Nothing interesting in CL and GC - no good trade locations, no good trades. Took few shots just for the sake of taking. Some good some bad on CL and all bad in GC, it's just crawling and busting stops. Low volume strange day. Columbus day in US. We shall see tomorrow. Nothing to record yet.

Personally I wont be trading much until Thursday because of the big looming decision.

I see no reason why paper will be in the market until then so why bother?

Expect slow markets until Thursday - but I'm often wrong!!

TheDude 

Personally I wont be trading much until Thursday because of the big looming decision. I see no reason why paper will be in the market until then so why bother? Expect slow markets until Thursday - but I'm often wrong!!

I agree with you. Not only it is dangerous to trading real money or even Combine, it is also dangerous for system development or forward walking - what you get is not a normal market results, these are abnormal conditions and may cause to dump a perfectly reasonable system or build one exploiting very rare phenomenons like we have now.

Very slow market today, all times high. But order flow is easy to read, tape is clear. Nice day.






When market moves like that I can read tape easy, but last week it was at all impossible, hectic and relentless.

Gold wise like I considered back then it is only worth trading when it moves big directionally, I think break of the level, limit entry few ticks in front on level on a pullback and 20 ticks stop, otherwise gold is not worth trading, it's algo trading jungle

Hi Xelaar,
Question: what path did you follow to read tape.
I am just watching tape for few hours daily , I see few things getting cleared , but it is not a structured way to read tap.

tinkug112 

Hi Xelaar, Question: what path did you follow to read tape. I am just watching tape for few hours daily , I see few things getting cleared , but it is not a structured way to read tap.

It's pointless to look at the tape in arbitrary places, it becomes important to judge which way it would go when price is getting stuck around key level, consolidation border, major high or low, daily high or low. Then you should look for imbalances on the ladder, cumulative delta on tape and see where it is moving. If you see price approached high and stops but buys still coming you know there is a lot of absorption, and if it breaks it is likely these who sold there will have to puke and buy back. If you see such a situation (you can see a huge imbalance on DAX ladder on the screenshot) chances are it will break. It is best to find a good entry place when buying pressure will ease up and price pulls back, and get in long to join the forces with those who run that level.

There are different situations, where sentiment is going the other way and we are fading the pullback, then it is advantageous to find a place to get in line with the sentiment. But it can be tricky.

Traded a whole bunch of instruments today: GC, CL, ES, NQ, YM.

Nothing interesting in GC, a couple of small winners, just to test out ATM strategies. But price action was nice.

Same in NQ, a couple of small winners.

Enjoyed YM, I will see if I will add it to my instrument basket, I like it, even if commission-wise it is in disadvantage, so only to focus on intra-day swings.






CL - only two trades, one loser and one winner with a runner. Nice.






A whole big struggle in ES. I totally realize I have a wrong approach for ES. There is an interesting aspect of ES being a pretty good instrument to read order flow, and almost all of my trades go into profit by 3-4 ticks, but the problem is it is too little to take even for a scale, and then it comes back and hits my stop. Very rotational market. I am not going to focus on it right now but I will keep tab on it.

All in all, I will focus for now on trading Crude and mini-Dow, and will look for big moves on Gold and try to get on that bus. I will not be trading gold with pattern approach, only with momentum.

This is what I mean by struggle in ES. Not a big loss, pretty much up and down. But I just don't feel this market.

Only one DAX trade today. Had potential of being a huge runner, but never happened, range bound day so far, could turn into a reversal one.

+7 points on scale-out, +2 points on runner

Very tired today. Nervous markets waiting for the news, but good patterns nevertheless.

Tried many things. But the bottom line is very simple - go with the order flow, fade the weakness, reinforce the strength.

I was lately looking for a formalization of my patterns. To be able to write them down clearly in trading plan, forward walk them, build statistical evidence. They should not lead to small scalps, save money on commissions and preferably be scalable to longer term trading too.

I have some results contradicting with my previous trading patterns. They did eventually produced profits, but most likely I would be better off trading the other way around and have smaller drawdowns.

In a nutshell:
1. I should not fade new HOD or LOD, I would only consider it when weakness is evidential there, large pullback, failure to break, reversing order flow and flipping liquidity on the ladder. It is still tricky as these levels act like a strong magnet. I can see that to successfully fade it, it is better if new swing high/low has failed to get closer than 10 ticks to HOD/LOD and magnet effect is absent. Then I would consider fading this high or low.
2. I should look to run matching highs or lows, pretty much like I did in my first combine, as they also act like a magnet since people locate stops behind. Trade should be aligned with the order flow. I would look at contracting range with one side having matching highs or lows, and enter against these matching side in a bet it would break and result in a surge of order flow. Having a pressure on ladder is required to confirm order flow.

This is pretty much it. I want to keep it as clean and easy as possible. I like trading with the order flow and will continue to concentrate on it. My aim is to get on a big runner and run it hopefully for hours.