Order flow indicators for NinjaTrader 8Read the market.
Control your workflow.
Ten indicators that each answer one question, a copier tested across twenty-seven accounts at once, and a Telegram analyst you can argue with.
Built on live ES, NQ and RTY · 3 machines per licence · lifetime licences, no subscriptions
Runs on
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What DC TradeLab makes
DC TradeLab builds order flow indicators and a multi-account trade copier for NinjaTrader 8. The tools were written by a working futures trader for his own ES, NQ and RTY scalping, then tested against logged market data before being released. Every page here tells you what an indicator draws and how it decides to draw it, so you can judge the instrument itself.
The flagship — DC Copier
Twenty-seven accounts. One decision. Every account watched.
A NinjaTrader 8 AddOn that mirrors your own orders from one account to as many followers as you run. Thirteen and a half thousand lines of code, most of them devoted to confirmation, reconciliation and safety.
Tested with 27 follower accounts
One master, 27 followers, everything in sync — run by the developer on his own accounts. There is no maximum-follower constant anywhere in the code either; the real ceiling is your broker connections, not our software.
Run several copiers at once
Open as many copier windows as you need — one per prop firm, one per instrument, one per strategy — each with its own master, followers and risk settings, all saved and restored with your NinjaTrader workspace.
Every account is Synced or MISMATCH
No guessing whether the copy went through. Mismatches are checked continuously, not only after an order event, so drift is caught even when nothing is happening.
One payment, no monthly fee
DC Copier is $1,299 once, as a lifetime licence, with updates included and nothing to renew.
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What watches the safety features
Most copiers have a flatten button. Very few check whether the flatten actually worked.
PANIC GUARDED
Emergency Flat All cancels and flattens the master and every follower in the window. A guardian then confirms it finished. The panic button is not fire-and-forget.
Hard-lock GUARDED
Once an account is locked out it stays out until the next daily reset. The reset button will not lift it early, a NinjaTrader restart will not either, and a guardian enforces that the lock is holding.
Master risk limits
With Master Risk on, daily loss and profit limits apply to the master too. A bad day does not get to propagate itself across every account you run.
Trailing drawdown
Tracked per account, because that is how the firms calculate it. A follower that joined late has a different high-water mark from the master.
Connection resilience
Defined behaviour when a connection drops, not improvisation. Nothing is silently retried into a stale market.
Telegram control
Full state, and flat-everything, from your phone. If the desk is not where you are when something goes wrong, the button still works.
The indicators
Each one does a single job
Pick the ones that fit how you trade, or run all ten together. One of them is free.
8- Inside the candle Every row is 1.5 points of the bar: contracts sold at the bid on the left, bought at the ask on the right. The bar behind the figures is the row's total, coloured by the side that traded more, and the outlined row is the bar's heaviest.
- Absorbed sell bubbles Σ175: two bursts of selling at the bid at 30740.00, each a run of sells at that one price with no gap over 250 ms that reached 30 contracts, summed into one bubble. The 15:20 bar closed at 30762.00, above every one of its sell bubbles, so each is drawn with the thick absorbed ring.
- Imbalances in gold A gold ask figure is at least three times the bid one row lower, with 20 contracts or more; a gold bid figure is the mirror. The 15:20 bar printed seven of them on the ask side as it rose.
- Volume, delta, CVD Under every bar: its contracts, its delta (bought at the ask minus sold at the bid) and the running total since the session opened. The 15:20 bar: 4,783 contracts and delta −463; it opened at 30726.75 and closed at 30762.00.
- The bars after From 15:25 to the 15:45 close no trade printed at or below 30740.00, the price of the Σ175 bubble; the lowest was 30745.25.
DC OrderFlow Chart
8- Effort at the high, counted Five bars traded to within 4 ticks of the 50-bar high, and 153 contracts were bought at the ask in that band against 43 sold: 1.65 average bars of volume. When a bar then closed 8 ticks below it, the red box printed, labelled A x5.
- No result above it No bar closed back above the box, 31278.75 to 31281.25. By 10:33:14 price had traded down to 31225.50.
- Absorbed at one price At 31280.50 the 10:26:55 bar traded 48 contracts bought at the ask against none sold. An orange line is drawn there and runs until a whole bar trades above it; on this chart none did.
- A means four touches or more The letter counts touches, not quality: A at four or more, B below that. A box stops on a close through it or 20 bars after its last confirmation, and its price never moves.
- Effort without result DC Effort does the counting: touches and aggressive volume at the recent high and low, read from the volumetric data of each closed bar. It needs Order Flow+; Tick Replay is not required.
DC Effort
8- One letter per half hour Each 30-minute bracket prints its letter on every 5-point row between its high and low: A for 09:30 to 10:00, B for the next half hour, and so on to N. Stacked, the letters show where the session spent its time.
- POC and value area The POC is the row with the most letters, 30785.00 on 1 Oct. The value area grows from it two rows at a time, towards the heavier pair, until it takes in seven in ten of the session's letters: 30625.00 to 30855.00.
- Initial balance The gold lines mark the first hour's range, brackets A and B: 30560.75 to 30856.00 on 1 Oct. Price left it on both sides that day.
- Up to the prior day's value On 1 Oct the I bracket rallied to 30883.50, 1.50 points under 30 Sep's value area high of 30885.00. The next half hour traded back down to 30705.00.
- Tails and single prints Rows only one letter reached are marked with a cyan tick: tails at the session's extremes, single prints inside. 1 Oct's top tail, 30860.00 to 30885.00, is letter I alone.
- No Order Flow+ needed Letters and structure come from one-minute bars and exact volume from a one-tick series; the line at the top names that data path. Order Flow+ adds only the bid/ask split.
DC Market Profile
8- An old high nobody had traded back to oH 22.10 is the daily high of 22 October, 29993.25, which price had not traded back to since. It sat on the map all night; DC Market Agent's verdict listed it, so it is drawn 3 px wide.
- The night's high, 4 points under it Between 04:00 and 04:05 the session high printed at 29989.25, 4.00 points under that old high. The dotted TDH line and a violet swing line (iH) now mark it.
- What price did next From the 29989.25 high, price had traded down to 29927.75 by the 04:40 close.
- Levels close together form a zone Nearby levels are grouped into a zone, tinted from the session's open: red when the last 60-minute close was below it, green when above, and a star marks a strong one.
- Gamma levels from DC Market Agent The purple Call Wall, 29814.12, comes from the agent's gamma file, built from delayed Cboe option data and refreshed every 30 minutes; the Put Wall and the gamma flip sit below this view.
- Drawn where it formed, sized by score Every level starts at the bar it formed on, carries its name at the right and its price on the axis. Its width grows with its score, which counts how price reacted each time it came back there.
DC Key Levels
8DC Absorption Premium
8- The session's VWAP The volume-weighted average of every 15-minute bar's typical price since this session opened at 18:00 ET the evening before. It restarts with each session, at the boundaries of the instrument's trading hours.
- Down to the VWAP, then away The 10:45 bar traded down to 31480.00 with the session VWAP at 31479.41, then closed at 31572.75. By 11:30 price had traded up to 31616.50.
- Bands weighted by size The bands sit 1 and 2 standard deviations of price from the VWAP, weighted by volume: the 09:45 bar, with 45,151 contracts, counts for far more than a quiet overnight bar.
- Labelled at the run's end Each line carries its price at the session's last bar, and the newest session extends flat to the right. Yesterday's closing VWAP stays on the chart as a gold level; here it sits below the view, at 31198.50.
- Seven anchors, no Order Flow+ The note names the running anchor and where its boundaries came from. Session, week, month, quarter, year, a rolling window or one bar you pin; no Order Flow+, Tick Replay or second data series is needed.
DC VWAP
8- Selling absorbed at one price In the 13:00 bar, 111 contracts sold at the bid at 30869.00 against 4 bought at the ask. Where the bid is at least three times the ask at one price, 10 contracts or more, a cyan level is drawn when the bar closes.
- Price came back to it At 14:40:22, 100 minutes after the level formed, price traded back to 30869.00. The 14:45 bar's low was 30868.50 and it closed at 30900.00.
- Buying absorbed at one price Orange is the mirror: 128 bought at the ask at 30891.25 against 6 sold, in the same bar. A level stays exactly where it formed: it is never moved or shortened.
- Ranked by what they absorbed With Maximum levels shown 8 and Recent bars only 100, the chart keeps the eight levels of the last 100 bars that absorbed the most; the smallest leaves first. The heaviest here, 30921.75, absorbed 315 contracts in the 10:00 bar.
DC Absorption Levels
8- Sell sweeps into the low From 11:07 four sell sweeps stepped down: 79, 201, 97 and 84 contracts, each across 9 to 36 prices within 50 ms. The last, 84 contracts at 30531.75, printed in the 11:12 bar, whose low of 30529.25 is the lowest trade on this chart.
- A buy sweep in the high bar At 11:28:18, 95 contracts were bought at the ask across 19 prices, drawn at 30680.00 in the bar that made the 11:29 high of 30680.50. Price had traded up to it from the 11:12 low of 30529.25.
- What price did next By 11:45 price had traded back down to 30544.25 from the 30680.50 high.
- Square: a sweep A square marks a burst of 75 contracts or more across at least 5 prices, drawn at the price that took the most. This one: 238 sold at the bid across 63 prices, the largest single print 2.
- Circle: a block A circle marks a burst that contains one print of 30 or more: here 159 contracts bought at the ask, 73 of them in a single print. Green is bought at the ask, red sold at the bid, and the number is the total.
