Enigmatics

Are you holding virtual classes or is it an actual physical class that people meet you in person at?

Understood. Was under the impression though by the title of this thread, that you were attempting to explain those things. But if it's now just a thread where you're tracking your trades then so be it! :thumbs up:

Describe the pro-open period today if you don't mind. I'm also not clear on why the second 3min candle was the go ahead to get short on the day.

Which news though? If you're referring to the bombing incident, that news happened an hour or so after we had already taken out the early session 157.46 low. Got it. :thumbs up:

Would you mind expanding on what the "obvious" cues were for you? I put on a long trade today on the SPY today after my 60min chart had shown 2 "buying wicks" in early going, but things got nasty on me.

Does anyone know how to code standard deviation bands into this similar to how VWAP bands are used? Ideally I would like to be able to see 2 standard deviations from the previous day's POC.

Actually it's not. Either put up or shut up. You spend way too much time trying to dispel the generosity of others. Why should anyone listen to you in the first place? Oh that's right .... that's where the trading record comes into play. So again, what do you have for us besides fancy forum talk? Let's see a screen shot breakdown of your historical trading statistics. Surely your platform keeps tabs of it and SURELY you can show us a nice shot of your P/L. Won't happen though. You'll continue to play the elitist contrarian "I know everything about the market" role. Steve you've done a fantastic job in this thread bud. Keep up the good work. Learning a tremendous amount.

You talk a big game, but provide a screenshot of this so-called production otherwise I can't take anything you say seriously.

Amen to that brother.

That's a cool story bro. Technical analysis represents probabilities btw, not predictions.

Again, I've been predominantly using divergence and volume analysis. Chances are though that on an extreme trend day I will not attempt a reversion trade. Typically the volume profile doesn't lend to it, nor does the VWAP ....which commonly has a higher, tighter slope. That usually doesn't leave a desireable trade because there's not much "vig" between where supply/demand ran out and VWAP and that's what I'm trying to capture.

Nothing is surefire. That's why it always comes down to money management and risk tolerance. When it comes to intraday reversion to the mean trading it boils down to the probabilities. What is more likely to occur? The stock parabolically moving up the entire day? Or will it end up ranging? Statistics show the former by a wide margin.

See I don't consider it guess work anymore. I've been using divergence, volume profile, and volume spread analysis to assess the points in time during an intraday trading session when supply or demand have been maxed out. But again the hardest part is waiting for that to show itself. It's too easy sometimes as traders to fall in love with what visually looks like a "possible" directional move, especially early in the session when things are very liquid. I've been in quite a few of those in my time and have just grown tired of the door slamming shut as the instrument suddenly decides "nope, we're gonna range instead today." I look at it this way. Even if the instrument opens up bullishly, how do I really know what the target is on the intraday level? Traders all use different points of reference as targets (i.e. Fibs, Pivots, etc.). How do I know how much volume is going to come in via traders or on-open market orders? With mean reversion, the concept is a little more cut and dry. Supply or demand dry up and the stock will revert back to the mean or mode to get people interested again. Anyone who observes the behavior of instruments in regards to their VWAP or POC can see this almost every single day, barring a parbolic trend day which rarely ever happens.

Haven't even read this yet, but looking forward to it. Just from the title alone I have to say I firmly agree. Conceptually I would rather take reversion to the mean (VWAP) or mode (POC) trades than mess around anymore with everything in the middle, breakouts, breakdowns, etc. etc. There is just so much nonsense (algos, backfilling, etc) that goes on in those particularls areas and so much more assumed downside risk that people don't realize. I've seen various market statistics suggesting markets are ranging 70-75% of the time so why not use it to our advantage? I'm finding that it's become a situation where I have to force myself not to trade anymore unless I get those reversion opportunities. That has actually become the hardest part of all of this. As a good peer of mine said to me earlier today: "It takes a ton of discipline to accept the fact that the market, despite directional bias and macroeconomic events, will simply backtest supply/demand to proceed in any given trajectory - people want to make that Babe Ruth homerun call, not simply navigate the market back inside to a prior days value area, but at this juncture it's simply the best r/r set-up available and I don't see anyone really talking about it nonetheless taking advantage of it."

