Big trades (large prints)

Big trades, also called large prints, are individual executions or tightly aggregated executions whose size is far above the typical trade on that instrument. Order flow tools mark them on the chart because a few large prints often carry more information about who is active than hundreds of small ones.

Senzoukria · Glossary · Updated September 2026

Definition and the aggregation problem

On most futures and crypto feeds a single market order that sweeps several resting orders arrives as several prints with the same timestamp, the same side and often the same price. Counted one by one, a 150-lot sweep looks like fifteen 10-lots. A big-trade detector therefore first merges prints that share a short time window, the same price and the same aggressor side, then compares the merged size to a threshold.

The threshold is the second decision. A fixed number of contracts is easy to reason about but breaks when you switch from ES to MES or from BTC to a small altcoin. A relative threshold, such as a percentile of recent aggregated trade sizes, adapts to the instrument and the session but changes as the day goes on.

What large prints tell you and what they do not

  • Location matters more than size: a cluster of large prints at the low of a move that fails to push price lower is a sign of absorption by passive buyers.
  • Side matters: large prints at the ask are aggressive buys, large prints at the bid are aggressive sells. Delta at that price gives the net.
  • A large print does not reveal the intent behind it. It may be an opening position, a hedge, a stop being filled or a spread leg.
  • A single large print with no follow-through is an event; a series of them in one direction across several bars is a behaviour worth tracking.

Relationship with size distribution indicators

Bubbles show individual events. Two pane indicators look at the same question statistically. Large Trade Ratio (large-trade-ratio) reports the share of a bar's volume held by its N most active price levels (N is 3 by default, clamped to the number of levels), which makes bars comparable regardless of their height. Trade Size Distribution (trade-size-distribution) works from a percentile of level volume within the bar. Neither is a distribution of individual print sizes, because several prints can land on one level; the software's own note says so explicitly.

In Senzoukria

The overlay is called Big Trades in the indicators panel (group Overlays). Prints are merged within a fixed millisecond window when they share price and side, and only the largest resulting bubbles are drawn, on top of the others, in the candle view. Detection has a Manual mode, where you set the size threshold and the bubble radii yourself, and an Auto mode that calibrates the threshold and radii from 100 ms aggregates of the last thirty minutes of detailed flow; archives are excluded from that calibration and Auto is unavailable when the feed only provides second-resolution ticks. Bubble radii are scaled on the drawn bubbles and the current step, threshold and seeding state are indicated on the chart.

On the Heatmap page, the Auto pair setting derives the Big Trades filter from the top 2% of recent trades together with the noise floor and the DOM big-order threshold. Crypto pairs are available for analysis only; no crypto order routing exists in the software.

Common mistakes

  • Reading un-aggregated prints. One sweep shown as many small bubbles hides the real size.
  • Keeping an ES threshold on MES or a BTC threshold on a thin altcoin and concluding that big traders have disappeared.
  • Assuming a large buy print is bullish. If price does not move after it, the seller absorbing it is the stronger hand.
  • Backfilling bubbles from archived data as though they had the same resolution as the live feed.

This page in other languages

Frequently asked questions

How big does a trade need to be to count as a big trade?
There is no universal number. Practical thresholds are either a size you choose for the instrument you trade, or a percentile of recent aggregated print sizes. The Auto mode in Senzoukria uses the second approach over a rolling thirty-minute window, and the Manual mode leaves the number to you.
Why are big trades drawn as bubbles rather than listed on the tape?
A bubble puts the print at its price and time on the chart, so you see it next to the candle, the delta and the levels that matter. A tape listing gives the same information but without the spatial context, which is what makes large prints readable in the first place.
Do large prints predict the next move?
They describe what a large participant just did, not what price will do next. Their value comes from comparing the size of the print with the reaction of price: a large aggressive print followed by no movement points to absorption on the other side.

Keep reading

Strategy researchTest a trading strategy, from observation to challenge rulesDefine an observation, question it with the copilot, write a rule and explore costs, drawdown and fictional challenge limits in an interactive example.Quant · Start hereQuant trading for beginners: from idea to backtestDefine a testable rule, choose suitable data and evaluate later periods after costs.Order flow · HubOrder flow trading: the complete guideThe hub. What order flow is, what it shows — aggression, delta, imbalance, absorption, liquidity — and the tools that read it, each linked to a full guide.