Interactive Guide

The Anatomy of a Trade

An interactive journey through market microstructure: watch orders become prices, feel the spread respond to stress, and discover why these mechanics shape every trade you will ever make.

Start reading

01The Order Book Comes AliveEvery market starts with two opposing lines: buyers and sellers, stacked by price and size. The order book is not just a record — it is the market's living, breathing state.
Imagine a room where buyers line up on the left and sellers on the right. The person at the front of each line sets the best bid and best ask. The gap between them is the spread. When a buyer gets impatient and crosses over to the seller's side at their price, a trade happens.
Live order bookSimulated
One tick every 500 ms
Mid price
A market order hits
103.07102.0599.00
100 s agonow
PriceSize
103.702.12
103.606.99
103.504.24
103.104.72
102.309.20
102.104.96
spread0.10
102.006.64
101.901.53
101.7014.32
101.3012.42
101.108.98
100.907.20
Price levels in the live order book
Total quantity available at this price
Mid
102.05
Spread
0.10
Last trade
—
Order size
10.0
Size10.0
Shown: an illustrative order book, simulated in your browser. Try a large size (10+) and watch the spread blow out.
Try placing a market buy with a large size. Watch how the order eats through the ask side, consuming liquidity level by level. The spread widens. The midprice shifts. This is in its most elemental form.
Biais, Hillion & Spatt (1995) showed that the shape of the order book — not just the best price — contains predictive information about future price dynamics. The distribution of depth across levels reveals strategic positioning before it shows up as obvious price moves.
The book above is simulated. Our measures the depth of real books, and there's a free sample to try.
02The Price of UncertaintyThe spread is not just a cost — it is a risk price. Market makers set it wide when they're nervous, like a store charging more for something they're not sure they can restock.Read
03Below the SurfaceComing soon
04Follow the FlowComing soon
05Every Trade Leaves a MarkComing soon
06The Signal ChainComing soon

Up / Down Tick Metrics

Trades

Up / Down Tick Metrics

Uptick and downtick count, volume, ratios and percentages based on price movement direction.

See it on real data

Need the ticks behind this metric? Prime + Raw includes raw trades.

Sample CSV Start in Claude

Shown: unchanged_count_percentage, hourly, 1–31 January 2024, from this page's Sample CSV · extreme: 80.1%, 21 Jan, 08:00 UTC · built with updownticks

low

high

extreme

uptick_downtick_volume_ratio

Uptick/Downtick Volume Ratio

This ratio compares the notional traded on upticks with the notional traded on downticks.

It gives a tape-based view of directional pressure that is grounded in actual price changes rather than trade classification alone.

uptick_downtick_count_ratio

Uptick/Downtick Count Ratio

The count ratio focuses on how frequently prices were moving up versus down, regardless of trade size.

That makes it a useful companion to the volume ratio when you want to know whether direction came from many small pushes or a few heavy prints.

uptick_volume_percentage

Uptick Volume %

Uptick Volume % shows what share of traded volume occurred while price was moving upward.

It is an intuitive measure for spotting intervals where positive price progression was supported by meaningful participation rather than by sparse prints.

unchanged_volume_percentage

Unchanged Volume %

Unchanged Volume % captures how much volume traded without moving the last price.

A high reading can indicate heavier matching at stable quotes, stronger passive replenishment, or a temporary equilibrium between buyers and sellers.

uptick_count_percentage

Uptick Count %

Uptick Count % expresses the share of price-changing events that moved upward during the interval.

Because it ignores size, it is especially good at showing whether the tape rhythm itself was persistently positive or negative.

Before exchanges provided taker-side classification, researchers had only the sequence of transaction prices to infer trade direction. The tick test — classifying trades based on whether the price rose or fell — remains a surprisingly informative signal even when full trade-side data is available.