Can somebody help me ..... This indicator was working just fine for weeks on my charts. All of the sudden it won't work when I use it on my AAPL chart. It still works fine on the SPY. Anyone got an idea how to fix this?

I put a ton of emphasis of making sure I catch the early liquidity. What you say makes sense and yet another reason these options are making me re-think using them as my instrument. There have been many times when AAPL's underlying will make a move from the open to my target, but I actually had self-control to not get in because of the spread. Then there have been times spread crippled my profit potential.

That quickly eh? You're right. Something I should look into. I know ToS has that feature, but does Tradestation? That's who my money is with.

I haven't touched an ETF in over 1.5 years and don't plan to break that streak haha. And ya, gapping in stocks makes life a pain in the ass on a lot of occasions. Well let me ask you this. I'm assuming at one point you traded stocks. Did you notice a marked improvement over time in your own trading once you ditched them for futures?

That's what I'm getting at, but I've never traded other instruments so I wanted to get feedback.

Mabye "mechanical" isn't the best way to explain it. However, with options I'm having to deal with the following issues 1. Greeks 2. Spread 3. Options Writers/Sellers 4. Underlying stock's chart 5. Underlying stock's MM's 6. Underlying stock's traders Then there's that issue like this morning where I bought the open on a break above VWAP. That trade instantly put me -1.40 in the hole because of the spread. I know where my chart stop will be, but because of that market order it didn't match my risk management. Because of the complexity of options pricing, I don't exactly know what the price of the strike is going to be when the underlying stock's chart hits the level I like ..... which is what makes it difficult to set a limit order.

My current day trading methodology is an amalgam of volume profile, Market Auction, and VWAP principles. My instrument of choice has been AAPL options. A couple of months ago I made the switch from trading weeklies to a little further out and deep-in-the-money. I just couldn't handle the high rate of time decay anymore. Initially it was a good switch, however recently I have come into a situation where the spread has become problematic. I exclusively use market orders when entering/exit. During the high liquidity part of the day's open, the spreads are awful. For example this morning I had bought some calls on a break above VWAP, the market order was literally 1.40 above the bid. Horrible way to start a trade, especially given that it moved against me. In the past I had always found it difficult to time a limit order with the chart of the underling where I want my entries/exits. With AAPL options, the bid/ask can move extremely fast. At any rate, I was curious what everyone's thoughts were on this matter. I know of a few people having great success trading futures. They have a very structured system and have no issues putting in their orders at particular points in the chart that meet their auction criteria. I feel at times that with options, I'm having to juggle elements that take away from it being a similar "mechanical" trading experience. Thoughts?

For some reason the PVP doesn't seem to be accurate when I use ths DBPVP indicator on Tradestation. On my other platform's volume profile, I see today's AAPL point of control at approx 470.00, but the DBPVP shows 478.57 Anyone know why this might be?

Thanks! I made my 20% in options this morning and exited the market. Was done in basically 35mins.

You didn't use the word mad. But you were insinuating that losing is a part of the process right so we're never past it right?

I'm not mad about taking a loss. It's part of the process. This is a marathon not a sprint and I haven't fooled myself into thinking every trade is going to be a winner. The issue comes down to "when" I'm more likely to conduct a successful trade and of course the money management. After my first trade today I lost about 65% of my winnings from Monday to Wednesday. That first loss violated my ideal loss threshold for a day. I should have been out of the market. To compound matters I then allowed my losses to exceed the total of the previous 3 days profits. That is something I absolutely must get past to survive much longer term in these markets. Cumulative winners must outsize cumulative losers, no if ands or buts about it. After taking those losses the vindicative trader showed up. I knocked out a handful of losers during the low volume grind along the bottom today. It was that moment when you become a ping pong ball amidst the late day market operators/participants in a narrow range and they chop you up. Ohhh it looks like sellers are done, we're finally getting the move back to VWAP! Nope. Back down again, rinse and repeat. Ironically the reversion I was looking for finally took place at about 2:40est. I go to grab calls. I bought puts instead. Recognized it fast enough to prevent major damage, but it was that kind of day.