What is Delta?

What does Delta mean in practice?

Positive delta means more volume traded at the ask than at the bid, so buyers were the aggressive side. Negative delta is the reverse. It is calculated per price row inside a footprint and summed for the candle, and a running total across candles is called cumulative delta.

The case traders watch is delta that disagrees with price: a candle that closes higher on negative delta, or lower on positive delta. That divergence says aggressive trading was met by passive orders on the other side, which is information about participation, not a trade signal.

A worked example

Illustrative only: a candle traded 900 at the ask and 1,100 at the bid, so delta is -200, yet price closed up. Sellers were aggressive but did not push price down.

How to read or test it

Compare delta with price on every candle you study. Agreement, such as positive delta on a rising candle, is the default and tells you little. Disagreement is the interesting case, but only if you then check what came next, across many examples and not just the memorable one. Cumulative delta over a session is a different view from per-candle delta, so be clear which one you are looking at.

How AKQX handles Delta

AKQX shows delta for each price row and each candle in its footprint, for ten crypto pairs. It is a reading tool and does not generate trade recommendations.

See Footprint order flow chart for the feature page.

A common mistake

Using delta alone. Aggressive volume that is absorbed and aggressive volume that moves price look the same in the total.

Related terms