KeyToTheCastle

Hmm...I'm not sure if we're talking about the same place....I've always ordered them online and installed the external video adapters myself. The actual installation entails loading the software driver, then plugging the monitor into the adapter and the adapter into the usb port. So easy even I can do it. ( Word to the wise: there's always a risk with refurbs but I've bought quite a few and have never had an issue.)

You can spend thousands or.... go to tigerdirect and buy a refurb with 6 megs for $379 that has 2 video ports, add up to 4 external video cards that plug right into your usb ports for $50 a piece, and you've got a machine that will run 6 monitors perfectly fine for under $600. Can't beat that IMHO.

There are tons of different ways to measure order flow. Personally I'm very visual...I don't want to watch the dome, time and sales or foot print charts. I track trades going off at the bid as a sell and on the offer as a buy, organized in a visual, cumulative fashion. In futures I organize this info in 2 ways; one to read inventory levels like a real time open interest, and the other as a real time buy pressure/sell pressure gauge. In FX I only use the buy pressure/sell pressure gauge. So effectively when the market is making a new low into a previous area of demand imbalance and I can see that real time sell pressure (supply) is diminishing, as buy pressure is picking up, I have a potential opportunity setting up. In effect what's occurring as the market is selling off is sell stops are getting hit... longs are capitulating, and by watching the order flow I can see when that supply is drying up and demand is picking up. The demand comes in from shorts taking profit and new longs initiating. Then the same cycle repeats at the other end.

There's been some great input here....I agree with several of the different points that have been made the last couple of days. "Volume and time together define value." When I first started with MP it was with 30 min TPO charts that I hand drew on graph paper so I respect TPO based value zones having spent a long time using them. The overall value area created by time and volume will often be quite similar so I've found tracking both to be redundant. Personally I've evolved into just using volume based profiles after noticing that volume profiles give me better reference points . "However, it appears that most traders use it to trade off of, like fading the value area and single prints, which is far easier than using it for its intended purpose." For me it's not a matter of being easier but more so a matter of effectiveness. Focusing in on previous value zones and single prints as possible areas to conduct future business is the main reason I use Profile charts. Not to imply I blindly look to fade these areas, but these areas are where I look for the most obvious areas of supply / demand imbalance. Imbalance that occurred in the past within these areas and imbalance in the present , as displayed in the real time order flow, when the market comes back into these areas. Being able to identify the area where change in the order flow (the imbalance) occurred in the past and is occurring now , real time as the market re visits the area, is huge. These price zones are where change in auction is likely to occur.... and where change in auction occurs is where a trader has the most opportunity, the biggest reward potential with the smallest amount of risk. "When short-term traders dominate the market, traditional technical analysis will work a lot better because the dominant timeframe uses technical analysis themselves. But if the longer timeframe is dominating the market, that's another story. The longer timeframe does not care about day timeframe references, and the longer timeframe will always trump the shorter timeframes. It's quite empowering as a trader to understand what the market is doing many times and then waiting for good trade location to align yourself with the market context Agree 110% with that. Context of the higher time frame is king. Probabilities go higher when observing zones that are showing up on both the FG (fore ground) and the BG ( back ground)....areas of price where multiple timeframes get involved, not just day traders. This translates to bigger reward potential. By using a higher timeframe to frame trade ideas it becomes easier to operate on the smaller time frame and distinguish between what conditions provide opportunity and what conditions produce random noise. Not to say I won't scalp off of an intra day based opportunity, but when I do I'm well aware of the longer time frame context and the fact that my best trades occur when my own time frame is in line with the time frame currently in control of the market at that point.

Here's an intraday chart of GBP/USD from this afternoon. It shows the market coming down into a previously defined value zone ( created using volume profile) which also represented an area of demand imbalance. Rather then using the zone as an area to initiate a long position, I used it instead to close out remaining short inventory from an overnight short position. Either way the same principles apply. 1) Identify previous area of demand imbalance. 2) Use dynamic value channel to confirm wholesale pricing levels. 3) Monitor real time order flow for a shift in supply/demand for trade entry confirmation

The KISS way I think about fractals is that essentially the market is fractal in nature, made up of waves within waves within waves. Whichever patterns or organizing principles you use to make sense of the market....they're occurring on every time frame or chart periodicity possible. The reason why the smaller timeframes can look chaotic at times is that these occurrences are obviously happening a lot more frequently on say a 1 minute then they are on a weekly chart. DBphoenix posted this quote a few years ago.....it describes the fractal nature of the markets perfectly: "Every upward or downward swing in the market, whether it amounts to many points, only a few points, or fractions of a point, consists of numerous buying and selling waves. These have a certain duration; they run just so long as they can attract a following. When the stops get exhausted and all the losing traders have bailed, the move is exhausted for the time being, that wave comes to an end and a contrary wave sets in."

Every now and then I see a subject that I'd like to respond to but just don't have the time or the need to get into a pissing match, cause we all know thats where it seems many threads wind up going. Hopefully this thread doesn't follow suit. Anyway, I don't know if it's a case of MP/VP being out dated as much as it is the fact that traders try to turn MP/VP into a system. (btw personally I prefer to use volume based profiles vs. TPO's and time based profiles) I've been there...early on in my career, when I first came across MP, I tried to use it as a system. I read most of the books and I tried every which way I could to develop an edge based on the IB, day type, tpo counts, the 80% rule, etc..... but I was never able to find anything robust that worked for me. I eventually came to the realization that VP is best utilized solely as a way to organize and present market information, just like the purpose of any other chart. Specifically I use VP to help me to shape value and observe price discovery (acceptance and rejection.) This in turn allows me to quickly identify previous areas of supply/demand imbalance which is where most of my focus lies. Sometimes these areas come from low volume points, other times they come from within high volume areas of balance (value areas). I know there are traders who say volume is unimportant and therefore a volume based value zone doesn't confirm much and in a general sense I agree . On the same token I realize that imbalance can form anywhere and at any time....in areas of low volume or high volume. Yes, imbalance is usually more visually obvious in low volume areas where price was swiftly rejected. But within any previous high volume value zone, or area of balance, there had to be a period of imbalance at some point otherwise price would have never left the balance area in the first place. I keep my trading as simple as possible. My first priority is to identify previous areas of supply/demand imbalance. Then, as price comes back into these areas, I monitor the real time order flow for a shift in supply/demand which will confirm a trading opportunity. One other important piece of info I use is a real time dynamic value channel which serves as a filter to confirm that I'm buying wholesale levels and selling retail levels (relevant to the time frame I'm trading on). I'll post a chart from today illustrating some of what I look at in a bit.

