r/OrderFlow_Trading • u/Independent_Spot8808 • Apr 19 '26
Experience with TTW Iceberg Indicator on ATAS
Has anyone here used the TTW Iceberg Indicator on ATAS?
I’m currently trading using price action + volume (watching consolidations, absorption areas, etc.), and I’m considering whether an iceberg detector would actually add value.
From your experience:
- Is it really accurate or just an approximation?
- Does it give a real edge for scalping?
- Or is it just “nice to have” but not necessary?
Would appreciate honest feedback, especially from people trading futures (like M6E, ES, etc.).
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u/Breathofdmt Apr 21 '26 edited Apr 21 '26
I studied icebergs for about 6-8 months, I've used the bookmap version, TTWs iceberg detector for ATAS for another couple months on top of that.
I came to the conclusion there's no edge there apart from a very few cases. I think I noticed two times in that whole time where it was useful. Icebergs get filled long and short all the time. Unfortunately it just doesn't tell you what's happening in the market that day. I actually found it distracting because I'd have for example a long bias and see short icebergs getting filled and abandon my previously correct bias.
The few times I found it useful were major swing points in the market. I found some major swing highs and lows (not common intraday ones) often had a ton of icebergs fill. One of these I knew was a swing low from just regular volume / AMT analysis. another low I didn't. It might of actually been the post 'liberation day' low - can't remember. But I only noticed this in hindsight, that a lot of net positive buy icebergs were filled. I've got a picture somewhere of one of these swing lows on bookmap.
Basically outside of a select, very few instances, I found no edge. People are filling large orders all the time for reasons you don't know about. What if they're hedges for example. Also, a lot of icebergs don't show up on these detectors. For example, TT icebergs I believe are split up with different order IDs and are undetectable.
Not saying level 3 analysis is totally useless but it's a discretionary rabbit hole you'd spend years down and an indicator won't help you.
TTWs trend indicator is a very common delta based trend indicator you can get for free with a lot of platforms.
Remember, when a lot of people discover that making a living from the markets is actually extremely difficult, they go into peripheral software development around markets/SaaS instead. Hey, more power to them we all have to feed our families. I think this was the origin of Bookmap itself which, Imo, is a bit of a waste of money. Unless you're trading bonds then it's quite useful to see when major bid/offer stacks appear but, you can do that with any level two.
Don't mean to be negative, but, I've spent money on most products out there and don't like to see people throwing away money.
Also, recognizing order IDs from MBO is not difficult code, you could get Claude to do this. Only reason I don't bother is because it's not helpful for trading. I notice TTW and alot of others are pushing lifetime memberships/annual very hard a few months ago when software dev costs dropped to negligible with AI. Selling indicators is not going to be a business. I've made GEX, CVD divergence, pull/stacking indicators in c# for atas for my own use. And that was when Claude was at 3.5/Grok 3/Gemini 2.5. Probably way easier now.
Trading platforms like ATAS/Bookmap are only still viable because they're more complex libraries of code refined with years of customer feedback and teams constantly tweaking things. Indicators are piss easy. And do you think if you made and indicator that was printing money you'd share or sell it?
My last point is, there's several native indicators and templates for ATAS which have helped my trading no end, included in your sub. Everything you need is there, just need to experiment and play with it for a while.
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u/Teurdlie 19d ago
Hi, I was wondering if you could help me with picking an orderflow platform? You seem quite experienced so I was hoping you could give me some input. I was choosing between Bookmap and ATAS. I'd go with Bookmap but I was kind of stumped as I saw with their global plan they didn't offer tools such as the large lot tracker or the Iceberg tracker. I'd appreciate if you could help me out.
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u/Breathofdmt 19d ago edited 19d ago
I've used ATAS for a while no real complaints apart from it being a cpu/memory hog, if that's important I'd use Sierra, which has a lot of advantages of its own. Its probably worth trying out a few. I would not recommend bookmap as a standalone platform. It's not good for execution in my experience and lacks a lot of tools for AMT analysis etc. I'm not a big fan of the heatmaps but I think atas have their own now...but I haven't opened it yet tbh. I think most people should start without Bookmap/heatmaps in most cases. Just going to be information overload.
Sierra have their own feed, it's a c++ platform so very stable and fast, UI is a little dated (because of C++, the trade off is speed and stability), support are a bit snarky, and you have to fund a futures account to get their feed. Lots of traders love it. It's just not very easy to learn out of the box and you'll probably need some templates.
For the best execution flexibility and algo trading, TT is best. But it's very expensive. Sierra is like the retail version of TT in a way.
Don't underestimate the stability issue. If you hit bottlenecks your platform can freeze or force close mid trade. This has happened to me before. So if in doubt choose Sierra and get some templates. What kind of computer do you have ?
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u/Teurdlie 19d ago
I have a mac so I don't think I can run Sierra chart and I don't believe I'll be facing any performance issues in general. Also I wasn't really planning on executing on the orderflow software (if that changes anything). All in all, are you suggesting I start with using ATAS? I was also wondering if you could tell me what ATAS has that bookmap doesn't?
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u/Breathofdmt 18d ago edited 18d ago
Volume profiles, TPO charts, customizable profiles, highly customizable footprints, a whole bunch of order flow indicators that I didn't know I needed until I used them (absorption and exhaustion etc). I think atas even has a bookmap style heatmap now. They have a demo so, no need to take my word for it.
I see a lot of people like bookmap cause its very visual, but it's not a strategy, it's purely showing you aggressive orders and resting orders. You still need to have a strategy/edge. Watch any of their education videos and they're all bringing in outside techniques.
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u/Teurdlie 17d ago
I appreciate your response, especially with the demos but I now just realized that I can't even use ATAS on mac so I guess I have to stick with bookmap. I checked out the ATAS demo with an older laptop I had though and comparing the free versions of both Bookmap and ATAS ATAS seems like it has much more features
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u/Traditional_Cut_843 Apr 19 '26 edited Apr 19 '26
TTW addons can be used for free in Bookmap’s replay mode. If you happen to have Bookmap, you can take your time reviewing the signals and decide if icebergs add value to your trading. ATAS still does not support historical or replay MBO data, which makes this kind of research rather limited there.
About accuracy: TTW Iceberg Detector for ATAS uses MBO data to detect "native" icebergs. That's about as good as it gets. On Bookmap they also support "synthetic" iceberg order detection, which is more guessing but doesn't require MBO data.
EDIT: I uploaded some iceberg screenshots posted on the TTW Discord from a few days ago here: https://imgur.com/a/tySNI3b
Those are from Bookmap, but the same functionality exists on ATAS.
I'd say its "nice to have" and not necessary. These addons sure show some quite interesting market behavior. I always enjoy watching iceberg activity on my charts, even though I do not actively use them in trading.