DC Big Trade
8- Contracts at every price Each session's contracts at every tick, drawn from its first bar to the right. On 1 Oct the longest row, the POC, traded 1,579 contracts at 30634.25.
- Value area From the POC the value area grows one price at a time towards the side with more volume, until it takes in seven in ten of the session's contracts: the blue rows and the light blue lines.
- Back at the prior day's value On 1 Oct the rally reached 30883.50, 6.00 points over 30 Sep's value area high of 30877.50. The next half hour traded back down to 30705.00.
- Levels with their prices Dashed lines run across each session: magenta POC, light blue value area, orange high and low, each with its price at the session's last bar.
- Measured with Order Flow+ Volume at each price is read from Order Flow+'s volumetric data. Without it, each one-minute bar's volume is spread across its range.
DC Volume Profile
8- One line inside every bar Each bar carries one gold mark at the price where the most contracts traded in that bar: in the 13:35 bar, 263 contracts at 30843.25, more than at any other price. The candle itself is NinjaTrader's and stays as it was.
- An hour untouched The 11:55 bar's POC, 30557.75, sat below every trade of the next twelve bars, so with 'Highlight untouched POCs' on it stayed blue while the 12:00 to 12:55 bars printed. The 13:00 bar traded back down to it, and the mark turned gold again.
- Where price came back The 13:00 bar dipped to 30555.75, two points under that POC, and closed at 30595.25. By the 13:50 close price had traded as high as 30883.50.
- Still untouched at 13:50 Blue marks are POCs no later trade has reached yet; the newest bar is never flagged. When price trades back to one, it turns gold again on the next repaint.
- Built from every trade The POC is counted from trade prints alone, recalculated on every trade, with no Order Flow+ needed; a tie goes to the price that traded first in the bar. Historical bars need Tick Replay; bars as they form need nothing extra.
DC POC Candle FREE
| Indicator | The question it answers | Order Flow+ | Tick Replay | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DC OrderFlow Chart | What is happening inside this candle, right now? | Required | Big trades on history only | $499 |
| DC Effort | Was there a lot of effort for very little result? | Required | Not needed | $459 |
| DC Market Profile | Where did time go, and where did volume go? | Not needed | Not needed | $449 |
| DC Key Levels | Which prices matter today, and what is the plan? | Not needed | Not needed | $799 with Agent |
| DC Absorption Premium | Is this level worth an arrow right now? | Required | For history | $349 |
| DC VWAP | What is the average price paid since the anchor I chose? | Not needed | Not needed | $299 |
| DC Absorption Levels | Where did limit orders eat the aggressive flow? | Required | For history | $299 |
| DC Big Trade | Where did large size just trade, in one print or across prices? | Not needed | For history | $249 |
| DC Volume Profile | Where has this session actually traded? | Not needed | For history | $149 |
| DC POC Candle | Where inside this bar did the volume trade? | Not needed | For history | Free |
Packs group these by how you actually trade rather than by an arbitrary discount. See pricing and packs.
The Telegram agent
An analyst you can argue with
A typical alert bot broadcasts. This one holds a conversation — you reply in the same chat and ask it why it read the session that way.
It reasons, it does not just relay
The plan beside this starts from your own Key Levels data: the day’s releases and no-trade windows, the overnight range, yesterday’s value area, the regime and the structure, read back to you before the open.
Ask it anything about your markets
What happens if that level breaks. Whether the setup you are staring at fits the plan. What changed since the morning. It answers from the latest Key Levels data for the market you name.
It works to your rules, not generic ones
It reads your own trader profile and playbook with every message, so its answers are framed in the way you trade. Save a rule with NOTE: and it goes into your profile; both files are yours to edit.
It works from fresh data only
Every plan and every market answer is built from Key Levels data less than 15 minutes old. When a market’s file is older than that, its plan waits for fresh data and a question about it is answered “not available”, never with an old price.
🗺️ Plan EU 02:45 · Plan US 08:30 · 📓 Review 16:15
📐 Gamma levels every 30 min for NQ
📰 Daily macro brief + breaking news
💬 Ask me anything about your markets · NOTE: <text> saves a preference · COST shows usage · HELP lists commands02:30
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
Any question → an answer from your latest Key Levels data (one model call)
NOTE: <text> → saved to trader_profile.md and sent with every later message (free)
COST → today's and this month's usage, as billed by OpenRouter (free)
HELP → this list (free)
Scheduled for NQ, while each market's Key Levels chart is live:
🗺️ Plan EU 02:45 · Plan US 08:30 · 📓 Review 16:15 (this computer's clock)02:31
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📅 MACRO: 08:30 Goods Trade Balance · 14:00 Fed Funds Rate + FOMC Statement · 14:30 FOMC Press Conference
⛔ No-trade window: 08:15–08:45 · 13:45–14:45
🌏 OVERNIGHT: Asia · vs yesterday's close +151 pts
📆 YESTERDAY: POC · VAH · VAL · close (inside the value area)
🔀 REGIME: TREND — value has moved higher three sessions in a row (VAL 29091 → → )
🧭 STRUCTURE (5-min + 1h): Opened at on the support zone and broke yesterday's high overnight. Now : above VWAP and the 1h swing high , pressing the Asia high .02:45
Above: iH , then AsH / iH , then today's high under the untouched .
