i trade

Yes sir....shorting resistance and buying support determined by previous areas of value and volume within that value. Starting a new thread soon.

That Maserati is sweet...can I fit a baby seat in there?

Yeah I kinda figured that Sevensa but it was worth a shot that Soultrader might respond. Hey, you found it didn't you?

All shorts closed out...done for the week. I have decided to start a new thread and see where it goes. Over the weekend I will try to explain and decipher how the euro situation developed and how I traded it today using MP, volume, and order flow. It is actually a very good example for 2 reasons: 1) unlike the eur/jpy trade I pointed out yesterday which never gave me much heat, todays late in the day euro/usd trade went red towards the extreme end of the zone but then came back and ended in profit.( I had confidence taking the heat because of the confluence i was getting from my level, the volume climax, and order flow divergence all of which I will point out). and reason 2) the zone gave 2 totally separate opportunities today both of which acted very different from one another. All I hope to gain from this is some feedback, hopefully from someone who trades in a similar fashion to me. At the same time I don't mind explaining this to people for whom MP is a new concept. Also, for anyone who has tried to trade with MP and hasn't had any success, keep an open mind - just because you weren't able to trade successfully with it doesn't mean other people can't. I'm also thinking that by explaining this to other people it will make me review my trading plan and that can only help me.

Thanks BF, I have already tried that, booting into safe mode gives me only an extra second or 2 b4 the puter shuts off and reboots. Something happened overnight...usually I can see if I'm being attacked and then I can shut down manually right then and there and reboot into safe mode and run malwarebytes which will eradicate the culprit. But this time it got me good. BTW ... Nice Euro activity here, Higher time frame MP for the zone and smaller time frame MP as well as volume / orderflow to manage.

Have another question for you Corey...when you look at a bar chart do you consider that an indicator? Of course not cause the bar chart is just a way to organize the market data. It's the same thing with MP. Now you can put a RSI or a MA on a chart and use them as indicators and develop a method or system just the same as someone can use TPO counts or day types to create a method with MP. Seems like you're blaming the messenger (MP) and not the method.

P.S. as I was sending that last post Euro got back up against the lean on weekly volume and already bounced. It's given me a cushion on new shorts and we'll see where it goes...thats all I can ask for!

I'm temporarily crippled computer wise until my computer guy comes over this weekend, not posting charts until I'm fully functional. If anyone knows anything about getting out of a virus related boot loop where every time my computer restarts and gets to the windows screen it restarts itself...please let me know. Corey, Value is relative to the time frame you're looking on...I don't understand the point you're trying to make. Are you really saying previous value is "old" so it can't be used to tell you if current price is undervalued or overvalued? How else would you suggest someone determines value on anything in this world if he can't compare it to previous value...whether that value is 5 minutes old or a week old? When you get your house appraised how does the appraiser determine value? Besides the actual condition of your house, he uses the sale price of the last 3 or 4 houses similar to yours that have sold. The appraisal won't be based on what the owner thinks his house is worth or what the owner needs his house to be worth it's going to be based on what other sales have recently taken place. I mean I can go on and on and on with examples of how value is determined in everyday life, never mind the markets we trade. Not trying to be a wise arse but please fill me in..what exactly is it that you are looking for in a method to trade the markets? MP is not some magical indicator and those who try to use it as such get burned. It's just a way to organize the data given off from the market. Plain and simple. What you do with that data once you view it, in a manner that makes sense to you, is up to you. For me it breaks down the market action into a very pure form. Once I accepted it for what it really is I became a lot more confident and a lot less reactive to price movement. And again, I don't predict where price will go. I use MP to tell me where, as long as conditions remain the same, price should not go. The point where I would be wrong and don't want to be in the trade anymore is clearly defined. What more could you ask for? The only certainties I have are my if /then scenarios. IF BG condition of the market changes then I get out and re evaluate. IF BG conditions remain the same THEN I see how far the market can bring me. UB..I see you lurking...please speak up man. Let me ask you this...does the backgound condition have any bearing on where you take your nano second trades? Maybe your in and out so quick it doesn't matter? But you must have losers and I'm curious if where you take your trades when you see the commerical activity matters at all in your win percentages. I know it's all about the ordeflow for you but wouldn't the commercials be more active in defending their previous high volume areas? Corey if you want to see more charts over the weekend let me know...weekly value gave a nice lean this morning on the Euro/usd after the numbers.

I can vouch for Sierra charts...great program plus you can't beat the pricing for what you get! I was using it with OEC data for a while. OEC data was pretty reliable but they have some issues with reporting bid/ask data from time to time. Barcharts.com data is also an alternative for a data source to feed Sierra.

