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Aggression & pressure

Big Trades

Bubbles of aggressive trades

Big Trades draws each aggressive trade as a dot at (time, price): size encodes volume, colour the aggressor. A big green cluster = aggressive buying, a lone giant bubble = one big sweep. Since standard historical tick feeds have limited retention or lack bid/ask details for older prints, the study features built-in trade recording to disk. This recorded history is automatically loaded upon opening the chart or running MotiveWave's Replay mode, allowing you to analyze large trades historically in full depth without being limited by your data feed's retention.

Data requirementBid/ask tick data
Monthly access
$17/mo

Standalone subscription for a single study. Cancel anytime.

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Free updates for the subscription Implementation guide for MotiveWave Setup video tutorials

What it does

  • Aggressive trades as bubbles (area ∝ volume, radius ∝ √volume)
  • Three aggregation modes: VWAP slice, per level, per print
  • Auto scaling relative to the market's average trade
  • Min-volume filter + optional labels on big bubbles
  • Adjustable opacity, outline and dot size
  • Records trades to disk + loads history (fully compatible with Replay / backtest)

How to read it

01

A big green bubble = one large aggressive buy; a cluster of green = buyers taking over. Red is the opposite.

02

A giant bubble at an extreme but price returns = the aggressor was absorbed by the passive book → a strong exhaustion signal (check the heatmap).

03

Bubbles clustering and growing before a move = rising aggression (breakout) or a climax (exhaustion) — depending on price context.

Recommended presets

Where to start by market and trading style — fine-tune to your own feed.

InstrumentMin sizeTime sliceMax radius
MNQ / MES (micro)5–15300–500 ms16–18 px
ES / NQ25–75300–500 ms18–20 px
CL (oil)10–25300 ms18 px
Crypto (perp)per market200–400 ms18 px

Specs

Type
Price overlay
Data
Bid/ask tick
Market
Futures, Crypto
Update
Realtime