Took no action today. Market was a complete snoozer and I did not get a signal to enter.

Proud of myself for not trying to make a trade where none existed.

It's become clear to me that whatever TA I knew from stocks does not transfer well to futures day trading. At least that's my experience.

Order Flow is something that I've been aware of for years but never really dug into. I've spent the last couple of days doing a deep dive into everything I can lay my hands on. Good information on this subject seems to be difficult to get, though I have found some Futures.IO/YouTube videos that have been helpful. I've also downloaded the mzPack add-on for NinjaTrader and have been impressed so far (they should do a webinar for Futures.IO). Still very much at the novice level with figuring it all out.

My current chart uses a large scale Renko (actually ninzaRenko with 32/16 blocks) with a mzFootprint overlay. I've also included 2 moving averages (actually Gaussian Filters) to make the trend clear.

Here is what my typical chart looks like:



I like how the Footprint chart helps you identify imbalances and areas of absorption, and watch how they interact with price movement.

I've also shifted from the NQ to ES. The NQ was giving me a headache with it's frenetic movement. The ES moves more like a battleship.

Here are my latest stats from Tradervue:


And my latest figures from TopStep:

There are some really good flow guys on Twitter that post for free daily.

Thanks. I've subscribed to some of them.

MarketDelta provides some good information on the Footprint chart - https://www.thetradingway.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/06/MarketDelta-Strategy-Guide.pdf

YouTube has some useful videos - [yt]https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=order+flow+footprint[/yt]

What I've surmised so far is that Delta (difference between ask and bid trades) and Imbalances between bid and ask (especially stacked imbalances of 3 or more), are the important things to watch.

Many claim the POC in the bar is also important, for me the jury is still out on whether it has much value. It may depend on the type of market (trending or range).

Absorption is something I've seen with my own eyes, though it can get overpowered in a strongly trending market.

Friday's Coronavirus fear induced sell-off was great for trading. I gained $733, mostly with one contract, stopping around 1pm to take a walk.

I decided to change from renko to range bars as they give a better representation of what's actually happening with price IMO. I'm sticking with 10 range for now, but plan to experiment with larger bars.

My observation was that tracking the Delta and Imbalances gave me a lot of insight into what was happening. More so than I've experienced before. Some bars become battlegrounds for epic fights between longs and shorts, with each side gaining and relinquishing control. Then one side wins and runs off with the prize for perhaps 2 or 3 bars, and then the battle starts all over again.

Here are my updated stats:


And my TopStep page:

I was unwell for a few days and just now getting back on my feet.

I did trade a bit to relieve the tedium, bad idea as my reflexes and decision making were awful.

I'm down $417 from the last post. Ready to get back in the drivers seat.

Here's my current TopStep stats: