The Playbook 08: taken or pulled

On a plain ladder, a big number that gets small looks the same whether it was traded or pulled. This video looks at one price on ES where resting size left the book twice in about 18 seconds, and measures both the same way. It says how size left the book, not where price goes next.

Three words

• Stack — resting size is added at a price.
• Pull — resting size leaves the book with no matching trade.
• Traded — resting size is used up by a trade at that price.

The window in numbers

ES December 2026 (EPZ26), 9 November 2026, 01:37:56–01:45:33 UTC — the Sunday evening session in Chicago, a quiet time of day. A recorded real market, auto-saved by the OrderVane DOM flow store (its 10-minute restore file): the average resting size at each price every 250 ms, the best bid and ask, and the trades. Sizes are 250 ms averages, so they are given as "about".

The whole window: 7 minutes 37 seconds; the best bid went from 7409.50 to 7428.25 (75 ticks higher); 3,867 contracts traded (1,950 bought at the ask, 1,917 sold at the bid).

Event A — an offer that was taken. About 42 contracts offered at 7420.00, there for 3 minutes 51 seconds. At 01:41:47.75 UTC, inside one 250 ms step, 124 contracts were bought from 7418.25 up to 7420.25; 35 of them at 7420.00.

Event B — a bid that was stacked and pulled. At 01:41:56.50 UTC the bid at 7420.00 went from about 0 to about 46 in one step, then to about 61. About 9 seconds later it went from about 59 to about 12, with no trade at that price.

How often size left without a trade

In the whole window, single 250 ms steps where a resting row of 15 or more, at least 2 ticks from the best price, lost 10 or more with no trade at that price: 5. Event B is one of them; the other four were on the ask side between 7430.00 and 7431.00. This count is made from 250 ms averages, outside the product. It is not the product's Pull Σ.

On OrderVane DOM

When resting size shrinks at a price, OrderVane DOM waits a short window for a print at that price on the matching side: if one arrives, the decrease counts as a fill; if not, it counts as a pull. Net Σ is adds minus pulls at each price; Stack Σ and Pull Σ are the totals for the ask side and the bid side. The reset is every 60 seconds by default. Size that is traded is not counted as a pull.

It says how size left the book at one price, twice, in one evening window. It does not say where price goes next. These numbers describe what already happened. They are not a forecast, a probability or a trading signal.

Chapters

• 0:00 Intro
• 0:20 Today
• 0:37 Stack, pull and traded
• 1:02 The observation window
• 1:48 Event A: an offer that was taken
• 2:36 Event B: a bid that was stacked and pulled
• 3:23 The two events side by side
• 4:06 How often size left without a trade
• 4:38 Reading it on OrderVane DOM
• 5:22 What this does and does not say

About this video

The narration is AI-generated (Google NotebookLM) from a source document we wrote. The chart data are resting size and trades saved by OrderVane DOM's flow store. The product screen is a real recording of OrderVane DOM on ES from the same session (9 November 2026); it is not the same seconds as Events A and B. In OrderVane DOM, history starts when you attach the window. The product is on OrderVane DOM. The previous episode is The Playbook 07: watch the change, not the size.