Endpoint: /api/v1/data/updownticks
Category: Trades
Built from: Raw trades →
Intervals: 1m5m15m30m1h4h1d
Requires Institutional: 15s30s
Exchanges: binance-futuresokx-perpshyperliquid-perps

Fields

Field	Name	Description
`uptick_count`	Uptick Count	Number of trades priced above the previous trade
`downtick_count`	Downtick Count	Number of trades priced below the previous trade
`unchanged_count`	Unchanged Count	Number of trades priced the same as the previous trade
`uptick_volume`	Uptick Volume	Total traded quantity on upticks
`downtick_volume`	Downtick Volume	Total traded quantity on downticks
`unchanged_volume`	Unchanged Volume	Total traded quantity on unchanged ticks
`uptick_downtick_volume_ratio`	Uptick/Downtick Volume Ratio	Uptick traded quantity divided by downtick traded quantity
`uptick_downtick_count_ratio`	Uptick/Downtick Count Ratio	Uptick trade count divided by downtick trade count
`uptick_count_percentage`	Uptick Count %	Share of trades that were upticks
`downtick_count_percentage`	Downtick Count %	Share of trades that were downticks
`unchanged_count_percentage`	Unchanged Count %	Share of trades that were unchanged ticks
`uptick_volume_percentage`	Uptick Volume %	Share of traded quantity that occurred on upticks
`downtick_volume_percentage`	Downtick Volume %	Share of traded quantity that occurred on downticks
`unchanged_volume_percentage`	Unchanged Volume %	Share of traded quantity that occurred on unchanged ticks

Example Request

# Install the Aperiodic CLI into ~/.local/bin
mkdir -p "$HOME/.local/bin"
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aperiodic-io/cli/main/install.sh | INSTALL_DIR="$HOME/.local/bin" bash
export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"

# Free preview — no API key required
aperiodic updownticks --preview \
  --exchange binance-futures \
  --symbol perpetual-BTC-USDT:USDT \
  --interval 5m \
  --timestamp exchange \
  --start-date 2025-05-01 \
  --end-date 2025-05-31 \
  --output-dir ./data && echo "Saved to $PWD/data"

Live Stream

Every new row as it is computed, over WebSocket at wss://stream.aperiodic.io/v1/stream. Authenticate with your API key in the X-API-KEY header and subscribe to channels named updownticks.<exchange>.<interval>, on intervals 15s, 30s, 1m, 5m, 15m, 30m, 1h, 4h, 1d (15s and 30s on Institutional Live only). Streaming is included on Live plans.

pip install "aperiodic[stream]"

pypi ↗

import os

from aperiodic import stream

for message in stream(
    api_key=os.environ["APERIODIC_API_KEY"],
    dataset="updownticks",
    exchange="binance-futures",
    interval="1m",
    symbols=["perpetual-BTC-USDT:USDT"],  # omit for every symbol on your plan
):
    print(message.channel, message.snapshot, message.data)

Query Parameters

timestampreqstring

string

Timestamp source. 'exchange' uses the exchange-reported timestamp, 'true' uses actual arrival time at our servers.

exchangetrue

intervalreqstring

string

Aggregation time interval for the data. Sub-minute intervals (15s, 30s) require an Institutional plan.

15s30s1m5m15m30m1h4h1d

exchangereqstring

string

Source exchange for the data.

binance-futuresokx-perpshyperliquid-perps

symbolreqstring

string

Trading pair symbol in the format of Atlas' universal symbology: https://github.com/aperiodic-io/atlas

start_datereqstring<date>

string<date>

Start date for the data range (YYYY-MM-DD format). A metric series starts on the first day of the raw series it is computed from (see /metadata/raw); raw trades and quotes start binance-futures from 2020-01-01, okx-perps from 2019-09-01, hyperliquid-perps from 2025-01-01. Earlier days return no files. How far back you can go depends on the plan: 5 years on Pro, full history on Prime, Prime + Raw and Institutional. An earlier start_date than the plan reaches returns 403.

end_datereqstring<date>

string<date>

End date for the data range (YYYY-MM-DD format). Must be greater than or equal to start_date.

