[internals] Order Flow

[kick buttkowski 10]

Does anyone out there use or know of a very reliable indicator that identifies order flow on the ES. If you are hesitant to make your own indicator public, please send me a private email. I will respect your privacy. Thanks.

[sunxpert 10]

Does anyone out there use or know of a very reliable indicator that identifies order flow on the ES. If you are hesitant to make your own indicator public, please send me a private email. I will respect your privacy. Thanks.

 

How do you define "order flow"? The orders are in/out both sides every 0.0001 sec

[Predictor 11]

Reading the tape is something I do extremely well and I share several different techniques in my newsletter for doing that. Some are very simple and require no software, others are more do require more specialized tools. One of the most accurate ways to see the transacted order flow is by tracking the cumulative delta, delta, or by using the footprint (MarketDelta)/VolumeLadder charts. No affiliation with MarketDelta. They offer a free Trader software if you have a participating broker that you could try.

 

It is difficult to trade with only order flow though. I'm specialist in ES.

 

Curtis

 

Does anyone out there use or know of a very reliable indicator that identifies order flow on the ES. If you are hesitant to make your own indicator public, please send me a private email. I will respect your privacy. Thanks.

[steve46 12]

Interesting that once a person asks....first you get the newbies comment, many of them need the same thing....and eventually the BS artists show up...

 

So here's a comment and it won't cost you anything but the time it takes you to think for a moment....

 

First, there are several ways to get the data you are talking about.....depending on your charting you can simply monitor a DOM, or you can get cumulative data (IRT has several ways to show the order flow).....if you have some cash to spend you can get CQGs aggregated trade flow bars..

 

Now when you get into these various ways of displaying the order flow, be aware that what you are seeing is only a fraction of what you really need to make a good decision...AND no matter what kind of data display you eventually settle on you will still need to practice and acquire some skills....

 

I have been doing this a long time, and I favor what most would call the "old school" method

Simply put you start with a screen display that includes the NYSE TICK, Market Breadth (if you use Esignal...both $VOLD & $ADD)....you also need a "time & sales" strip.....long story short most professionals learned this way...it takes time....and you need to develop some skill, but once you have it....no one can take it away from you, and it continues to work the same as the first day I learned it.

 

Now anticipating the obvious question(s)...yes I am a vendor, but ironically I don't have anything to sell you....I have trained two small classes (4 people in each class)....they had to apply and go through an interview process before the class started....WHY....because to really train people to do this right....you can't just sell them an indicator....it doesn't work....thats why so many of you get burned. I closed out my class a couple of days ago.

 

If I were doing it all over again, I would start by getting the screen setup I just described....I would take a few months to simply watch and observe price against the backdrop of the time & sales and TICK....if you do this, and you have some talent, I would bet you can teach yourself enough to get going....then its a matter of networking and trying to find people who are using the same system...

 

I have added one more item that sets it aside from the sharks and bs artists....I use time based pivots on a worksheet....as I watch my screen, if price tests one of my pivots, I know that all I have to do is to determine the trend and then see if price holds a bid or not....If you want a time based pivot chart....again no charge, its public info, read my thread "An Institutional look at the S&P Futures"....

 

Best of luck to you

 

Steve

Edited March 3, 2012 by steve46