DionysusToast

Roger - I understand that in your room you trade SIM. So - when do you trade live? Is it outside of market hours or when the room is closed? 87% win rate and no more than 2% drawdown a day is impressive - that is acual trading results, right? Not the SIM stuff. Thanks DT

What's your asking price?

My 2c.... Look at how much participation is in the moves, that will help you guage whether a move is a pullback or a reversal as well as how easy/difficult it would be to 'run the move over'. DT

My opinion is totally the opposite. I have long, long, long term holdings and I also day trade. I do not swing trade, I trade discretionary, I use a chart for context and I use the ladder for entry for the ES. For US treasuries, I do not use a chart, there is no need in these markets, it tells you so little as there are so few swings. The volume profile tells you where the action was and that is enough. On more swingy markets, the volume profile is less relevant and the intraday swings more relevant. The skills I use to trade this are not transferrable to swing trading. Day Trading is a very specific set of skills. I cannot day trade all markets, I focus on the ES and US Treasuries. At the moment, I wouldn't even know where to start on the CL. Even between different markets the skills of Day Trading are not easily transferrable. As I said, my opinion is the opposite. Swing trading will not really help you to become a profitable day trader. Systems won't help you to become a profitable day trader either. The OP is on the right track. He's learning how to read the market. This is ultimately what you need to do if you want to make money intra-day. This does not mean you trade at random and it does not mean you are without rules or guidelins. It's just not systematic. It's not easy BUT learning how to read the market is a lot easier embarking on a never ending quest for a mechanical day trading system which is what a lot of traders get hung up on. In terms of sitting in front of the screen. I've never met a trader that made money in 15 minutes a day. It requires time & attention. I think the "sitting in front of a screen all day" argument against day trading isn't valid. Trading is hard work. DT

We won't agree on this because I don't think trading is either objective or mathematical. I am a discretionary trader. The guy I know that scales out (Joel Parker) is a discretionary trader. It's a subjective skill. Math has no place there. Like I say, different techniques suit different people.

BlueHorseShoe You can put forward mathematical arguments for & against: All in, all out Scaling In Scaling Out I know people that make money employing all 3 techniques. Different people, of course & they all swear that this is the way. In the end, it's down to personal preference. The best strategy is only ever known retrospectively...

You know... There are diet sites where fat people have the balls to go and say "I'm going to lose weight"... There is a theory that doing this gives them an extra reason to lose weight - they went public, warts & all. Well, young fellow, your thread just went out to 10's of thousands of other traders and now they are all looking at your fat ass (well, OK, newbie account). Good luck. Keep up this thread. Next time you think about a gambley trade, you'll have this thread on your shoulder telling you not to take it! Pete

It's on the BMT Elite Members version.

Here is my take on it. It is possible to scalp off the DOM, no question about it. It is possible to take position day trades off the DOM. I do it on the Treasuries and although a chart isn't used a volume profile is. XTrader has a volume profile on the DOM as fo a lot of other products. From this you can see highs/lows and areas that it cut through like butter as opposed to areas where there was a lot of consolidation. Long term charts are also used but not necessarily referenced intra-day. Look at a longer term chart, remember the most relevant price points. Job done. You also do need to have a decent short term memory as it helps to know where price got stuck throughout the day. The more intra-day swings an instrument puts in the LESS you are able to rely solely on the DOM. Or rather, the less I am. The treasuries put in very few intra-day swings but CL puts in 30 or more. It is these swing points that are also pain points to a lot of other traders. On an instrument like the ES, I cannot trade purely off the DOM. I need to be able to see the intraday swings. In an up move, you might see an iceberg on the offer and 3-4000 contracts hit it. Still, it'll just carry on up, cutting through like a knife through butter. On the other hand if it's pulling back down in an up move and you see the same thing on the bid, it's a good opportunity for a long. Everyone uses it in a different way. For me, I need context and in the treasuries the volume profile is sufficient. On the ES, the volume profile is not sufficient, so I use an intraday chart too. For CL/YM - not my cup of tea. Very different from reading DOM on a thick market, although I keep promising myself to have a serious look one day.

"Secret Tip #12" :helloooo:

JTrader - have you tried the footprint charts that come with the free GOMI indicator package for NinjaTrader? I think if you want to visualise it, then say a 15 minute footprint chart gives a very good indication of where the liquidity is. I don't use it myself but I do use his cumulative delta. When it comes to looking at order flow info I am only interested in the here & now. I have an idea what I expect to occur and the order flow tells me if it does. So - I think there's 2 things at play. 1 - Where do you expect the pullback to end 2 - Can you confirm that it is ending To me - the CD/Footprint charts/proxbars/OFA etc are all part of number 1. Only the actual current trading activity is part of 2 BUT you could argue that the footprint charts show you that as well.