Below: VWAP , then YDH / VAH1 , then iL and the zone (, POC1 , CallWall ).
Structure: the pullback from turned back up at VWAP; still +111 pts on yesterday's close.
⛔ No-trade windows: 08:15–08:45 (Goods Trade Balance) and 13:45–14:45 (FOMC).
📏 RULES
• No level, no trade: let price come to you. • Quality over quantity: fewer, cleaner trades. • Two trades max today: your rule.
💪 Process over outcome: execute the plan, accept the result.05:41
Built to order
Need something that does not exist yet?
We build and customise indicators and AddOns for NinjaTrader 8. If the tool you need is not on this page — or one of ours is close but not quite right — describe it and we will tell you whether it can be done.
Not the solution — the problem. What you do by hand, what you keep missing, what your current tool refuses to show you.
Whether NinjaTrader’s data supports it, roughly what it costs, how long it takes. Sometimes the answer is that one of our indicators already does it, ready to install today.
Agreed in writing before any code is written. You get the compiled tool, with the settings named in the language you actually use.
Things people ask us for:
We build instruments that show you the market more clearly. What you do with them is your decision, and it stays your decision.
Why the suite is built this way
Instruments that bring structure, not signals
Every indicator here answers one question about what the order flow actually did. What you do with the answer is your decision, taken on your own confluence.
Absorption tells you where one side was absorbed and could not move price. That is structure: a level marked by one-sided volume at one price, which you can build a decision around. DC Absorption Levels draws that level and leaves the decision to you; DC Absorption Premium weighs absorption against what surrounds it and prints its arrow only when that score clears your threshold.
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Before you buy anything
What you need to run these tools
Surprise costs are the loudest complaint in this corner of the market, so here is the whole list.
| Requirement | Who needs it | Typical cost |
|---|---|---|
| NinjaTrader 8 — the free platform licence is enough | Everything | $0 |
| NinjaTrader Order Flow+, or a Lifetime licence which includes it | OrderFlow Chart, Effort, Absorption Levels and Absorption Premium | ~$59/mo, or $0 with Lifetime |
| Tick Replay switched on | Anything reading historical volume | $0 — costs memory |
| CME real-time data, non-professional | Live use | ~$4–12/mo |
| Nothing beyond the platform itself | DC Key Levels | $0 |
Frequently asked questions
Do I need Order Flow+ to use these indicators?
For four of the order flow tools (DC OrderFlow Chart, DC Effort, DC Absorption Levels and DC Absorption Premium), yes — they read bid and ask volume at each price, which only the volumetric data series provides. Order Flow+ is included free with a NinjaTrader Lifetime licence and with most funded prop accounts. DC Big Trade, DC Key Levels, DC Market Profile, DC VWAP, DC Volume Profile and the basic use of DC POC Candle do not require it.
How many machines can I install one licence on?
Three. Most traders run a desktop and a VPS, and some add a laptop. Licences are per person, not per account, so you can use them on every account you trade within those three machines.
Can I buy today?
Yes. Checkout is open and delivery is immediate: you pay, and a portal account plus a licence key for up to three machines are created straight away. Stripe is the seller of record, the price shown includes any VAT due, and you have 14 days to change your mind with no reason needed. DC POC Candle is free and needs no payment at all. Custom development work is the exception — that is arranged by conversation and can start now.
Do prop firms allow trade copiers?
Copying between your own accounts is generally permitted by the major futures prop firms. Copying for someone else is a different, regulated activity and is not what this tool is for. Always check your own firm’s current rules — the firms set them and they change.
Which trading platform and data feed do you recommend?
NinjaTrader 8 — every DC TradeLab indicator and DC Copier run inside it, and its free licence is enough. For market data we recommend Kinetick, though any feed that delivers every trade works. Both, and what order flow needs from them, are covered on the trading platform and market data we recommend.
Why traders keep them on the chart
Structure, discipline, and the same read every session.
Ten instruments, each answering one question about what the order flow actually did. You bring the plan and the confluence you trade; they make sure you are reading the market the same way on Friday afternoon as you were on Monday morning.
Start with the free one
DC POC Candle draws the point of control inside every candle, works on any bar type, and costs nothing. If you like how it thinks, the rest of the suite thinks the same way.