The book shows what traders say they want. The tape shows what they did. Here is how to read it: who was the aggressor, what a sweep looks like, and how to cut a fast tape down to the prints that matter.
Time and sales, or the trade tape, is the list of every trade as it executes, newest on top. Each row answers four questions: when it happened, at what price, how big it was and which side pushed it through. It is the only part of a market screen that cannot be faked. A resting order can be placed and cancelled for free; a print has already cost someone money.
The tape in WatchCrypto follows the same layout on every market: a timestamp to the millisecond (in UTC unless you change the chart’s time zone), a dot and price coloured by side, the size, and a bar showing the size against the biggest print on screen. It sits beside the chart and the order book and costs nothing to open.
Every trade has a buyer and a seller, so “buy” and “sell” on the tape cannot mean who bought. It marks the aggressor, the side that crossed the spread to get filled. A buy print means a buyer lifted a resting sell order. A sell print means a seller hit a resting bid. The other side was a maker, waiting in the book.
That is why a long run of sell prints with a steady price is informative. Sellers are paying the spread again and again, yet price will not fall: somebody is taking the other side of all of it. That is absorption, covered below.
One aggressive order too big for the best price walks through several levels. On the tape it appears as a quick burst of same-side prints, each at a worse price. Sweeps mean urgency, and often a person or program that would rather pay up than wait. Look at the book right after: if the levels refill, the move may be done; if they stay empty, the market is thin.
Heavy aggressive selling, but price barely moves and the bid keeps refilling. Large resting size is soaking up the flow. The mirror image on the other side is absorption of buying under a stubborn ask. Absorption at a level you were already watching is a better signal than either the book or the tape alone.
The same size, at the same price, again and again. That is often one large order being worked in small slices. Add it up before judging: ten prints of the same size is one decision, not ten.
Buy prints keep coming, but price stops advancing into a thick ask. Aggression is real but is not buying any more distance. Compare the pace of the tape with how far price moved.
Long gaps between prints on a market that is normally busy. Nothing is wrong, but quotes are not being tested, so the next burst can move a long way.
On a busy market the tape scrolls faster than anyone can read, so the terminal helps in three ways:
The tape answers “what just happened” and the book answers “what is waiting”. A routine that works: when a large print hits, look at the book and its depth chart the next second. Did the level it hit get eaten, or refill? Then look at the chart for whether price accepted the new level. To see a stretch of prints added up, put the CVD pane under the chart: cumulative volume delta, spot against perp.
On perpetual futures add one more input: funding and leverage explain why a crowded side may be forced to trade. A burst of one-sided prints into a thin book can be forced selling or buying, though the tape alone cannot prove it.
Time and sales is the running list of trades that have actually executed on a market, newest first: when each one happened, at what price, in what size and on which side. In a terminal it is also called the trade tape.
They show which side was the aggressor. A buy print means a buyer took liquidity by hitting a resting sell order, a sell print means a seller hit a resting bid. The colour does not say who won the trade, because every trade has both a buyer and a seller.
A sweep is one aggressive order that eats through several price levels in a fast burst of prints on the same side, each at a worse price than the last. It shows urgency and is worth checking against the order book that follows.
No. The order book lists orders waiting to trade and they can be cancelled for free. The tape lists trades that have already happened. Read the book for what is waiting and the tape for what is real.
Yes. WatchCrypto shows a live trade tape beside the chart on every market, with no account and no payment.