# What is Delta?

> Also called: Bar delta, Candle delta, Net delta, Bid-ask delta

**In short.** Delta is the difference, for a candle or a price level, between the contracts bought at the ask and the contracts sold at the bid. A delta of +350 means 350 more contracts were bought aggressively than sold aggressively in that candle. It measures aggression, not direction: price can fall on positive delta when limit sellers absorb the buyers.

The reading comes from the pairing of delta and price: price up and delta up is a healthy move; price up on negative delta is buying being absorbed, price down on positive delta is selling being absorbed. Those divergences are the first thing an order-flow trader checks at a level.

Delta per candle is noisy on fast markets like NQ; traders smooth it with cumulative delta across the session, or read it only at pre-defined levels. The article on delta and cumulative delta on this site has the three divergence cases with charts.

- Guides on this term: [Delta and cumulative delta (CVD) explained](https://fillprint.io/en/journal/delta-and-cumulative-delta)
- Guides on this term: [Reading a footprint chart, from the first cell](https://fillprint.io/en/journal/reading-a-footprint-chart)
- Read next: [Cumulative delta](https://fillprint.io/en/glossary/cumulative-delta)
- Read next: [Footprint chart](https://fillprint.io/en/glossary/footprint-chart)
- Read next: [Absorption](https://fillprint.io/en/glossary/absorption)

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