Trades Delta Indicator: Formula, Settings and How to Read It
Trades Delta counts executions rather than contracts: for each bar it sums the number of buy-side trades minus the number of sell-side trades across that bar's price levels. It answers how many aggressive orders reached each side, which is a different question from how much volume changed hands.
Senzoukria · Indicators · Updated September 2026
Trades Delta ships with the Senzoukria desktop app, in the Delta group of the indicator catalogue. It is drawn in its own panel below the chart.
What Trades Delta measures
The value is a count of prints, so one 500-contract execution and one 1-contract execution each add exactly one to their side. A level is included only when it is usable: a level carrying a quantity of zero, or an invalid price, is skipped instead of being treated as data. When a bar holds no usable level, the indicator plots nothing for that bar rather than zero, since a sum over nothing carries no information while a zero would read as balanced flow. Set against a volume-based delta on the same bars, a divergence between the two series points to an asymmetry in average trade size between the sides.
The formula, as implemented
This is not a description of how the indicator is usually defined elsewhere — it is what the shipped code computes, documented next to the implementation:
Delta des TRADES (exécutions, pas contrats) : Σ (buyTrades − sellTrades) sur les niveaux exploitables (canon : qty = 0 ignoré, prix non fini ignoré). Compare le NOMBRE d'agressions de chaque côté — une divergence avec le delta volume signale une asymétrie de taille moyenne (peu de gros ordres contre beaucoup de petits). Barre sans niveau exploitable → pas de point (Σ de rien = pas d'information, pas « 0 »).
How to read it
- A positive bar means more distinct buy executions than sell executions in that bar; it says nothing about the size of any of them.
- Compare it with volume delta on the same bars. Trades Delta positive while volume delta is negative describes many small buy prints against fewer, larger sell prints, and the reverse for the opposite mismatch.
- Several bars leaning the same way describe how broadly participation sat on that side, not the weight behind it.
- A hole in the histogram is a bar with no usable level. Read it as missing data, never as balanced flow.
- Judge a reading against recent bars of the same instrument: an unusually high count is unusual in number of orders, not necessarily in volume.
Parameters and defaults
Smoothing defaults to 1, which plots the raw per-bar count; values up to 200 average the count over more bars, steadying the series at the cost of reacting later. Positive and negative colors default to #26a69a and #ef5350 and change only how the two sides are drawn.
| Parameter | Type | Default | Range |
|---|---|---|---|
| Smoothing | number | 1 | 1 – 200 |
What it does not show
The count depends entirely on the aggressor side being known for each trade; a feed that does not classify the aggressor, or where the side is reconstructed downstream, yields counts no better than that reconstruction. Being blind to size, it is inflated by an algorithm slicing one parent order into many child orders, and nothing on the chart identifies a participant. Venues also differ in how prints are reported, some aggregating fills that others report individually, so counts are not comparable between instruments or between data sources. It is drawn in its own pane and covers executed trades only; resting orders in the book are not part of this calculation. Market data is billed by the provider, separately from the application subscription.
Using it in Senzoukria
Add it from the Indicators panel of any footprint chart or candle chart. It runs on futures data from Rithmic or Databento and on crypto pairs from Binance and Bybit, on the same engine — the calculation does not change with the venue, only the data feeding it does. Market data subscriptions are billed by the provider, separately from the app.
Related indicators
- Delta Histogram — Delta
- Delta % — Delta
- Session CVD — Delta
- Delta momentum — Delta
- Delta min/max — Delta
- Price/Delta Divergence — Delta
See the full indicator library, or start with the order flow guide if you are new to reading aggression, delta and absorption.
Frequently asked questions
- What is the difference between trades delta and volume delta?
- Volume delta sums traded quantity, subtracting sell-side volume from buy-side volume. Trades Delta sums executions instead, so every print counts as one whatever its size. The two series answer different questions: one weighs contracts, the other weighs how many separate aggressive orders arrived on each side.
- Should a missing Trades Delta bar be read as zero?
- No. A bar is left blank when it contained no usable price level, levels with a quantity of zero or an invalid price being excluded from the sum. Printing a zero there would look like balanced flow, so nothing is printed instead. A blank marks unusable data for that bar, not a neutral market.
- Can a trade count indicator show large orders being split into smaller ones?
- It can show a mismatch consistent with splitting: many executions on one side while volume delta leans the other way implies a smaller average trade size on that side. It does not identify who traded or prove that one order was sliced, since order identity is absent from public trade data. Read the mismatch as a description of size distribution and nothing more.