If volume ever becomes obsolete I quit!

1st off if mod, UB, or anyone thinks we should start another thread just say the word. UB..my hat is off to you. Although my mind goes to putty when you start talking about programming code, latency, etc., I understand 100% where you are coming from and the ideas you have presented here....I wish you were still posting and I can't wait to read your poker book. I play nlh of course but I love stud 8. Now on the daily chart posted here: I would have been looking to play the high volume node anyway but what makes this one particularly interesting is where the high volume took place and what happened after it. I'm going to compare it to the way UB looks at commercial(smart $, other time frame trader) action on his charts. Although I consider my self to be a scalper for the most part, I obviously don't act on the nano second time frame like UB. And in this case I am using the information to my benefit after the fact, not at the time it's happening. But I do look for smart $ footprints left in the market. (In fact thats the main reason I look at bar charts to show me on a vertical scale where the volume is and just as important what happened after the volume occurred.) The meaning of the high volume there on the highs on 01/04/10 to me is supply provided by the commercials/smart money selling. I have to assume that if it was the big boys buying there the market would have continued on to new highs, not close lower then go on to head lower the next day. Granted I'm looking at tick volume not real volume but it's still a great proxy. (SIDE NOTE TO UB: going by your explanation of commercials spraying the market with these low volume high intensity/quantity sell orders wouldn't tick volume be just as good as normal volume?) So that being said, my confidence in my short bias and the condition of the BG is boosted even a little more then usual in that situation and I will assume until proven wrong that any vertical movement into this area will be absorbed, for the time being anyway. I don't predict and I don't pretend to know where the market will go. All I know are areas where the market should give me at the very least a bounce and that's where I hang my hat and do some business. to be continued....60 M profile charts to follow

Ok..I'm not going to get into exactly where I scaled in and out throughout the range but suffice it to say every last unit sold throughout the campaign was covered at a lower price. Although I did inform you of my short bias after I actually started trading to the short side, I did tell you in real time that I was already short and pointed out 2 diff't spots, in real time, where I covered lower. Coincidentally the last of my position was closed out right near the low tick. The 1st chart I will show you is the backgound (BG) in this situation and sets up the basis for this campaign. I call it a campaign not to sound like Jesse Livermore but because I was very active in this area selling price spikes to the upside, leaning on value and then covering on downswings. My original reason for doing business in this area never changed so why not keep capitalizing on it as long as my BG condition is intact. The BG should always be relative to whatever timeframe you are trading. In this case I was using the daily as my BG and the 60 M profile for my foreground (FG). I look at all timeframes for opportunity but will not look at other timeframes once I start the trade. I hate to even put time constraints on profiles since most of the time I will merge profiles to show areas of balance(horizontal activity) and imbalance(vertical step 1 activity). Looking back at the charts now I hope nothing gets lost in the translation....there's stuff going on real time within the profiles that you see but once they finish developing you might not. In any case you will see the basis of what I was looking at.

I'm not one for real time updating here..takes alot of energy...but eurjpy just broke lower early morning unfair lows ...closing out shorts here at lower daily value 133.24...will post charts later

Update...closed out majority of eur/jpy short position on test of early morning lower value area...holding my minimum trade unit for test of daily lower value.

Well put Soultrader! I do pretty well with #'s 1 and 3 but # 2...wow...what clued them onto this? Must be something with excess at a previous value area/poc? Were these guys previous floor traders? You using MP in your trading?

Cory, Correct me if I'm wrong but it seems like you are focused on using MP to tell you where the market will go. I gave up a long time ago on trying to figure out where the market will go. Instead I use the profile to tell me where the market shouldn't go. Here's another silly analogy for you...I look at price as a pinball. I don't know where it will end up but I know with good probability where it should bounce. And those areas where it should bounce are the areas where I want to do business. I look for the background condition of the market to absorb the vertical dominant movement. Unless the condition of the background changes due to dominant vertical movement, the trade produces profit for me. I haven't discussed MP concepts with many people but it seems like most people on these boards use MP to project where price will go: how the profile structure might fill out, TPO counts, day types, range projection,etc. None of that stuff has ever worked for me and only served to confuse me while taking away my confidence. Now the art of correctly managing those trades is the part of my personal trading that I am refining and the part that can use some improvement. All in / all out type of trading never worked for me. A big improvement to my trading came when I realized the correct way for me to enter and exit trades is to scale in and out. So unless the vertical movement that I am fading blows right thru my area I am always locking in at least some profit while building a cushion for any runners that I hold onto. I am in a short trade in eur/jpy as I'm writing this...I'll post some charts later on it and try to explain my thinking on why I entered and how I managed it....still in it. MP is not the only way I manage my trades but rather is the base for all my trading decisions.

