Bookmap Review: Have you heard of their platform? In fact. have you ever wished you had a tool that could help you see order flow in a new way? You’re in luck. More than anything else, successful trading in the stock market is understanding where buyers and sellers are active in your underlying security.
All indicators ultimately try to give insight into who is in control – bulls or bears – by combining price action, volume, and math. There are many trading styles, but most need at least one or two indicators to help decision-making or risk management.
- Or, you can create a free account here if you aren’t ready for a subscription
The problem with most indicators is that they are backward-looking; few indicators can show market changes as they occur. Bookmap is an incredibly powerful tool to visualize real-time liquidity zones in the market to help you make better buying and selling decisions in your trading – and it works for stocks, futures, and crypto!
Bookmap, developed by high-frequency/algorithmic traders, is a platform that “accurately shows the entire market liquidity and trading activities.”
They aim to help you “Identify market trends and hidden price patterns with high precision.” OK, that’s quite a mouthful. Let’s get into what all that means a little deeper.
Bookmap breaks its features into three sections. The first is “heatmap.” The second is volume. And the third feature is custom indicators. Our Bookmap review will go over each one.
Let’s take a look at the heatmap in this Bookmap review. The heatmap shows each price level’s historical limit order book and color codes them to visualize support and resistance areas quickly.
The darker the color, the more orders are at the corresponding price (and the colors are even customizable!)
A day trader can use this information to get earlier entries on their trades and increase their profitability per trade.
Bookmap Volume
The next feature of our Bookmap review is volume. The book platform has volume bars at the bottom of the chart and “volume dots.”
This is instead of candles on the chart. The dots help visualize two key pieces of information. First, the dot will show the proportion of buy orders at the ask (in green) vs the number of sell orders at the bid (in red).
This shows who is more in control, the bulls trying to increase prices. Or are the bears trying to push it down? Secondly, the size of the dot corresponds to the relative volume.
This will allow a trader to quickly see changes in market volume, which often means an opportunity for a trade.
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Custom Indicators
The third feature is custom indicators created by Bookmap developers, whose expertise is in high-frequency trading or HFT. These indicators include the Imbalance Indicator, Iceberg Detector, Large Lot Tracker, Advanced Volume Delta, and more. You can learn about these custom indicators within the learning resources on Bookmap’s website – read on for more on their learning tools.
There are a couple of competitive indicators, but Bookmap is considered the Rolls Royce of market depth indicators. Bookmap is very customizable, which is one of its major advantages over others. Trade labs have a set of indicators that somewhat emulate Bookmap, and NinjaTrader has a market depth indicator, although not nearly as robust.
Getting Started With Bookmap
It’s important to note in our Bookmap review what Bookmap is NOT. It’s not a broker, and nor is it a data feed. Many brokers work with Bookmap for futures and cryptocurrencies. The only two brokers for trading stocks are Tradestation and Interactive Brokers. If you already have a data service with one of these brokers, you can likely use it in Bookmap.
If not, Bookmap suggests dxFeed, which has plans for stocks up to $119/month and futures up to $179/month.
Bookmap Pricing Review
Bookmap has three membership tiers—The first is the digital tier, which is free. The free membership allows crypto trading only and only one tab/screen at a time. You can add the record and review feature for $20/month.
The second tier, “Global,” has real-time data for stocks, futures, and crypto. But cryptocurrency trades are still the only asset you can trade directly from the chart within Bookmap. You can look at 20 tabs at this tier, which will run you $39/month.
Bookmap’s top membership tier, “Global+,” will allow you to trade all three asset classes from the screen. It also includes the custom indicators mentioned above. This tier is advertised at $79/month.
Learning Tools
Bookmap also offers some good learning opportunities. First, a free daily training session shows the platform’s key features, how to customize your screen, and some basic information on order flow.
This session is available Monday through Friday from 10:30 to 11 am EST. Paid members (Global and Global+ users) can access four lessons on market mechanics/order flow, market structure, and how to use their custom indicators.
Additionally, paid members their daily live trading session from 10:30 – 11 am EST. It’s always great to watch experienced traders.
Bookmap view from within TOS
Integration With ThinkorSwim
Great news for all you ThinkorSwim users! TD partnered with Bookmap to offer it directly within their platform. You must contact TOS support to have it turned on. There is a trial with three symbols that rotate periodically (an example would be /ES, AMZN, and COIN), or spring for the full support and get every available symbol for $39.99 a month. That’s the same price as the global Bookmap subscription, but it doesn’t seem to require additional data feeds, which makes it a more competitive way to use Bookmap. That is a smart move by TD Ameritrade. As of April 2021, Canadian residents cannot access this deal.
Final Thoughts: Bookmap Review
Bookmap isn’t an indicator for brand new traders. You should master chart patterns and candlesticks before getting into software like this. A great place to start is with the free courses on our website!
However, for a trader with some experience under their belt, Bookmap is a powerful tool that can help you see breakouts and reversals before they happen by visualizing and analyzing the orders coming into the market.
The stock market is a battle of the bulls and the bears, and trading is all about going along with the ones in control. Bookmap is a tool that can help you be on the right side of the market.
Frequently Asked Questions
Bookmap is a real-time order book data tool that shows a dynamic heatmap chart overlay. It shows institutional order flow and areas of liquidity.
Investors cannot purchase shares of Bookmap because the company is privately held.
There is a free version of Bookmap, however, there is no real-time data to view. The data is recorded but the ticker buttons aren't active.
Alternatives to Bookmap include:
- OmniTrader
- Protrade
- DAS Trader
- ICE Connect
- DecisionBar
- cTrader
- Finandy
- Build Alpha
- Alpha Vantage
- Scanz
- Digital Plus: $19/month or $16/month billed yearly
- Global: $49/month, $39/month billed yearly, or $990 for lifetime
- Global Plus: $99/month, $79/month billed yearly, or $1990 for lifetime
