you see what just got left behind when price moves or the visible window rebalances.
🧠Confirm with structure
Best results come when depth changes align with prior highs/lows, session levels, or your execution trigger.
Compatibility
NinjaTrader 8 indicator that listens to live market depth updates and renders a snapshot-based ladder overlay on the price panel.