Hammer Big trades indicator for NinjaTrader 8

Quick info

Platform

NinjaTrader 8 on Windows

Concept

Aggressive order reconstruction from the tick stream

Designed for

Futures traders who want to see the real size trading at the level they are watching

Best used when

Price is at your level and you want to know whether real size is hitting it, or just thin tape

Markets

Any futures contract NinjaTrader sees; presets for ES, MES, NQ and MNQ; mini flow on micro charts

Data

Level 1 ticks. Tick Replay for marks on historical bars

Access

Part of the FlowForged Suite, free during the private beta

What Hammer does

Hammer reads every trade on the tape, groups the fills that belong to one aggressive order, and prints that order's true size on the bar where it hit.

Large orders rarely reach the tape as one print. An 800-lot sell can arrive as forty 20-lot fills inside a few milliseconds, and on a chart it looks like ordinary noise. Hammer puts the pieces back together: same-side fills that arrive within milliseconds of each other become one marker with their summed volume.

A separate stream, the Big Print halo, rings any single trade at or above your threshold at its exact bar and price. And if you execute on a micro, Hammer can read the mini's tape and paint it on your micro chart.

Purpose

Exchanges split large orders into small execution prints, so the raw Time & Sales tape makes big participation look like small trades. You can't tell from the candle whether a move had 50 lots or 800 behind it.

Hammer gives you a consistent way to:

• See the reconstructed size of the aggressive orders behind a move
• Spot single large fills inside the zone you were already watching
• Read the mini contract's flow while you execute on the micro
• Get an audible alert when a large buy or sell order hits

Why choose it

• Built from the raw tick stream. Every trade is classified as a buy or sell on your machine. No Order Flow+ subscription and no third-party engine.
• Thresholds that know the time of day. In the statistical modes, each order is judged against recent orders from the same time-of-day bucket, so overnight tape is never graded on the 9:30 open.
• Big Print as its own stream. Single large fills are never filtered out by the cluster rules.
• Trade the micro, read the mini. Point Hammer at ES while you chart MES, and the contract month rolls with your chart.
• Calibrated presets. One setting loads tuned thresholds for NQ, MNQ, ES or MES.
• Ready for rules. Six Strategy Builder outputs expose every detection to automated strategies.

How it works

1. Aggregate. Consecutive same-side fills that arrive within the aggregation window (4 ms by default) are grouped into one order and their volumes summed. When the side flips or the gap grows, the order is finalized.
2. Merge and mark. Orders on the same bar and side within the merge range (8 ticks by default) combine into one marker showing the total reconstructed size. Set the merge range to 0 to see every order on its own.

Which orders get a mark is decided by the threshold mode. Adaptive (the default) scales a percentile threshold by current volatility, Percentile marks the top slice of recent orders, and Fixed uses your minimum order size. The minimum order size is a floor in every mode.

Key capabilities

• Order reconstruction with a configurable aggregation window and smart merge
• Multi-chart relay: Tick Replay runs on one small background chart, and the chart you trade draws every mark without it, with any number of days loaded. How the relay works
• Big Print halo: any single trade at or above your threshold, ringed at its exact bar and price
• Cross-symbol flow: ES on MES, NQ on MNQ, YM on MYM, RTY on M2K, GC on MGC, CL on MCL, or any pairing your feed carries
• Fixed, Percentile and Adaptive thresholds, with time-of-day buckets
• Side filter: both, buys only or sells only, switchable from the toolbar
• Volume-scaled marks or bubbles, six themes, independent buy and sell label positions
• Separate buy and sell audio alerts with their own size thresholds, live bars only
• Six Strategy Builder outputs: BuySignal, SellSignal, BuyVolume, SellVolume, BigPrintBuyVolume, BigPrintSellVolume

How to set up Hammer in NinjaTrader 8

1. Enable Tick Replay on the chart if you want marks on historical bars. Real-time marks need only a Level 1 feed.
2. Add FF Hammer from the Indicators window.
3. Under Detection, pick an Instrument Preset (NQ, MNQ, ES or MES) or set your own minimum order size.
4. Charting a micro? Set Data Source to Custom and choose the mini as the Source Instrument. The contract month follows your chart.
5. Turn on Big Print and set its threshold, and add buy and sell alerts if you want them.
6. Use the toolbar pill to switch the mode, sides and render style mid-session.

New to NinjaTrader add-ons? The install guide covers importing, Tick Replay and common fixes.

Hammer FAQ

Works well with

Conclusion

Hammer is not a signal generator, and it does not tell you which way price goes next. It shows you the size that actually traded, at the bar and price where it traded, so you can judge the level you are already watching with the tape in view:

• See whether real size is behind a move
• Catch single large fills inside your zone the moment they print
• Read the mini's tape while you trade the micro

Futures trading involves substantial risk and is not for every investor. Chart examples show past market activity and are not indicative of future results. Hammer is an analytical tool, not trading advice.