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A 5-minute guide to reading The AU Desk chart: what the zones are, what the labels mean, and how traders think about them.

1What The AU Desk is

Big traders, the "whales", leave footprints: the prices where they bought or sold, orders they've left waiting, and the prices where other traders would be forced out. The AU Desk finds those footprints for Gold, Bitcoin (BTC) and Ethereum (ETH) and draws them on one chart as zones.

• Updated every hour: BTC and ETH around the clock, Gold Monday to Friday while its market is open.
• Times are in Sydney time in the text, so everyone reads the same clock. The chart's time axis uses your own device's time.
• The 🐋 update at the top says what the whales changed since the last hour, or since the morning.

2What it isn't

3Reading the chart

Each zone has a label on the right: the price (or price range), a short name, and the dollar size where there is one. Hover over or tap any zone for a plain-English explanation and how far it is from the current price.

Label	What it means	What price often does there
Whale buyers	Whales bought around here (their average entry).	They tend to defend it: support while price is above it.
Whale sellers	Whales sold short around here.	They tend to defend it: resistance while price is below it.
Buyers waiting	A whale order waiting to buy, or a short being closed (which is also buying).	A bounce or pause is common.
Sellers waiting	A whale order waiting to sell, or a long taking profit.	A stall or drop is common.
Stop-losses	Whale stop-loss orders.	If price reaches them, the move can speed up.
Forced selling	Estimated liquidations of traders who are long (betting up).	Price is often pulled towards them, then moves fast.
Forced buying	Estimated liquidations of traders who are short (betting down).	Same idea, upwards.
Options ceiling / floor	Where the biggest options bets sit.	Price often struggles to get past them.
Options pivot	Where options dealers' behaviour flips.	Moves tend to calm above it and speed up below it.
Options magnet	The "max pain" price for the next expiry.	Price tends to drift towards it near expiry.

Colours show the kind of level:

• Green: the biggest whale levels, the ones that matter most.
• Teal: whales putting in new money.
• Purple: other whale levels and orders.
• Orange: forced buying or selling (estimates).
• Blue: options levels.

Bigger dollar amounts usually mean more attention at that price, but a big number is not a promise.

4How traders use levels

Levels are places where something is likely to happen, not predictions of which way. When price reaches a zone, one of three things usually follows:

• It bounces: the zone holds and price turns away.
• It stalls: price chops around inside the zone.
• It breaks and runs: price goes through, often quickly, towards the next zone.

Habits that help:

• Let price come to the level. Chasing a move that's already left a zone is how most late, bad entries happen.
• Watch the reaction, don't guess it. What price does at the zone tells you more than the zone itself.
• Expect overshoots. Price often pokes a little past a zone (taking out nearby stops) before it reacts. Zones are areas, not exact prices.
• Check the 🐋 update. If a big zone grew, vanished or moved, the picture has changed.
• Mind the time. Big US data releases and Fed decisions can push through any level.

5Why prices differ from your broker

The chart uses Binance perpetual futures: XAUUSDT (Gold), BTCUSDT and ETHUSDT. Spot Gold (XAUUSD), your broker's CFDs or another exchange can be a few dollars different, and the gap moves around.

So judge a level by its distance from price ("the zone is $15 above"), not by its exact number, and check your own platform before acting on anything.

6Risk basics

7Words you'll see

Long / short

Long = betting the price goes up. Short = betting it goes down.

Whale

A trader with a very large position.

Perpetual (perp)

A futures contract with no expiry date, the most traded crypto product.

Liquidation

When a leveraged trader's position is closed automatically because they've run out of margin. Many at one price = forced buying or selling.

Stop-loss

An order that closes a trade at a set price to cap the loss.

Support / resistance

A price where buying (support) or selling (resistance) tends to show up.

Risk : reward (R:R)

What a trade could lose versus what it could make. 1:2 means risking $1 to make $2.

Options expiry

The date options contracts settle; price can be pulled around near it.

8Questions

Why did a zone disappear?

Whales cancelled the order, closed the position, or were stopped out. The 🐋 update usually mentions big ones ("the $26M of longs at … is gone").

Why does it say "Updated 2 hr ago" in red?

Updates come every hour. Red means the last one is older than about 75 minutes, so an update was probably missed: treat the zones with extra care until the next one. For Gold it's normal on weekends, when the market is closed.

Why is Gold quiet on weekends?

The Gold market closes from Saturday morning to Monday morning (Australian time). BTC and ETH trade every day.

Can I put these levels on my own TradingView chart?

Yes, with the free The AU Desk Levels indicator:

1. In TradingView, open Indicators, search The AU Desk Levels and add it to your chart.
2. On our chart page, open the 📈 TradingView tab and tap Copy all.
3. Open the indicator's settings and paste into Levels.

The levels change every hour, so copy them again when price gets near a zone.

I trade a prop firm account. Anything for me?

Yes: the free prop risk calculator works out your daily loss budget, how many losses in a row you can take, and the size that fits your stop, plus a guide to why prop accounts usually fail.

Why Sydney time?

So everyone reads the same clock, wherever they are in Australia. The chart's time axis shows your own device's time.