Tape (time & sales)

The live list of every trade — who bought, who sold, how much and at what price. The market's real-time receipt — and where this dojo gets its name.

Order book

The queue of resting orders waiting to trade: buys on one side (bid), sells on the other (ask). The tape shows what happened; the book shows what people want to happen.

Bid

The best BUY price resting in the book. Market sells hit the bid.

Ask (offer)

The best SELL price resting in the queue. Market buys lift the ask.

Aggression (market order)

The trader who won't wait: executes now at whatever price, hitting the other side's queue. Aggression is urgency — and urgency reveals conviction.

Passive (liquidity)

The trader waiting in queue at a set price (limit order). Passives offer the goods; aggressors decide to take them.

Delta

Aggressive buys MINUS aggressive sells in the period. The scoreboard of real pressure: positive delta = buyers in a hurry; negative = sellers.

Volume

Total traded in the period — the market's raw effort. High volume with a still price and high volume with a moving price tell opposite stories.

Print / Lot

A print is each trade stamped on the tape; the lot is its size. Strings of full-size lots are usually big money's fingerprint.

Absorption

Heavy aggression hitting a level while price refuses to move: someone big is quietly taking the other side. Effort without result — the signature of institutional defense.

Iceberg

A giant hidden order revealed in small slices: the book shows little, but it reloads at the same price after every fill. The name says it — you only see the tip.

Exhaustion (climax)

Peak effort, minimal result: record volume, price stretches and gives it back within the same bar. The last latecomer is in — the move ran out of fuel.

Initiative (breakout)

Aggression that beats the queue and moves price: effort WITH result. A real breakout comes with volume, supportive delta and no reload from the other side.

Pullback

The healthy dip inside a trend: price breathes because the dominant side paused — not because the other side attacked. The tell: dry volume and weak delta on the dip.

Divergence

Price and force pointing different ways: new highs on ever-thinner buying aggression (or the mirror on the way down). The move runs on inertia — be suspicious.

Effort × Result

The dojo's master ruler: compare effort (volume, aggression) against result (price displacement). Big effort + small result = someone absorbing. Small effort + big result = open road.

Candle

One period's drawing: where it opened, where it closed (the body), how far it reached (the wicks). Green closed above the open; red, below.

Wick (shadow)

The candle's thin trail: how far price went and was PUSHED BACK. A long wick is rejection — someone visited that price and got kicked out.

Support / Resistance

Price levels where defenders historically show up (buyers below, sellers above). The level holds nothing by itself — what holds is the defense the flow reveals there.

Trend × Range (regime)

The first question before anything: does the market have an owner (trend) or is the auction undecided (range)? Continuation plays die in ranges; reversal plays die in trends.

RSI

The price speedometer (0–100): did the move run too fast? Above 70 it sprinted up; below 30, down. High speed isn't a reversal order — it's an invitation to check the flow.

ATR

The volatility ruler: the market's true average step size. It gives no direction — it gives the honest stop size and, with fixed risk, your position size.

ADX

The trend-strength gauge — never direction. Above ~25 one side dominates; below ~20 it's a range. Regime triage in a number.

Parabolic SAR

A trailing stop that follows the trend and accelerates: the dots close in while the move keeps printing new extremes. Price touches the dot = you're out, by rule.

Stop

The exit agreed BEFORE entering: the point where your read is proven wrong. A stop isn't opinion or hope — it's a contract with yourself.

Gap

A price jump with no trades in between — usually from one day's close to the next open. The market skipped the road: levels inside the gap were never tested.