What are Time and sales and Trade flow on Questrade Pro?
Published: Oct 16, 2026
Time and sales shows every completed trade for a security as it happens. Trade flow is a dashboard built on that data, so you can see who’s moving the price without watching every trade.
Time and sales | Trade flow | |
|---|---|---|
What you see | One row per trade | Charts and summaries |
The question it answers | What is traded? | What is the market doing? |
Time and sales and Trade flow require a market data package for some markets. Fees may apply. See your market data package settings (Management >Additional market data).
Where to find them
Open the Advanced Quote widget from the widget panel.
Select Time and sales for the raw feed, or Trade flow for the dashboard.
How buys and sells are classified
Time and sales and Trade flow both use the tick test, the same method most trading platforms use. It compares each trade’s price to the trade before it.
Trade price vs. the previous trade | Classified as |
Higher (ticks the stock up) | Aggressive buy |
Lower (ticks the stock down) | Aggressive sell |
The same | Neutral |
The tick test is an approximation based on price. It is not a buy or sell label from the exchange.
Time and sales: the raw trade feed
Every trade that executes for your security appears as a row. Rows are colour-coded as buys or sells. Neutral trades are not coloured.
Column | What it shows |
Time | When the trade executed |
Price | Execution price |
Size | Number of shares |
Venue | The trading venue where the trade executed |
Condition | The execution type, such as At Bid or Above Ask |
Volume | The dollar value of the trade (fill price multiplied by size) |
The bid is the highest price a buyer is offering. The ask is the lowest price a seller will accept.
Filter the feed
Three filters let you narrow what you see:
Filter | What it does | Example |
Volume | Shows only trades above a minimum dollar size | Set a minimum dollar size like $500,000 to hide smaller trades and surface larger activity |
Exchange | Shows trades from specific venues only | Focus on TSX, NYSE, or NASDAQ to remove noise from other venues |
Condition | Shows specific execution types | Select At Bid or Above Ask to isolate directional activity |
Each filter has a tooltip in the platform that explains what it does.
Trade flow: the dashboard on Time and sales data
The Time and sales feed can move at hundreds of trades a minute. Trade flow does the math for you. It shows where large trades are showing up, which side is pressing, and which price levels hold.
Order size distribution
Sorts every trade from Small to Block, split by buy and sell, so you see who’s participating and not only how much is trading. Each category shows trade count and total volume.
Size is measured as a percentage of the stock’s average daily volume. The same “trade size” can land in a different category on a stock based on its historical trading volume. This means that the bucket is adjusted for the average volume of each security.
Category | % of average daily volume | What it can signal |
Small | Under 0.05% | General market noise |
Medium | 0.05% up to 0.21% | Active retail traders. A cluster of Medium fills could mean a larger order split into smaller pieces. |
Large | 0.21% up to 1.00% | Heavier conviction. The buyer or seller wanted a fast fill. |
Block | 1.00% and over | Rare. Usually tied to major liquidity events or negotiated block trades reaching the feed. |
For example, If most of the day’s volume falls in the Block category on the buy side, Trade flow will show that most large trades were classified as buys. This is an approximation and does not indicate what will happen next.
Trade flow describes past trading activity only. It does not predict future price movements and is not a recommendation to buy, sell or hold any security.
Order flow analysis
Two charts track aggressive buying and selling over time, so you can see pressure build, fade, or flip.
The Order flow chart shows aggressive buy volume in green and aggressive sell volume in red for each interval. A large green spike at 10:32 AM means buyers drove a burst of activity at that moment.
The Delta chart shows the net: buy volume minus sell volume for each interval. Five red bars in a row on a 5-minute interval mean sellers held control for 25 minutes, which one block trade can’t produce on its own.
Footprint chart
Volume traded at each price level, split between buyers and sellers. It shows where the market took a stand, based on completed trades of the selected duration.
For example, if 27,000 shares traded on the buy side at one price and 2,500 on the sell side, more volume at that price was classified as buying. Some traders use this information when analyzing price levels. Past volume at a price level does not indicate future price behaviour.
Flexible intervals
Choose a preset range, from 5-second bars up to multi-day views. You cannot set a custom range.
Duration | Bar interval | What you see |
1 minute | 5 seconds | Very short-term bursts of activity |
5 minutes | 30 seconds | Whether a volume spike is one large trade or sustained activity |
10 to 15 minutes | 1 minute | Aligns with standard short-term chart candles |
1 hour | 5 minutes | Intraday order flow in readable chunks |
3 days | 1 hour | See longer term trends in the trading patterns. |
5 days | 4 hours | Whether buying or selling conviction is building or fading over the week |
Who Trade flow is for
Trade flow is for anyone who wants to understand the order flow behind a security's price movement. If you already read the tape (the Time and sales feed), Trade flow does the math for you. If you’re new to reading the tape, start with order size distribution and order flow analysis to see whether large-scale activity is present and which way it leans.
