Trading the tape

wannagetstacked

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Hi all,

I took a long hiatus from trading to play poker during the online poker boom, but poker is no longer easy money so back to Trade2win to blow my poker profits.....

I've spent the past few months watching the order flow on the ES and am starting to get a good feel for picking reversal points using only Time&Sales. Ideally i'd like to find a group of like minded traders to chat and talk order flow strategy with.

So far I've found that the standard ninjatrader T&S combined with the static ladder for entry points is my preferred setup. I like the look of the jigsaw trading ladder but feel like it distracts me from the tape.

At the moment i'm just scalping for a few ticks at the reversal points when the T&S really drys up after a move backed by plenty of big fills stops showing big prints. I'm basically piggybacking the other direction when big institutions stop putting money into the market. I'm not confident judging my exits based on order flow yet, but can make a few ticks profit, with stops of a couple of ticks and a high enough winrate to be profitable.

In theory you could do the same thing using a chart with just volume. But often high volume bars relate to lots of retail trade rather than institutional. On the T&S you can see when several 100+ lot limit orders on the bid/ask are taken out signalling big guns in at those price areas. The presence of these big prints doesn't tell you what direction price will move in, but can let you know when a move backed by the big guys is dying out more accurately than just a chart with volume.

It's the overall size of the prints as the price moves higher or lower that signals the intent of the biggest traders and reflects when they no longer want to keep price moving, and thus a high probability short term reversal point. The biggest traders don't give away their hand at a specific price as this would negate what they are trying to achieve. They cannot however avoid leaving their footprints in the sand as they enter over a longer range of price levels. It's for this reason why if you are trying to daytrade without using T&S or an equivalent as your foundation, you are likely doomed to be one of the so called 95%. Charts don't tell you where the big banks and flippers are getting in and out in realtime, T&S analysis can give you an edge proven by many pit traders.

If you trade in a similar way to me then send me a PM or post here so we can get on skype sometime. I work full time as a commercial property tax analyst which is why the ES from 6pm-8.30pm UK time is my home for now. I'm free weekdays after 9pm.

Charts are for chumps......

Nathan
 

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If you look at the next image below you can see between 6.28pm and 6.50pm when price moved from 1510 to 1511.25 there was only one big print.

At 1511.25 there a few big prints and then the faster tape on the right really slowed down printing. Then from 1511.25 down to 1510.75 big prints came in every 1-3 minutes and the faster tape on the right started to speed up, and ..... prices fell.

As I write this the tape has really slowed again at about 1509.25 (19.15pm). So a probable long here with a tight stop should work often.

Nathan
 

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And yet your pics each have a very large chart in them.

Peter

Charts are useful way to show what has happened, not what will happen.

I've attached the charts so you can when T&S shows a move that the volume can't.

If you look at this update you can see prices moving up now, backed by some big order fills. Now this doesn't tell me that price will go higher, but it's not a time when i'd want to be getting short just yet.
 

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Also, i'm not saying people can't make money with TA and PVA etc, but the vast majority don't. The vast majority of retail traders also don't study T&S....
 
The vast majority of retail traders also don't study T&S....

You studied it, yet you go play poker instead.

There ain't no easy way of making it whatever the indicators you use, be it TA or T&S. All those things are easily manipulated. The market ain't random, they see you as an ATM, and they will do whatever it takes to get you to put your money on the table, where they can see it.
 
Also, i'm not saying people can't make money with TA and PVA etc, but the vast majority don't. The vast majority of retail traders also don't study T&S....

Agreed. But I contend that the same percentage of traders will lose no matter what method they use, charts, T&S, or otherwise.

Anyway, I don't want to derail your thread, just wanted your explanation and you gave it. Thanks.

Peter
 
I didn't really start this thread to discuss the pros and cons of any particular method. I'm just posting these initial real time bits of analysis to get the attention of like minded traders that want to swap ideas. Saying Charts are for chumps was supposed to be a joke because of my old signature from 2004 when I first started out "Let the charts be your guide, and price action your destination".

I'll leave it as my signature for lols.
 
Looks like the T&S wins this one.

Even if you pick entries with charts you can't deny the compelling evidence here on the T&S highlighting a very risky time to go short that can't be found with historical data as found in a chart.
 

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I didn't really start this thread to discuss the pros and cons

It's a public forum, and you can't stop people commenting. But I suppose you can cry to the mods and ask them to delete posts.

The only other person I vaguely got the impression of using T&S was DinosaurToast. Perhaps you can pm him.
 
You studied it, yet you go play poker instead.

There ain't no easy way of making it whatever the indicators you use, be it TA or T&S. All those things are easily manipulated. The market ain't random, they see you as an ATM, and they will do whatever it takes to get you to put your money on the table, where they can see it.

You can't believe how profitable online poker was in 2004. It was basically zero risk if you knew what you were doing - I have only ever deposited $50 back when I first started. It's very mentally challenging these days though and can be tough to keep loving it after playing for so long. Much nicer to have a job seeing people everyday and just play for fun.
 
It's a public forum, and you can't stop people commenting. But I suppose you can cry to the mods and ask them to delete posts.

The only other person I vaguely got the impression of using T&S was DinosaurToast. Perhaps you can pm him.

Sorry again to cause any trouble (Hard to show on the internet but I am sincere when I say that).

People can post here and discuss as much as they like, but my input after these initial posts will probably be limited due to time constraints.

Actually i'd love it if people used my initial posts and ran with them in this thread as it's free info for me lol. Good luck to you all.
 
This move up now doesn't seem to be supported by any big order prints and the tape has slowed. Possible short with a tight stop again.
 

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I've always wanted tape reading to work, but can one human brain really do something better than all those black boxes?
 
Just the one big order print on the move down to 1510.75 as highlighted in red so i'm not loving this short for more than a tick or 2. The tape is pretty slow too so there aren't any big players backing a move down yet. Best to move a stop to very near entry now as it could go either way.
 
Just the one big order print on the move down to 1510.75 as highlighted in red so i'm not loving this short for more than a tick or 2. The tape is pretty slow too so there aren't any big players backing a move down yet. Best to move a stop to very near entry now as it could go either way.

Pic:
 

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I've always wanted tape reading to work, but can one human brain really do something better than all those black boxes?

A human has to program all those systems. Just look at the calls made so far and each picture, and relatively speaking i'm new to this. Ill post a pic with all the spots i pointed out before they happened. I'm not selling anything either and never will so have no reason to lie. Most of the calls were several minutes before the moves too if timestamps are checked. Worth looking into
 
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