A beginner's guide: Flow.42 Trading Suite

0. How VolImbalance builds a Support / Resistance line (and why)

Before we talk about how a level behaves, it helps to understand where it comes from. In Flow.42, S/R lines are measured from real order flow, not drawn by hand.

Step 1: Find a single imbalance (the raw building block). For every price inside a candle, VolImbalance compares the aggressive buy volume against the aggressive sell volume on the diagonal (one tick offset, the classic FootPrint view). If one side is much larger than the other, by default at least 3× (ImbalanceRatio), that price printed an imbalance: one side clearly overpowered the other there.

• A buy-dominant imbalance is a Support seed (aggressive buyers were in control).
• A sell-dominant imbalance is a Resistance seed (aggressive sellers were in control).

Step 2: Group imbalances into a cluster. A single imbalance is just noise. VolImbalance looks for imbalances of the same type that stack up at nearby prices: within a small tolerance in ticks (ClusterPriceTolerance). When at least a minimum number of them line up in a tight price band (by default 3, MinImbalancesInCluster), they are combined into one cluster.

Step 3: Turn the cluster into an S/R zone. The cluster's price range, from its lowest to its highest imbalance, becomes the zone (band) you see on the chart:

• A cluster of buy-dominant imbalances → Support (drawn from its bottom edge, PriceMin).
• A cluster of sell-dominant imbalances → Resistance (drawn from its top edge, PriceMax).

The more volume and the more imbalances stacked in the cluster, the stronger the zone.

Why it creates the line. A stack of repeated, aggressive one-sided absorption at nearly the same price is hard evidence that one side of the market keeps stepping in and defending that area. That is exactly what a support or resistance is, only here it is proven by traded volume, not guessed from the shape of the candles. That is why a Flow.42 level is a band with height, not a thin line: it shows the whole price area where the defense happened.

1. What is a Support / Resistance line?

A Support line is a price level where buyers have repeatedly stepped in and stopped the price from falling further. Think of it as a floor.

A Resistance line is a price level where sellers have repeatedly stepped in and stopped the price from rising further. Think of it as a ceiling.

In Flow.42 these levels are not drawn by guessing. They are built from real order-flow absorption: places where a large amount of buying or selling volume was "absorbed" at one price. That is why the zone has a small height (a band), not just a single line.

2. What is a "Stop Run"?

Many traders place their stop-loss orders just beyond an obvious level:

• Buyers who bought at support put their stop just below the support.
• Sellers who sold at resistance put their stop just above the resistance.

Large players know this. Sometimes price is pushed just past the level for a moment to trigger those stops (this floods the market with forced orders) and then price snaps right back into the zone. This quick poke-and-reverse is called a stop run (or liquidity grab, stop hunt).

        Resistance (ceiling)
   ┌───────────────────────────┐
   │        zone / band        │   ← price oscillates INSIDE = normal
   └───────────────────────────┘
                  ↑ wick pokes above for a second, then closes back inside
                    = STOP RUN, not a real break

3. The key lesson: a wick is not a break

This is the most important idea for a beginner:

A level is only truly broken when a candle CLOSES beyond it, not when a wick touches it.

• A wick (the thin line above/below the candle body) that pokes through the level and is rejected (the candle closes back inside) is actually a sign of strength. The level was tested and it held.
• A close beyond the level means the market accepted the new price. That is a real break.

So counter-intuitively: a violent spike that immediately reverses is often the moment a support or resistance is at its strongest, not its weakest.

4. How Flow.42 handles this

Flow.42 uses close-based invalidation. A Support/Resistance zone stays active, and is still drawn, even if price briefly wicks through it. The zone is only marked as broken (faded out, with a break-marker) when a completed candle closes beyond the zone by more than the tolerance you configured.

This means stop runs will not delete your levels. You keep your context, and you can watch whether the level holds or genuinely gives way on a close.

5. How to trade around it (basics)

• Don't panic on the wick. Wait for the candle to close.
• A rejected wick back into a support can be a long cue; back into a resistance, a short cue.
• A clean close beyond the zone is your signal that the level has failed. Respect it.
• Always combine this with your own risk management; no single level is a guarantee.

Flow.42: educational material for beginners. Not financial advice.