RobinHood

i'm working at the casino. good luck with propex. update me through ASF.

Does HKFE have hidden limit order options? I'm noticing lots of larger orders (30+ ) go through at one price level when there may be only 1 lot sitting in the book/depth. There is nothing mentioned on the HKFE site regarding hidden liquidity but there is a fill-or-kill type order. Are block transactions supposed to come through on the Time&Sales a few minutes later? I find that a huge amount of my time&sales data is coming through above the ask or below the bid. Is anyone else experiencing this?

Not sure if this was already covered but something occurred to me tonight. I'm currently working at the casino as a croupier. We are often playing poker and all in all this week I lost half my weeks wages. Anyway, I've noticed that the emotions I feel playing poker are much more intense than the emotions I feel trading. If I could quantify it then I would say a $4000 loss to me is the equivalent of a $150 loss in poker (estimated). On the way home tonight, I first thought maybe its because poker is more personal (face to face), but now I'm quite sure that what was responsible for the difference in emotion was my competence. I'm really not that great at poker, quite a noob. Whereas when I'm trading I will have pre-defined stops and much more experience to go on when placing trades. I am much more able to ascertain whether I was responsible for a loss or it was a "natural" loss due to market ebb and flow. Thoughts?

That Order ticker looks like a smart way to visualize your order flow. I'm wondering whether it is possible to have access to the order book composure? so if there is 5000 bid sitting @ 1st or 2nd level, I would like to know if that 5000 lot is composed of 10 separate orders, 50, or if its just one person. Anyone know?

Some further thinking today has convinced me that I should actually concentrate on the HSI for the following reasons: My shifts are soon going to become permanent night so I will miss the European markets entirely. (If I want to deal poker, then there is nothing I can do about this). HSI is exciting and one of the markets I seem to be able to get in tune with The downside is that I can only trade it when I turn 21, and that is a problem since sim & real execution difference is apparently huge on the HSI. (I'll be using MHI of coarse).

Depth on the fixed income is okay. The book is thick but not really as thick as I remember it when I watched it from the morning session. It indeed can be like watching the paint dry. The reason I'm trading these hours was not related to any strategic thinking on my part. I simply work nightshifts and so my hours can be pretty crazy. Sometimes I will get back home 1am, which is 3pm in CET. I don't know if that makes it easier to trade as I'm missing lots of early bond action, unless there are some important US action or announcements. If I'm not tired I'll go on strong to early morning and watch US markets. When I wake up I catch the Hang Seng & SPI and then go to work (like now). I think based on what you guys said I would be choosing to concentrate on fixed income. Good tick size. I can trade it. It is complicated and I have to watch other markets. Sometimes it has moments of violence which are exciting. You can do massive volume when you become proficient. Downside is most of the time it will bore you to death, just seeing it up one tick, down one tick for 5 min.

I've heard that one should specialize in an instrument or group of instruments which suit ones personality. Right now I'm watching the Hang Seng, Bund/Bobl/Schatz, SPI and sometimes the ES and DAX. I'm not to sure which one "suits my personality" and on what I should specialize or whether scalping is even my style. I was curious about those of you who feel you are in your niche, what attracted you to your product/style? was it the volatility of the instrument, the volume, the order book depth? or did you just decide to stick one instrument and found it began suiting you once you started making money?

There isn't really much on google. Couldn't find anything except some very basic stuff and bs courses being sold. but for anyone who was interested, Larry Harris covers it in Market Microstructure, which I'm reading now..

I'm looking for some information regarding spread trading. Box's. Fly's. Whatever. I'm not interested in trading these at the moment but I continuously hear these terms and would like to know what they are, how they are traded and how they affect someone trading outrights. Would anyone know of a good resource to familiarize oneself with this style of trading?

Another thing I was thinking about that recent action is not exactly representative of the average day on DAX, SPI or Hang Seng so may need more time to figure out which one is for me.

I'm still unsure on what instrument I want to concentrate. I love the Hang Seng, I like the SPI. Both are relatively crazy. But I also like the german bonds & DAX. How the hell do I decide which one to go with? everyone talks about just going with what suits you - but I like them all. Starting from next week my exposure to euro trading will stop as I'm working nightshifts (casino). So only Asian for now... I've been keeping charts of my markets every day (sorted according to downtrend, uptrend and chop) and looking for setups which I can then test out live. My other concern is whether I should be concentrating all my energies on one setup in one environment and then pushing myself to go live? or should I look for multiple setups in multiple environments? right now its just a mess. I'm taking random entries on feels and looking for setups everywhere. My goal for the end of this year is finding an instrument to concentrate on and then working on going live, and then by the end of next year to have another go at a prop firm interstate. P.S. I've learnt heaps by just watching the DOM and tape & reading market microstructure (thanks for recommending it).

