Large orders on the NQ footprint: what the bubbles tell you, and what they don't

By the Mercury Flow team · 15 October 2026 · 5 min read

"Big order" bubbles are some of the most eye-catching things on an order-flow chart. Used well, they show where real size traded. Used badly, they turn into a guessing game about whales. Here's how to read them.

What a large-order bubble is

A bubble marks a cluster of aggressive trades (market orders) at one price and moment, bigger than usual. Buys that lift the offer are usually drawn in one colour (Mercury Flow uses cyan), sells that hit the bid in another (pink). The bubble's size shows how many contracts traded.

What bubbles do tell you

• Where size actually traded. Unlike the order book, these are completed trades, not orders that can vanish.
• Who was aggressive. Buyers paying up, or sellers hitting down.
• Whether size showed up at a level. A big sell bubble right at a prior low is a very different story from one in the middle of a range.

What bubbles don't tell you

• Who the trader is. A large print can be one institution, an algorithm splitting orders, or many traders at once. Exchange data doesn't say.
• Where price goes next. Big aggressive orders often mark the end of a move, not the start. In our testing, high-volume, wide-range bars on ES were followed by slight reversals more often than continuation.
• Intent. A big buy might be a short covering a stop, not a new long.

The useful question: what happened next?

Read a bubble together with the price response. Heavy selling that pushes price through a level and holds below is initiative. Heavy selling that fails to move price is absorption. Same bubble, opposite meaning. The response decides.

Bubbles on a 5-minute chart

On higher timeframes, dozens of bubbles stack up and the chart gets unreadable. Mercury Flow's compact 5-minute mode summarises each candle into one buy and one sell bubble at their volume-weighted prices, with the full detail on hover.

A quick routine

1. Mark today's key levels first.
2. Watch for large bubbles at those levels, not everywhere.
3. Wait for the response: hold, reclaim or break.
4. Plan the trade with a stop beyond the level and a target at the next liquidity.

Futures trading involves substantial risk. This guide is educational, not financial advice.