Yes, I'll post some charts this coming week. In another post you had mentioned something about passive buyers or sellers. Personally I'm not interested in passive limit orders. I use CD and other order flow studies to track trades going off at the bid or ask. What I'm measuring is the difference between active buyers and sellers of the market. These are traders that want to get in or out of the market right now with a market order, instead of passively working a limit order and waiting to see if they get filled. These traders tend to have more conviction...maybe they're losing traders, capitulating, bailing on positions, or winning traders taking profit or perhaps they're initiating new positions. So to be clear I'm tracking a trade at the bid price as a sell and a trade at the offer as a buy. Sometimes I'm organizing this information to track actual inventory, other times I'm organizing it into more of a buy pressure vs sell pressure scenario.

I'm thankful that I came upon VSA back when I did. It opened my eyes and helped me become more aware of supply/demand principles at work in the market such as climactic activity and the condition of no demand or supply. Personally, using it on its own I found no edge and don’t currently utilize VSA concepts directly in my trading but it did lead me to looking further into order flow and supply demand principles. I’ve come to find CD to be a highly effective way to gauge supply and demand pressure and to track inventory in the market. There's very useful information to be gained by monitoring the order flow at key price levels and in certain context. It allows you to look inside a normal vertical price bar and form a logical conclusion on what's occurring in the order flow....losers capitulating, winners taking profit, new trades being initiated. Personally I find it very useful for confirming trades in previous zones of supply/demand imbalance. The thing is most retail traders are trying to find the one best way to enter and exit the market mechanically with hard and fast rules, looking for something that will show them exact turning points in price with no regard for the context of the market at the present time or being able to adapt to changing supply and demand conditions. My goal as a trader is to identify the high probability, low risk price zones ahead of time and know what I want to see happen at these key areas when price comes into them in order to take the trade. But I also have to be willing to change my mind at the last minute if the market tells me something different and be able to adapt to changing real time order flow conditions. Realize that just because CD is showing divergence, ie no demand at a high, this doesn't mean that 30 seconds from now demand can't come back in and cause that divergence to disappear (more so on a smaller time frame). Does that mean I get out of my short...maybe....maybe not. Maybe I'll see that it's just a few nervous shorts covering out and as soon as the little bit of new demand they create diminishes then supply will come in and the market will start to drop. Or, maybe the little bit of demand will make more shorts bail which in turn causes new stops to get hit which causes the market to cycle to new highs. Either way I manage it dynamically.

I know I dropped the ball on keeping up with posting charts but there just never seems to be enough hours in the day. Between trading and other business ventures I often find myself behind on my to - do list. I'm going to give it another shot. My goal is to post charts in a timely fashion, if not ahead of time, at least very close to real time. Maybe even morph into some kind of daily morning preview of the day. We'll see, but for now there are multiple opportunities setting up across different markets today. Here are a couple of which I am actively trading right now. I'll post now and comment more later. Both of these views are on my longer time frame....the "background view" chart 1 usd/cad coming into a long catch zone chart 2 aud/usd coming into a short catch zone

Actually the store owner could also mark down the price. What if his customers aren't crazy about his peanut butter and he finds himself with a load of inventory that he needs to sell before the peanut butter expires....then he might be forced to have a sale and lower his price just to move the inventory. Walmart does it all the time....

Please forgive my intrusion but I can't resist a discussion on supply & demand. Think of motivation in terms of aggressiveness. The buyer who is buying at the ask price is a more aggressive participant then the seller who is selling at the ask. The buyer is more motivated to get filled....he is getting in with a market order. As the buyers continue to be aggressive they will eat through the unaggressive sellers at the ask. If aggressive sellers come in and start to sell at the bid then the market is in temporary balance with buyers and sellers cancelling each other out. But if there are more aggressive buyers then aggressive sellers, and all the passive sellers who were selling at the ask get taken out then the offer will lift and price will move up. The only thing that causes price to move is an imbalance between buyers and sellers, plain and simple.

That statement right there probably sums up a lot of the reason why most traders find very little success in trading. One of the most common misconceptions of the retail trader: "I am a trader there fore I should be in the market any time it moves" Randomness is one of the biggest enemies of the retail trader. If you are trading with an edge then your obvious goal is to wait for the market to be in an area where you want to conduct business and for all of your conditions for entry to line up.....everything else is just noise. (Unless you're gambling of course...then go ahead and trade every move) Just because a move might look obvious after the fact (don't they all) doesn't mean that before the fact it was nothing more then a 50/50 proposition. As Jimmy Rogers said " I wait for the money to be sitting in the corner and all i have to do is walk over and pick it up"

Very true indeed sir...but at least after being taught an edge all the turtles had an opportunity to become successful whereas if they didn't have that guidance pointing them to a viable edge they would have been doomed before they began. I also wonder if the turtles who were successful had a deeper understanding of their edge then the turtles who weren't successful.