dalby

as i understand it, market profile originally used time essentially as a proxy for price, since volume at price data was not readily available realtime. it is a pretty decent proxy. but in my experience volume at price (segmented over time) is more useful, especially when taking into account the 24 hr market action. market can stay in a narrow price range for hours in globex session with very little volume. clearly, that does not show the kind of price acceptance as when thousands of shares are crossing hands at the same level during the day. i constantly compare my volume POC and time POC to try to discern the differences during different day types and which is more reliable. now that we have realtime access to tick data, i think volume at price is much more useful. this goes along with my general understanding of pit action, wherein time is not what matters nearly as much as volume.

Soultrader, I am new to this forum and an IB user who charts through quotetracker and marketdelta (just started with the latter). I am so intrigued by your tick delta indicator, that I am opening up an account just to have that availability. As you may know, IB chunks their tick data to some extent, so I am curious to compare side by side the difference. I know that given a slow enough market, IB's tick data is exact, because I see my exact orders go through properly on the bid/ask. I'm actually looking forward to setting up a whole seperate computer with tradestation and using your indicator, which seems to replicate much of what market delta does. I love market delta's infinitely customizable MP charts. Do you know any other chart vendor that can take an IB or TS datastream and give full MP functionality (composites, etc.)

I did a trial membership in their trading room, and found much what everybody else has - candor, robust methodology and an emphasis on market internals. you can't backtest the squeeze without taking into account internals. I've found that the 5 minute squeeze is a very profitable play IF you filter market internals and support resistance into your trade decision. It also keeps me out of bad trades, like fading a tick extreme and going short right after a long squeeze has fired. They admit they didn't invent the squeeze. It's a familiar indicator for many. I programmed my own version in quotetracker using paintbars, and find it useful I trade differently than john or hubert, but i learned a lot from their free videos and the trial membership. john also inspired me to start my own mentorship business, so I have him to thank for a successful and enjoyable business.

i cannot imagine trading YM w/o the tick. i can imagine trading it without a chart - using just tape and tick, but would never trade w/o tick. it's the ultimate way to confirm price action in YM with overall buying in NYSE stocks. it can confirm setups (whether MP or whatever based) and keep you out of questionable ones. it can also give early indications of a possible trend day.

In regards to the octant thang. Most charting programs have a Fib tool that will draw lines at ratios of a outlined range. The classic #'s are 38.2% 50% etc. However, if your charting package allows you to use user modifiable percentages, then you just need to set the retracement at multiples of 12.5% .125 is 1/8 so, that will draw lines at the octants it's kind a down and dirty technique, but it works

I have always had "a problem" with the concept of risk/reward as defined by stop size vs. target size. The CW (which I think is wrong) is that a lower risk/reward is "better". In other words, risking 20 pts to make 10 pts is not an intelligent trade. I think IN GENERAL that has merit. However, I have several setups that set a smaller initial target than the stop, and thus would have a "risk/reward" ratio of 2 or greater. Now, that is somewhat problematic since I scale out, but the point is the same. What matters in addition to (so called) risk/reward in stop distance is the positive expectancy of the setup. If you have a setup that has 90% winning trades, with a 3/1 risk/reward ratio (in terms of stops to target distance), is that a "bad" risk/reward. Clearly not. If you crunch the #'s that trade has high positive expectancy. I agree that there are a # of concepts about stops and none is necessarily better. I like to consider the average true range of the timeframe I am trading because I find that using a # related to that metric is going to generally keep you from getting stopped out by "noise". Good video, btw