Mouse hit the nail on the head. If you don't trust your methodology it ain't gonna work... plain and simple. Cory, if you say I sound like Dalton I'll take that as a compliment...ty my friend! What exactly are you looking for? MP is not a system that tells you when to trade based on a red line crossing a blue line. MP is a way to organize the data that is produced by market action. I use it, in all time frames, to show me areas where I want to do business. Every trade is all about uncertainty man...unless you have a crystal ball you're not telling us about. The idea is to get to a point in your trading where you are comfortable with the uncertainty of the situation because you know your risk is clearly defined and you have probability on your side. Maybe this forum isn't the right place. I'm not trying to talk anyone into using MP. It works for me. My thought here was to try and hook up with other like minded MP traders to bounce ideas off while sharing my strengths and improving on my weaknesses. :helloooo:

TY Koi...great minds think alike :did I say that?:

Hey there my friend, I have to say when I am running on all cylinders 99.9% of my trading plan consists of leaning on value of some degree or another. Although you can say the concept of MP is a science I believe learning and mastering it is more of an art. Kinda like playing a musical instrument if you will. The concept itself is easy to understand but to be able to harness the power of it is another story. On the surface pressing some keys on a piano looks easy...but to produce beautiful sound from one I imagine would be quite the endeavor. Horizontal rotation is caused by traders agreeing on value within a given zone or area. You can't expect traders to agree on 1 exact price for value for any period of time but they will agree on an area. It's a feeling out process to find efficiency or balance. Its all relative to the time frame you are trading. There is always going to be indecision and uncertainty at some level. The degree of indecision is what makes the market Cory. The key for me is comparing the balance/imbalance in the foreground to the balance/imbalance in the background. When I learned to do that I was able to embrace the uncertainty. The question I'm always asking my self...how does the vertical movement/dominance in the FG (foreground) compare to the condition of the BG (background)? The 2 outcomes to that question are what shape my trading plan: 1) the FG vertical movement/dominance gets absorbed by the balance in the BG (for me a winning situation/trade(s)) 2) The FG vertical movement/dominance changes the condition of the BG (I stop out and evaluate the opportunity to reverse and start the process all over again) Gotta run...I have some value areas waiting to be leaned on. To be continued....

Hey Cory, I couldn't resist In reply to your earlier comment that MP is static...it's all relative. You can trade off a monthly value area where the state of value is static but you could also trade off a 5 minute or 30 minute profile where value is pretty dynamic and constantly shifting. Here's my 2 cents coming from someone who when 1st introduced to MP realized it was something of great significance but took a very long time to figure out how to make sense of it in a functional way (and I am still learning). I'm going to speak in terms of what I personally need in order to feel in control of my trading and make sense of market activity, for me MP is the answer....to each his own. When I say MP I refer to market profile, auction theory, order flow and volume analysis....as far as I am concerned they all go hand in hand. The profile is my base....everything else builds on it. As Steidylmayer said data arrangement is the basis for control. In order to be in control you need to represent market activity faithfully without distortion. Markets are 2 dimensional...they move vertically and horizontally (or a combo of both). We all know that price is the medium in which the mkt expresses itself but unfortunately a regular bar chart displays price in mostly vertical terms and tends to create a reactive atmosphere. It doesn't reflect the horizontal movement very well....each new bar goes forward exactly the same distance as the last one regardless of the amount of activity in the bar. You can't see within the bar to see exactly where the all important 1st standard deviation (VALUE) is. I don't know about you but I'm not going to any kind of auction without first knowing the value of the object I'm bidding on. (I know I'm speaking in very general terms here) It's late and I'm starting to ramble but it would be great to keep this discussion going. Maybe start talking methodology and posting some charts. And remember...price is the medium of expression, not the expression itself.

