Liquidity Voids: What Empty Price Areas Mean for Future Moves
Liquidity voids are the “empty” areas on your chart where price barely traded. They look like straight candles, thin profiles, or gaps in structure. These spots are not random. They tell you where the market moved too fast, where business was skipped, and where price is likely to rip or get filled later.
What Is a Liquidity Void?
A liquidity void is a price zone with very little traded volume and almost no rotation. The market blew through it so fast that buyers and sellers didn’t have time to do business there.
- Long single candles
- Thin or missing volume on a profile
- Gaps between rotations
This ties straight into Volume Nodes and Auction Curves.
How Liquidity Voids Form
Liquidity voids usually come from aggression and imbalance:
- News or macro shock
- Forced liquidations
- Breakouts from balance
- Stops cascading at key levels
| Cause | Result |
|---|---|
| Heavy market orders | Price jumps levels |
| Thin order book | Little resistance to moves |
| Stop hunt | Fast spike through a zone |
Why Liquidity Voids Matter
Voids mark areas where the auction wasn’t finished. The market skipped them. Later, when conditions change, price often returns to “clean up” that unfinished business.
Typical behavior:
- Price accelerates inside a void
- Voids act like highways between real levels
- Voids often get “filled” during mean reversion moves
That’s the same logic you saw in Mean Reversion.
Liquidity Voids vs Normal Rotations
Don’t confuse a liquidity void with regular trending structure.
| Normal Trend Leg | Liquidity Void |
|---|---|
| Some rotation | Almost no rotation |
| Healthy volume | Thin or uneven volume |
| Clear pauses | Straight-line movement |
| Business done at multiple prices | Business skipped |
How Price Behaves Inside a Liquidity Void
1. Fast Travel Zone
Price moves quickly through voids because there’s not much liquidity pushing back. If it starts moving into a void, expect speed.
2. Poor Location to Enter Late
Chasing inside a void is asking to get reversed on. Either enter before it or wait until price reaches a real level.
3. Target Zone for Future Moves
Voids often act as magnets. Once price starts heading toward one, odds are high it runs through the entire gap.
How Liquidity Voids Interact With Structure
Voids rarely sit alone. They link two real areas:
- Previous balance zone
- New balance or exhaustion zone
So you’ll often see:
- Balance → Void → New balance
- Range → Void breakout → Trend
Trading Around Liquidity Voids
1. Use Voids as Path, Not as Levels
The edges of the void matter more than the middle. The middle is just air.
2. Don’t Fight a Move Entering a Void
Once price breaks into a void with momentum, fading it is usually dumb. Wait for the other side of the gap.
3. Use Voids to Set Targets
If you’re in a trade heading toward a void, a logical target is the far edge of that empty zone.
4. Expect Retests and Fills
Voids often get “filled” later when the market rebalances. That can be a mean-reversion play back through the empty area.
The Bottom Line
Liquidity voids are not random gaps in candles. They are footprints of aggressive, one-sided activity where the market skipped doing normal business. If you learn to see them, you’ll know where price is likely to move fast, where it’s likely to revisit, and where you should not be entering blindly.