Stacked imbalances

Stacked imbalances are several consecutive price levels inside one footprint bar that each qualify as an imbalance in the same direction. The stack summarises adjacent aggressive prints; it is a description of executed volume and does not by itself establish who traded or what price will do next.

Senzoukria · Glossary · Updated September 2026

How a stack is built

Each level of a bar is first tested individually with the imbalance rule (ratio k against the diagonal neighbour, plus a minimum quantity). The bar is then scanned for runs of flagged levels that share the same direction and sit exactly one tick apart. A run at least as long as the configured minimum stack count is a stacked imbalance.

  • Consecutive means strictly adjacent on the instrument's tick grid; a price with no imbalance in between, or a price that did not trade at all, breaks the run.
  • The direction must match: three buy imbalances form a buy stack, but two buy flags and one sell flag do not.
  • The stack count is a separate parameter from the ratio; both are instrument-specific and both change with the price grouping.

What a stack is used for

  • Reading initiative: repeated aggression in one direction across adjacent prices is the pattern the footprint trading hub calls initiative activity.
  • Marking a reference zone: the range covered by the stack is often noted and watched on later bars. That later behaviour must be measured on all revisits, not only the ones that reacted.
  • Pairing with absorption: a stack that runs into a level where price stops is a different observation from a stack that keeps extending.

In Senzoukria

The footprint's own Stacked Imbalances overlay in the Indicators menu exposes a Ratio (default 3) and Min levels (default 3) under its Detection section, with separate buy and sell colours. In the indicator catalog, two further overlays detect stacks with the same rule and differ only in how they draw it. Stacked Imbalances (Tape & flow group) places an arrow at the top of a bullish stack and at the base of a bearish one. Stacked Imbalance (Delta group) draws a square at the highest price of the stack for both directions. Both expose Ratio k, Min qty and Min stack, with defaults 3, 10 and 3, plus separate buy and sell colours. When the instrument's tick size is unknown, neither draws a marker, since adjacency is defined on the tick grid.

Common mistakes

  • Calling a stack institutional buying. The footprint shows aggressor side and size, not participant identity.
  • Comparing a three-level stack read at one tick per row with one read at four ticks per row; they are not the same event.
  • Assuming a stack from an earlier bar is resting liquidity. The volume already traded.
  • Lowering the minimum quantity until stacks appear everywhere, then treating the chart as busy rather than noisy.

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Frequently asked questions

How many levels make a stacked imbalance?
There is no market constant. Senzoukria's stacked overlays default to a minimum of three consecutive levels, both in the footprint's own Stacked Imbalances entry (Min levels) and in the two catalog indicators (Min stack). The right count for a given contract depends on tick size, price grouping and typical volume per level, so it should be re-derived rather than copied from a chart of another product.
Why do the two stacked indicators draw in different places?
They share the detection and differ in display convention. Stacked Imbalances uses arrows, at the top of the stack for buys and at its base for sells, which reads as a direction. Stacked Imbalance uses a square at the highest level of the stack for both sides, which reads as a zone marker. Use whichever matches how you annotate, but do not run both and count them twice.
Does a gap inside the bar break a stack?
Yes. Adjacency is checked in tick steps, so a price that did not trade or that failed the imbalance test ends the run. Two shorter runs separated by such a level are counted separately, and each must reach the minimum stack on its own.

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