Great points Dave...ty for your insight! Let me start by saying that I (or any trader) do not need delta in order to make trading decisions based on order flow or auction theory (which to me encompass one another). Volume tells all...volume tells me where I want to do business. I determine my entries based on levels that are determined by volume clusters on timeframes ranging from .50 range all the way up to monthly tpo charts. You don't need software to tell you whether there were more buyers or sellers in a given area, you just need to be able to interpret the market action after the volume occurs and how it acts when it re-visits the area. The OFA software seems to be simply a scalper type software, trading off all the micro rotations within the bigger macro auctions. The thing that interested me about the software is that sometimes I do scalp off these micro intraday levels and only in that situation do I see a possiblity of the software aiding me in improving entry points because of the quick nature of the market action on these micro levels. If I scalp a few times a day with a few contracts, then those 1 or 2 ticks will quickly add up. I would only use the software at levels that I already see by looking at vertical volume on a barchart and horizontal volume on a profile chart. So say the market is rallying, hits a micro level that I am looking at and at the same time buyers climax and sellers take control...thats all fine and dandy I can see that on my own...but the software can enter trades automatically at these levels only if these ideal conditions exist. As far as trading the bigger macro levels I see no advantage because you have more time to put your trades on. Bottom line is whether or not it can improve my bottom line without hurting my current methods. Those delta charts you posted are great...my understanding of orderflow grew by leaps and bounds by using market delta and watching those types of charts live day in and day out for several months but...bottom line is it was to much information for me to decipher on a realtime basis on the micro level. But I wouldn't be where I am today on the orderflow learning curve without studying those footprint charts the way that I did. How do I post a chart on here? I can show you what I look at on a micro level and you'll see it's the same condition that the OFA software looks for.

I look forward to your webinar! I started reading a little of your blog...great stuff and thanks for sharing! Congrats to your daughter for her trading success and congrats to you on your success with teaching your daughter how to trade. Teaching my kids how to trade some day would make me very happy!

Great points Dave...ty for your insight! Let me start by saying that I (or any trader) do not need delta in order to make trading decisions based on order flow or auction theory (which to me encompass one another). Volume tells all...volume tells me where I want to do business. I determine my entries based on levels that are determined by volume clusters on timeframes ranging from .50 range all the way up to monthly tpo charts. You don't need software to tell you whether there were more buyers or sellers in a given area, you just need to be able to interpret the market action after the volume occurs and how it acts when it re-visits the area. The OFA software seems to be simply a scalper type software, trading off all the micro rotations within the bigger macro auctions. The thing that interested me about the software is that sometimes I do scalp off these micro intraday levels and only in that situation do I see a possiblity of the software aiding me in improving entry points because of the quick nature of the market action on these micro levels. If I scalp a few times a day with a few contracts, then those 1 or 2 ticks will quickly add up. I would only use the software at levels that I already see by looking at vertical volume on a barchart and horizontal volume on a profile chart. So say the market is rallying, hits a micro level that I am looking at and at the same time buyers climax and sellers take control...thats all fine and dandy I can see that on my own...but the software can enter trades automatically at these levels only if these ideal conditions exist. As far as trading the bigger macro levels I see no advantage because you have more time to put your trades on. Bottom line is whether or not it can improve my bottom line without hurting my current methods. Those delta charts you posted are great...my understanding of orderflow grew by leaps and bounds by using market delta and watching those types of charts live day in and day out for several months but...bottom line is it was to much information for me to decipher on a realtime basis on the micro level. But I wouldn't be where I am today on the orderflow learning curve without studying those footprint charts the way that I did. How do I post a chart on here? I can show you what I look at on a micro level and you'll see it's the same condition that the OFA software looks for.

Excellent thread...good job by all who have contributed, let's try and keep it going. Personally I believe 100% that order flow/auction theory is the only information one needs to trade profitably. That being said, there are many different ways and tools to use in order to interpret order flow. I agree with Fulcrum and electroniclocal in that to much information can be detrimental. Also, the last thing I want to do is get used to trading with someone's proprietary software and then find out one day, for whatever reason, that I can't use that software to trade with anymore. That would not be good for the psyche. That being said, I am always interested in learning more about order flow and how other people use it to trade successfully. I actually talked to OFA a while back because their software does look interesting. From watching their intro videos it seems to me that something very important to them is not only the actual delta from the current auction but also the location of poc/hi volume node. Seems like when volume starts to build rapidly and the poc comes close to the hi/lo of the current bar then they look for climactic type of activity to start a new auction bar in the opposite direction and trap e1 who just sold the low or bought the high but I see that on a .50 range volume candle chart. Plus, I would expect these climactic events to be occurring at levels that I am already watching myself. To be frank I think it's just taking the exact same information I look at now and just presenting it in a more organized way. But if it can continuously get me filled a tick or 2 better and help automate things a little bit.... Any comments? Anyone here actually using the software live? I have not seen the software operate in real time yet. Besides trading the ES I also use orderflow/auction theory to trade currencies without actual trade volume, only tick volume. All the same basic principles still apply. Way too tired to type anymore....look forward to exchanging ideas.