Successful response with download URLs for every existing file covering the range from the series' published start — one per month before 2026-08-01, one per day from 2026-08-01 onwards

Schema

filesobject[]required

Files covering the requested date range, in chronological order. Data before 2026-08-01 is split by month (one file per calendar month, no `day`); data from 2026-08-01 onwards is split by day (one file per calendar day, with `day` set). The changeover falls on a month boundary, so a given month is served entirely one way or the other; a range spanning it returns the earlier months as monthly files followed by a daily file per day.

yearintegerrequired

Year of the data file

monthintegerrequired

Month of the data file (1-12)

dayinteger

Day of the data file (1-31). Present only on daily files, i.e. those covering 2026-08-01 onwards. Absent on monthly files, which cover an entire calendar month.

urlstring<uri>required

Presigned URL for direct file download (valid for 5 minutes). URLs are served from dataset-specific subdomains, e.g. ohlcv.aperiodic.io, trade-metrics.aperiodic.io, l1-metrics.aperiodic.io, l2-metrics.aperiodic.io, derivative-metrics.aperiodic.io.

Example

{
  "files": [
    {
      "year": 2026,
      "month": 6,
      "url": "https://ohlcv.aperiodic.io/binance-futures/1h/BTCUSDT/2026-06.parquet?X-Amz-Expires=300&..."
    },
    {
      "year": 2026,
      "month": 7,
      "url": "https://ohlcv.aperiodic.io/binance-futures/1h/BTCUSDT/2026-07.parquet?X-Amz-Expires=300&..."
    },
    {
      "year": 2026,
      "month": 8,
      "day": 1,
      "url": "https://ohlcv.aperiodic.io/binance-futures/1h/BTCUSDT/2026-08-01.parquet?X-Amz-Expires=300&..."
    },
    {
      "year": 2026,
      "month": 8,
      "day": 2,
      "url": "https://ohlcv.aperiodic.io/binance-futures/1h/BTCUSDT/2026-08-02.parquet?X-Amz-Expires=300&..."
    }
  ]
}

Try It

Prefilled with the shared DEMO-KEY and a free preview slice — send the request to see live data, no account required.

timestamp*

interval*

exchange*

symbol*

Suggestions shown — any valid value accepted

start_date*

Suggestions shown — any valid value accepted

end_date*

Suggestions shown — any valid value accepted

Authentication

X-API-KEY*

GET

/api/v1/data/preview/updownticks?timestamp=exchange&interval=5m&exchange=binance-futures&symbol=perpetual-BTC-USDT%3AUSDT&start_date=2025-05-01&end_date=2025-05-31

Response will appear here

Interactive Guide

The Anatomy of a Trade

An interactive journey through market microstructure: watch orders become prices, feel the spread respond to stress, and discover why these mechanics shape every trade you will ever make.

Start reading

01The Order Book Comes AliveEvery market starts with two opposing lines: buyers and sellers, stacked by price and size. The order book is not just a record — it is the market's living, breathing state.
Imagine a room where buyers line up on the left and sellers on the right. The person at the front of each line sets the best bid and best ask. The gap between them is the spread. When a buyer gets impatient and crosses over to the seller's side at their price, a trade happens.
Live order bookSimulated
One tick every 500 ms
Mid price
A market order hits
103.07102.0599.00
100 s agonow
PriceSize
103.702.12
103.606.99
103.504.24
103.104.72
102.309.20
102.104.96
spread0.10
102.006.64
101.901.53
101.7014.32
101.3012.42
101.108.98
100.907.20
Price levels in the live order book
Total quantity available at this price
Mid
102.05
Spread
0.10
Last trade
—
Order size
10.0
Size10.0
Shown: an illustrative order book, simulated in your browser. Try a large size (10+) and watch the spread blow out.
Try placing a market buy with a large size. Watch how the order eats through the ask side, consuming liquidity level by level. The spread widens. The midprice shifts. This is in its most elemental form.
Biais, Hillion & Spatt (1995) showed that the shape of the order book — not just the best price — contains predictive information about future price dynamics. The distribution of depth across levels reveals strategic positioning before it shows up as obvious price moves.
The book above is simulated. Our measures the depth of real books, and there's a free sample to try.
02The Price of UncertaintyThe spread is not just a cost — it is a risk price. Market makers set it wide when they're nervous, like a store charging more for something they're not sure they can restock.Read
03Below the SurfaceComing soon
04Follow the FlowComing soon
05Every Trade Leaves a MarkComing soon
06The Signal ChainComing soon

Up / Down Tick Metrics

Trades

Up / Down Tick Metrics

Uptick and downtick count, volume, ratios and percentages based on price movement direction.

