$299 lifetime
Absorption levels for NinjaTrader 8
In short: DC Absorption Levels reads the volumetric footprint and draws a level where one side traded at least three times the other at one price: cyan for absorbed selling, orange for absorbed buying. The 15 heaviest stay, drawn to the latest bar even after price crosses them.
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.
On recorded sessions
DC Absorption Levels on recorded NQ sessions
Moments from recorded NQ 12-26 trades, drawn by DC Absorption Levels' own rules in a NinjaTrader 8 chart window. Click a picture to see it full size.
Re-drawn from recorded NQ 12-26 trades on selected sessions — illustrations, not trading results.
How absorption is detected
For every bar in the lookback window, the indicator walks each price level from low to high and applies four tests in order. Then, by default, it keeps one per bar: the heaviest of each colour.
bid + ask ≥ Minimum volume. Cuts the noise levels before anything else runs.
bid ≥ ask × Ratio for bullish, or the reverse for bearish. At the default 300%, one side must be three times the other.
Optionally require the level to sit at the bar’s high or low — classic absorption at the extreme. Fewer levels, cleaner ones.
Optionally require N consecutive levels in the same direction.
The comparison is vertical — bid against ask at the same price. That is what makes it absorption rather than an imbalance, which compares diagonally across adjacent prices. Most traders conflate the two, and the difference is the whole point: an imbalance describes a move, absorption describes a wall.
The four settings that decide what your chart looks like
There are more parameters than this, but these are the ones that matter.
| Setting | Default | What it controls |
|---|---|---|
| Ratio (%) | 300 | How many times the other side the heavier side must trade. 200 gives more levels, 400–500 only strongly one-sided ones. Instrument-independent. |
| Minimum volume | 10 | The noise floor. Scales per instrument — ES needs a much higher value than NQ. |
| Maximum levels shown | 15 | Show only the N strongest. The main knob for a clean chart. |
| Recent bars only | 0 | Only levels from the recent past. 0 shows the whole window; 80–150 suits five-minute charts. |
Our starting points for five-minute scalping (opinion, not defaults)
| NQ | ES | RTY | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ratio (%) | 300 | 300 | 300 |
| Minimum volume | 40 | 150 | 25 |
| Max levels | 8 | 8 | 8 |
Also available: ticks per level, one-level-per-bar (on by default, for a clean chart), a contract-count label, colour inversion, and touch and approach alerts with a chosen .wav file.
Calibrating it for your instrument
Minimum volume is the only setting that genuinely has to be re-tuned per instrument, and there is a method rather than a guess.
Turn on Show contract count so each line displays how much volume it absorbed. Set Max levels and Recent bars to 0 temporarily so you can see everything.
Compare labels across sessions; set Minimum volume above the noise. The small noisy levels disappear on their own.
Recent bars to your actual trading window (80–150 bars on a five-minute chart), Max levels to six to ten. Then save a template per instrument.
A map of the levels, and the decision stays yours
What this indicator gives you is structure you can trade around: the prices where aggression met a wall, drawn when the bar closes.
Absorption tells you where one side was absorbed and could not move price. Each level marks that one-sided volume at its price: the kind of reference a plan is built on — where you are wrong, where you would scale, where you would stand aside. The indicator draws the level; the decision stays yours.
That is also why it is sold as a map, not a signal. It shows you where the levels are. Weighing which one has enough around it to be worth acting on is what DC Absorption Premium scores.
Key facts
| Platform | NinjaTrader 8, Windows |
|---|---|
| Order Flow+ required | Yes |
| Tick Replay | Required for levels on historical bars |
| Bar types | Order Flow Volumetric directly, or minute / tick / second / volume / range with a volumetric series added in the background. |
| Instruments | Any with real bid/ask volume — ES, NQ, RTY, CL, GC, 6E |
| Price | $299 one-time, lifetime updates, 3 machines |
DC Absorption Levels — $299
One payment, licensed for life, updates included — three machines, per person. Delivered the moment you pay: a portal account and a licence key. Stripe is the seller of record and the price shown is the total. Fourteen days to change your mind, no reason needed — you are not asked to waive that right.
Frequently asked questions
How do I keep the levels close to current price?
Set Recent bars only to 80–150. By default it keeps the 15 heaviest levels of 90 days, and some of those can sit well away from today’s price. To check the data is flowing, drop Ratio to 200 and Minimum volume to 5 for a moment.
How do I see levels on historical bars?
Switch on Tick Replay: enable it in Tools, Options, Market Data, set it to True in the chart’s Data Series, then Reload All Historical Data.
Which bar types does it run on?
Minute, tick, second, volume and range bars, or Order Flow Volumetric bars directly: the calculation reads each bar’s time and volume structure.
Is this the same as a stacked imbalance indicator?
Related but different. An imbalance compares bid and ask diagonally, across adjacent prices. Absorption compares them vertically, at the same price. This indicator can require stacked levels, but the underlying test is the absorption one.
How much volume counts as absorption?
It depends on the instrument, and the indicator shows you: switch on the contract-count labels and compare them across sessions, using the method above.
Lock the founder price
All ten indicators, the copier and the Telegram agent, lifetime: $922.50 for the first thirteen founders, then $1,845 up to fifty. Your licence and portal account are created with the email address you pay with.