[Mr_black]

This is how Wall on Dom looks ....note the 185 car hit on the wall

[BlowFish]

Hi Mr B.

That certainly tells you something however seems like in practice several things can happen.

1) Price can fall away (possibly the level will be re-tested) but it comes on down.
2) Aggressive (@market) buyers will continue bashing at the wall and it will get slowly eaten (often price will pop through as it breaks and buy stops behind get triggered)
3) Price backs off but support is found close by (maybe 5 or 10 ticks away maybe less) and then carries on back up sometimes with residual resistance where the wall was sometimes not.

Sometimes I just think I am not astute enough reading these things I guess there are nuances that I just miss. It appears to me that there is a huge amount of 'art' as well as any underlying 'science'.

Originally Posted by AgeKay »

The DOM of the FESX and FDAX is more or less useless since they follow the ES very closely.

During RTH for the US, perhaps. But during the main European hours that's certainly NOT the case, unless you can show otherwise.

[AgeKay]

Originally Posted by forsearch »

During RTH for the US, perhaps. But during the main European hours that's certainly NOT the case, unless you can show otherwise.

Yes, you're probably right. I'll have to check that since I tend to trade during the US RTH.

[darthtrader2.0]

Originally Posted by Head2k »

When watching T&S do you use any filters? Do you watch only trades of size greater than some threshold, all trades only, or everything including bids and offers?

If you use filters your going to be cutting off alot of orders that are big money that just has chopped up their orders.
I agree with throwing the books in the garbage. Probly the best way to start out is just watch the tape when price nears the session high/low on a thinner contract than ES. Also its probly a good idea to have TICK open so you can see what happens on the tape when the programs sweep the contracts and that the size is usually in the speed of small orders as opposed to very large prints.
If you just start with the high/low though you can get a feel how the order flow moves if the high low is going to act as support/resistance or a breakout from the high/low.
Also, just take your time and don't get frustrated.

[Head2k]

Originally Posted by darthtrader2.0 »

If you use filters your going to be cutting off alot of orders that are big money that just has chopped up their orders.
I agree with throwing the books in the garbage. Probly the best way to start out is just watch the tape when price nears the session high/low on a thinner contract than ES. Also its probly a good idea to have TICK open so you can see what happens on the tape when the programs sweep the contracts and that the size is usually in the speed of small orders as opposed to very large prints.
If you just start with the high/low though you can get a feel how the order flow moves if the high low is going to act as support/resistance or a breakout from the high/low.
Also, just take your time and don't get frustrated.

Thank you for advices. I use AmiBroker and it has a poor T&S window. It is not configurable at all and it shows not only trades but also every new bid and offer. Way too fast then. I recently downloaded NinjaTrader so I use T&S from Ninja instead. Also I found T&S in IB TWS quite interesting. Since they aggregate ticks the T&S is in fact compressed and inaccurate but on the other side the aggregation acts like a moving average in some way. But I guess I will just stick with Ninja and IQfeed. For the last month I have been focusing on NQ when studying price action.
I am at the beginning of this all, because I spent a few months hunting for indicators and different systems. I change the things I watch quite frequently, but right now it is T&S, a 3 tick bar chart with wolume (because I am not yet able to mentally project a chart from T&S, and to see the sequenced orders), a 1 minute bar chart with wolume for a bigger intraday picture and finally a 15 min chart for bigger picture of the last few days. Yesterday I experimantally added a 100V chart. I might add Nasdaq Tick as well, I already studied it a bit... I need to find what charts, intervals and internals provide (for me) the best representation of what is happening.

I listened to Db's advice (from his book, I think), and I am not trying to trade, I just observe. Not frustrated at all (yet ), and not in a hurry.

[darthtrader2.0]

Originally Posted by Head2k »

Yesterday I experimantally added a 100V chart. I might add Nasdaq Tick as well, I already studied it a bit... I need to find what charts, intervals and internals provide (for me) the best representation of what is happening.

Well it sounds like you are starting out on the right track. I totally agree with finding the best representation of what is happening. I'm also using DTN/Ninja, hard to beat that price wise and Ninja's tape is the best hands down.
My current setup is 200v candle chart with the wicks removed so its just a "body" between the high and low of each 200 transactions and the tape on YM. My setup is to trade triangles on that chart and then entry/exits are managed on the tape once the triangle is broke. After 4 years at this, that is the only setup that passes my soft subjective confidence interval without backtesting but since those don't happen very often most the time i'm just sitting and waiting looking for other setups that look nice to trade someday.
A good excerise I'm doing while waiting right now is to draw extended horizontal lines in Ninja at where you believe the market will respect a price and then see what happens on the tape when price dances with that level.
The funny thing I've found is no matter what I draw, the only thing that seems to have better than random results is the overnight high/low and the session high/low. The bottom/top of an intraday range will be respected on the tape once then mean nothing the second time(all that information has been discounted), or be respected 3 times then mean nothing the 4th time with zero predictability or soft expectancy.
Currently, the only little pattern I'm considering trading beyond my triangle position trading is a scalp off the tape. That if you look on a market delta chart, the top/bottom and cascade of a move is always marked by extremely "aggressive" traders that are totally in the wrong direction. On the tape this looks like, if you move your perception up/down a bit from the current action to where you don't believe any orders should transact, you will see a few prints at those levels and then price reverses. The problem with this trade for me currently is that I've also seen thats when the programs come in and sweep the market sometimes and my trading plan #1 rule is to never put myself in a situation when I know I could be on the wrong side of the programs. The problem here is that DTN blows for internals and I might park into a tradestation account just to get their nice internals.

[BlowFish]

Originally Posted by darthtrader2.0 »

The funny thing I've found is no matter what I draw, the only thing that seems to have better than random results is the overnight high/low and the session high/low. The bottom/top of an intraday range will be respected on the tape once then mean nothing the second time(all that information has been discounted), or be respected 3 times then mean nothing the 4th time with zero predictability or soft expectancy.

Isn't that the whole point of reading the tape? To see if the level is holding? Aren't the dances different depending on which side is stronger?

I dunno maybe I have been expecting too much out of the tape all these years, no wonder I haven't found it!