See it on real data

Need the ticks behind this metric? Prime + Raw includes raw trades.

Sample CSV Start in Claude

Shown: unchanged_count_percentage, hourly, 1–31 January 2024, from this page's Sample CSV · extreme: 80.1%, 21 Jan, 08:00 UTC · built with updownticks

low

high

extreme

uptick_downtick_volume_ratio

Uptick/Downtick Volume Ratio

This ratio compares the notional traded on upticks with the notional traded on downticks.

It gives a tape-based view of directional pressure that is grounded in actual price changes rather than trade classification alone.

uptick_downtick_count_ratio

Uptick/Downtick Count Ratio

The count ratio focuses on how frequently prices were moving up versus down, regardless of trade size.

That makes it a useful companion to the volume ratio when you want to know whether direction came from many small pushes or a few heavy prints.

uptick_volume_percentage

Uptick Volume %

Uptick Volume % shows what share of traded volume occurred while price was moving upward.

It is an intuitive measure for spotting intervals where positive price progression was supported by meaningful participation rather than by sparse prints.

unchanged_volume_percentage

Unchanged Volume %

Unchanged Volume % captures how much volume traded without moving the last price.

A high reading can indicate heavier matching at stable quotes, stronger passive replenishment, or a temporary equilibrium between buyers and sellers.

uptick_count_percentage

Uptick Count %

Uptick Count % expresses the share of price-changing events that moved upward during the interval.

Because it ignores size, it is especially good at showing whether the tape rhythm itself was persistently positive or negative.

Endpoint: /api/v1/data/updownticks
Category: Trades
Built from: Raw trades →
Intervals: 1m5m15m30m1h4h1d
Requires Institutional: 15s30s
Exchanges: binance-futuresokx-perpshyperliquid-perps

Fields

Field	Name	Description
`uptick_count`	Uptick Count	Number of trades priced above the previous trade
`downtick_count`	Downtick Count	Number of trades priced below the previous trade
`unchanged_count`	Unchanged Count	Number of trades priced the same as the previous trade
`uptick_volume`	Uptick Volume	Total traded quantity on upticks
`downtick_volume`	Downtick Volume	Total traded quantity on downticks
`unchanged_volume`	Unchanged Volume	Total traded quantity on unchanged ticks
`uptick_downtick_volume_ratio`	Uptick/Downtick Volume Ratio	Uptick traded quantity divided by downtick traded quantity
`uptick_downtick_count_ratio`	Uptick/Downtick Count Ratio	Uptick trade count divided by downtick trade count
`uptick_count_percentage`	Uptick Count %	Share of trades that were upticks
`downtick_count_percentage`	Downtick Count %	Share of trades that were downticks
`unchanged_count_percentage`	Unchanged Count %	Share of trades that were unchanged ticks
`uptick_volume_percentage`	Uptick Volume %	Share of traded quantity that occurred on upticks
`downtick_volume_percentage`	Downtick Volume %	Share of traded quantity that occurred on downticks
`unchanged_volume_percentage`	Unchanged Volume %	Share of traded quantity that occurred on unchanged ticks

Example Request

# Install the Aperiodic CLI into ~/.local/bin
mkdir -p "$HOME/.local/bin"
curl -fsSL https://raw.githubusercontent.com/aperiodic-io/cli/main/install.sh | INSTALL_DIR="$HOME/.local/bin" bash
export PATH="$HOME/.local/bin:$PATH"