... wish we had this at our school, maybe I wouldn't have slept through classes.

none in particular, just wanted to try out bonds..

today was my best day ever trading the schatz. I know its not that much for today, but I took 54 ticks trading 1 lots. This is after deciding to concentrate on only capturing trends (my strength) and getting back to basics - breakouts/breakdowns. One DOM and T&S up as opposed to 3 charts, 3 DOMs and T&S. I figured I can always expand later. Even thought it was not my focus I actually caught a pattern in the DOM today. A very interesting one which I hope to see recur. Here is a screeny with some explanations of what I think I was thinking (I wanted to write it down at the time but I was just glued to the tape). 1. Was bearish before this but price wasn't going my way and it was still confused so I bailed. Here I remember seeing some stuff come in on tape again so I hit it. 2. Volume was really light but what actually caught my attention was the speed at which price was moving and what it was reacting to. Even one lots were moving it up and I decided it could be a great time to get some short covering going, upon seeing a few 40lots & others come in on the ask I decided to join them for the short-covering rally. 3. steam running out. indecision. so closed my long. 4. short here but hesitant, think it was the vol and also I just didn't feel the time was right for the turn quite yet - a little more sideways I was thinking. 5. again no volume but I thought it could come in later or maybe the short-covering was exhausted and now it was just no bid so even light volume can move it down. Even so was weary and quickly covered when the tape showed indecision. 7. what really got me was the amount of volume on the ask in that massive volume bar. big indecision, someone was obviously stepping in ready to take this. I just kinda hung in to see how it would work out and bailed out when more strength came in expecting consolidation. From here I was just out as I recognize it as chop and know I'm incompetent to trade that still. (before everything in that picture I had another 2 trades. one which was a loss, the other breakeven). One thing that really came to my mind today continuously was "path of least resistance". I've heard it Livermore say it so many times but today I really "felt" it.

I've noticed this a few times already... on DOM you'll have the offer/ or the bid being incrementally increased at a constant and stable pace. It is way to fast to be a human. But its not filling up in chunks of 10,20,50 or 500 but just 1 lot. A few moments later on the tape I see a pattern showing up with small 1 and 2 lots. What doesn't make sense is that it can't be a human and yet its in such small sizes that I don't see why a bot or anyone would even bother. Here is the screenshot:

Noticed on tape fills in between the fill and offer every now and then (schatz). how exactly is that happening? how can someone be filled in between?

This is just something I noted while reading "Trading & Exchanges" (Larry Harris) which reminded me of this thread:

What do you mean by directional traders? I always imagined directional as someone catching a large part of a move. So I thought directional players would be more likely to use a chart and tape as opposed to DOM - which someone can just use to catch a few ticks. Don't non-directional traders need depth to know where to lean, e.g. at a certain point at the top of the range? And why is the depth meaningless frame by frame (I ask because I'm watching depth all the time for eurex fixed income) ? Cheers,

Yeah, I noticed earlier after swapping it to back to September! DOM looked normal again. Why is it like that? most volume supposed to rollover on the 18th?

Well I sent out many more resumes and there is just no interest out there. I have found something else though: I've got an interview for dealer position at a casino here in Melbourne. Finally.

finally got IB up and running with Ninja Trader. Upon opening SPI depth I found that everything is spread out across the orderbook. At first I thought it was some kind of error in NT, but then I checked in IB client and it was the same. What is up with bid/ask levels being spread out so much? Also I noticed alot more fills above the ask, and below the bid in T&S. How is this possible? I've attached a screenshot to show what I mean.

James, I really like the way you've setup your charts! CQG looks like a very nice platform too. You point out an area on the tape where some significant size entered, 300 lots, 100 and 30s. But each of these was on successively lower prices. 85-80-75. I'm guessing these were at the ask in the shakeout type area where you wrote "big lots appear on buy side" and under those orange diamonds. What are the diamonds btw? also what determines whether your vol bars are blue or red (I don't see any correlation to the close relative to previous bar etc) ? Thanks for sharing!

Ok, I got it. Geometric must refer to exponential type growth....

In Portfolio Management Formulas Ralph Vince mentions that trading less than optimal f decreases risk arithmetically but decreases your profits geometrically. What is the difference between an arithmetic increase/decrease vs geometric? (some sort of in-depth resource link will be good if it cannot be summarized) I haven't been able to find any simple explanation on the difference between the two. Does anyone here use optimal f in their trading, in some way?

Mainly DOM, T&S. Chart to pin point S/R. Will continue experimenting with different time-frame to see what suits. No indicators, except for following other correlated markets and anything which could affect the products I trade. Once I have a more solid game plan I will possibly begin experimenting with bollinger but nothing complicated. A quick update: I've been watching schatz bobl bund quite solidly the past week. Have managed to do the 4pm-1am shift most nights, with some gaps. I can see strong buying or selling entering and usually get in to catch a few ticks but that is the only thing which makes me money on the sim. I'm not even sure if its realistic because it totally depends on how quickly my orders are executed real-time. Everything else I do / try loses me money. Overall I lose money everyday. So giving it a few more months of this before I start seeing some more patterns, and framing some good R:R setups for a proper game plan. Could take longer who knows but I sure hope not. I'm keeping a daily journal, just jotting down pivots (close, high, low) and important announcements for the day.