Time and Sales

Time and Sales (commonly called the “tape”) is a live, continuously updating list of every trade that executes on an exchange. For each transaction it records: the timestamp, execution price, number of contracts traded, and whether the trade hit the bid (sell aggressor) or lifted the ask (buy aggressor).

What T&S shows

Column	Description
Time	Exact timestamp of execution (often millisecond precision)
Price	The price at which the trade executed
Size	Number of contracts (or shares) traded
Side	Bid (sell-initiated) or Ask (buy-initiated)

Color coding is standard: green or white typically indicates a buy (ask-side print), red a sell (bid-side print), though this varies by platform.

Reading the tape

Normal flow: alternating green and red prints of relatively similar size at or near the current market price. Neither side dominant.

Aggressive buying: a rapid succession of green prints, multiple sizes hitting the ask, price moving up tick by tick. Someone wants in and is not waiting.

Aggressive selling: sustained red prints at or below the bid, price dropping quickly.

Absorption: large red prints (sell aggression) appearing but price not dropping. The bid is being defended. Bullish signal.

T&S and trade size filters

Most platforms allow filtering T&S by minimum print size. Filtering to show only trades of 50+ contracts on ES, for example, reveals only institutional-scale activity and strips out retail noise. Large prints at key levels are high-signal events.

T&S vs DOM

Time and Sales shows what already happened: completed trades. The DOM shows what is pending: resting limit orders. Together they form a complete picture of market activity: DOM shows the available liquidity, T&S shows where and how aggressively that liquidity is being consumed.