Well - the tool itself isn't important. Could just be regular DOM/Time&Sales. You are absolutely right that you can get caught up in the 'noise' but it's not a tick-to-tick type of analysis, it's analysing over time. You can't ever tell with 100% certainty whether the next tick will be up or down. When you first start using the DOM in anger, you can barely spend 5 minutes watching it before your brain switches off. It's a fairly large commitment you have to make because like a lot of things with trading, there's just some random guy on the internet telling you it's of great use. When the market does pull back you'll have some vague idea of how far it'll pullback. At some point, if it is a pullback, you might see it 'stall'. Not all pullbacks end the same way but there are some where the signal is loud and clear. Sometimes you see orders going through but price no longer reacting to it, sometimes you get to a level and no-one wants to trade it 'this time round' - it may be in the middle of a candlestick but suddenly this level is like the plague to traders. It's not a 100% signal, it certainly doesn't work all the time but it works enough of the time to provide an edge.

OK - I have an annotated recording of the DOM from a couple of weeks back - but it's DOM only. I am due to do another one in the next few days anyway - with chart, T&S and DOM together as this is what people want to see.... See if this makes any sense... Tape Reading - Depth & Sales Cheers Pete

I can - but how do TL generally feel about people that sell software posting up videos - I actually have my own DOM & Tape and I don't really want to appear to be here for the purpose of pimping my software. I have a link I can point you to - but again it's on my web site - same deal I am sure. Is this a pimp friendly forum?

Actually - there's 2 ways - if sellers are keen to move it down more, they might jump on board with market orders to the downside of course. But that usually leaves you with a late entry

There is only one way to know when a pullback is done, when the liquidity is hit. That is to become proficient in reading the Tape and/or the DOM. This is not something that can be done with indicators in my opinion...

OK - I will tell you why I read it the opposite way - mostly this is because I use the DOM too.... On the pullbacks, we do indeed see less participation from market orders to create a relatively large down move. This is because on the move up a 'liquidity vacuum' is created. As the market moves up, there is little liquidity building on the bid side - active buyers are buying with market orders on the way up. So - the pullbacks inevitable get a lot of 'bang for their buck' - the price move is decent for the relatively lower number of market sell orders because of that lack of liquidity on the bid side. In terms of why I go long at these points, it's more to do with the way the ES moves. People jump on board one way and run it, then they do the same in the opposite direction. Usually for a lot longer than we think it will go. Once they get their teeth into it, they continually run through these pullbacks. People who enter new shorts in these pullbacks are nervous, especially if the trend is now obvious. Hence, we have sellers with itchy trigger fingers and buyers well aware of how far things can be pushed. This is my take on it.

A market order consumes liquidity. It is by this consumption of liquidity that price moves up and down. With all other things equal, CD should move with price. Then there are times where it doesn't. For example when market buying continues but price stops moving up. If you see a lot of market buying that has no impact, it does not bode well to the upside. Charts will not show you this type of action. I see it as a 'higher timeframe tape'. CD tells us very similar things to tape reading. It is an additional dimension of information not available on a chart.

Good stuff - I likey.

Yes - but I still need you to agree Christos is a lunatic.

Hmmmmmmm.... Take a look at the site -http://www.christosavatartrading.com/ I certainly wouldn't take a kool-aid off the man...

I use it myself - I agree entirely with what you say - for SHORT TERM trading on some instruments. My experience is that on thick instruments like the ES, it works a dream in the short term but there are some 'gotchas'. The gotchas are mostly to do with some of the games played by people trying to establish large positions for short term plays - to the scale of thousands of contracts. What you typically see is a market that will appear to be weak which encourages people to sell. They sell to the people that are making the market look weak, who are of course buying but on limit orders. The size of delta shift in a pullback is an absolutely fantastic tool. There's more to get from it than that though. When delta starts moving down but price doesn't - this also tells you something - but only in a thick market. It tells you that for the moment, someone is quietly absorbing the selling. On thick markets, we get benefit when price & delta don't do the same thing. In a thin market - like YM, CL, NQ, you will see extended periods where CD goes down but price is moving up. This can go on for hours. The explanation for this is fairly simple. Buyers on limit orders are taking all they can. You have to remember too that there's 2 good reasons for using limit orders in a thin market. 1 - Slippage can be an issue 2 - The general 'wiggle' in thinner markets will often get you a better price. It's these sort of short term activities that make me wonder about long term use of CD. My use of CD is to use it when the CD diverges from the action (which actually sort of confirms Fulcrums 70% theory).

I know what you said, I just don't see that myself. Also, if 30% of their trading is limit orders, that rather gives a huge margin of error in terms of returning to the same point delta-wise long term. We will have to agree to disagree on this one.

Well - I didn't know if you might of been part of his cult. Have you seen his website? Scary people, indeed.

Cool - someone placed a trade and won. I get those too. Isn't that just a straight ad for somebodies service? Aren't you even going to comment on it? Jeez - I thought T2W was bad!!!