What ‘imbalance’ actually counts
A book imbalance is a difference between displayed waiting buy quantity and displayed waiting sell quantity in a chosen slice of the book. It does not count the number of buyers versus sellers, because one participant can submit several orders and many participants can share one price level.
Use the unchanged teaching board from 02.02.02. At the nearest prices, ₹499 has 200 bid shares and ₹501 has 100 ask shares. Bid quantity divided by ask quantity is 2:1. Across all five displayed prices, bids total 1,000 and asks total 1,000: 1:1. Both statements are true about the same instant.
The five-level sums include orders farther from the current quotes: a ₹495 buyer is not offering the same immediate terms as a ₹499 buyer. Summing every visible share into one ‘demand’ number hides the prices at which people are willing to act.
Change the question, not the book
These are three ways to read the same invented snapshot. Tap the measurement to see what it includes and excludes.
Each button changes the lens. No displayed order, LTP or historical Bharat Foods holding changes.
One unchanged board shows 200 bid shares against 100 ask shares at the best prices, but 1,000 against 1,000 across five levels. Which statement is justified?
How an imbalance can disappear without a trade
Suppose, in a new hypothetical change to this board, the 200-share best bid at ₹499 is cancelled. The top-level ratio disappears, and the best bid becomes ₹498 with 150 displayed shares. LTP remains ₹500 because cancelling an unfilled order did not match a buyer and seller.
A new sell order could also enlarge the ask side without a trade. Or an incoming buyer could take the 100-share ask, causing both a trade and a new best ask. You need a sequence of order updates and trades to tell which mechanism occurred; a before-and-after ratio alone is incomplete.
Even a stable visible ratio can hide changes: one 200-share bid might cancel just as another 200-share bid appears at the same price. The total still says 200, but its age and place in the queue have changed.
The best ₹499 bid is cancelled and no trade occurs. What can happen to the quoted best bid and LTP in this example?
When the ratio is useful—and when it is not
Use a named imbalance to describe where displayed liquidity sits when sizing or timing an order. It may warn that one side has little visible quantity near the quote. Compare the same number of levels, on the same exchange and feed, at the same time if you want a meaningful comparison.
Do not use it as a stand-alone buy or sell signal. It cannot reveal hidden quantity, prove commitment, identify manipulation or tell you which side will take the next trade. The next lesson shows two reasons the screen can mislead even when you choose the right measurement window.