# Free preview — no API key required
aperiodic updownticks --preview \
  --exchange binance-futures \
  --symbol perpetual-BTC-USDT:USDT \
  --interval 5m \
  --timestamp exchange \
  --start-date 2025-05-01 \
  --end-date 2025-05-31 \
  --output-dir ./data && echo "Saved to $PWD/data"

Live Stream

pip install "aperiodic[stream]"

pypi ↗

import os

from aperiodic import stream

for message in stream(
    api_key=os.environ["APERIODIC_API_KEY"],
    dataset="updownticks",
    exchange="binance-futures",
    interval="1m",
    symbols=["perpetual-BTC-USDT:USDT"],  # omit for every symbol on your plan
):
    print(message.channel, message.snapshot, message.data)

Query Parameters

timestampreqstring

string

Timestamp source. 'exchange' uses the exchange-reported timestamp, 'true' uses actual arrival time at our servers.

exchangetrue

intervalreqstring

string

Aggregation time interval for the data. Sub-minute intervals (15s, 30s) require an Institutional plan.

15s30s1m5m15m30m1h4h1d

exchangereqstring

string

Source exchange for the data.

binance-futuresokx-perpshyperliquid-perps

symbolreqstring

string

Trading pair symbol in the format of Atlas' universal symbology: https://github.com/aperiodic-io/atlas

start_datereqstring<date>

string<date>

end_datereqstring<date>

string<date>

End date for the data range (YYYY-MM-DD format). Must be greater than or equal to start_date.

Successful response with download URLs for every existing file covering the range from the series' published start — one per month before 2026-08-01, one per day from 2026-08-01 onwards

Schema

filesobject[]required

yearintegerrequired

Year of the data file

monthintegerrequired

Month of the data file (1-12)

dayinteger

Day of the data file (1-31). Present only on daily files, i.e. those covering 2026-08-01 onwards. Absent on monthly files, which cover an entire calendar month.

urlstring<uri>required

Example

{
  "files": [
    {
      "year": 2026,
      "month": 6,
      "url": "https://ohlcv.aperiodic.io/binance-futures/1h/BTCUSDT/2026-06.parquet?X-Amz-Expires=300&..."
    },
    {
      "year": 2026,
      "month": 7,
      "url": "https://ohlcv.aperiodic.io/binance-futures/1h/BTCUSDT/2026-07.parquet?X-Amz-Expires=300&..."
    },
    {
      "year": 2026,
      "month": 8,
      "day": 1,
      "url": "https://ohlcv.aperiodic.io/binance-futures/1h/BTCUSDT/2026-08-01.parquet?X-Amz-Expires=300&..."
    },
    {
      "year": 2026,
      "month": 8,
      "day": 2,
      "url": "https://ohlcv.aperiodic.io/binance-futures/1h/BTCUSDT/2026-08-02.parquet?X-Amz-Expires=300&..."
    }
  ]
}

Try It

Prefilled with the shared DEMO-KEY and a free preview slice — send the request to see live data, no account required.

timestamp*

interval*

exchange*

symbol*

Suggestions shown — any valid value accepted

start_date*

Suggestions shown — any valid value accepted

end_date*

Suggestions shown — any valid value accepted

Authentication

X-API-KEY*

GET

/api/v1/data/preview/updownticks?timestamp=exchange&interval=5m&exchange=binance-futures&symbol=perpetual-BTC-USDT%3AUSDT&start_date=2025-05-01&end_date=2025-05-31

Response will appear here

Uptick/Downtick Volume Ratio

Uptick/Downtick Count Ratio

Uptick Volume %

Unchanged Volume %

Uptick Count %

Fields

Example Request

Live Stream

API Reference

Query Parameters

Schema

Example

Try It

Uptick/Downtick Volume Ratio

Uptick/Downtick Count Ratio

Uptick Volume %

Unchanged Volume %

Uptick Count %

Fields

Example Request

Live Stream

API Reference

Query Parameters

Schema

Example

Try It