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DTs Pre Market Prep

  #221 (permalink)
 
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Hi Peter,

I have a few questions for you regarding liquidity. Hope it's ok to ask them in your prep thread.

Liquidity is only something i've been keeping an eye on for about the last 2 months or so. I tend to find that as the liquidity drops the market becomes more slippery. This is no big surprise since it would be easier to push the market around by a few extra ticks here and there.

I have a few rules regarding my position sizing as it relates to liquidity (talking about ES):
- If the DOM is generally over 1000 per level ill trade full size
- If the DOM is generally between 600 - 1000 per level ill trade half size
- If the DOM is generally less than 600 I wont trade (another approach would of course be to increase stop size,..but I chose not to trade)

So the basic idea is that when there is the potential for the market to be very slippery, I want to reduce or completely remove risk (dont trade).

However going over my stats, im not sure these rules are having the desired effect, and that perhaps im being too conservative. What i've noticed is that often at the point of entry liquidity might not be great, so ill enter half size. Then, once the trade starts moving in my direction liquidity will increase, the levels will all thicken up and the trade will run to target on what would have been a great opportunity to have full size on. But the liquidity wasn't good enough at the point of entry.

- How do you determine if the market is slippery? Purely on the DOM or are there other things you look for?

- Out of the last 16 trades, i've only traded full size 5 times. Im starting to think im being too conservative. 600 per level seems to be fine judging both by the price action and my results. Do you have a certain threshold below which you will reduce size or increase stop size?

- In your opinion has liquidity in general dropped over the last month or 2? Or has it been about normal?

Many thanks.

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  #222 (permalink)
 
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DarkPoolTrading View Post
Hi Peter,

I have a few questions for you regarding liquidity. Hope it's ok to ask them in your prep thread.

Liquidity is only something i've been keeping an eye on for about the last 2 months or so. I tend to find that as the liquidity drops the market becomes more slippery. This is no big surprise since it would be easier to push the market around by a few extra ticks here and there.

I have a few rules regarding my position sizing as it relates to liquidity (talking about ES):
- If the DOM is generally over 1000 per level ill trade full size
- If the DOM is generally between 600 - 1000 per level ill trade half size
- If the DOM is generally less than 600 I wont trade (another approach would of course be to increase stop size,..but I chose not to trade)

So the basic idea is that when there is the potential for the market to be very slippery, I want to reduce or completely remove risk (dont trade).

However going over my stats, im not sure these rules are having the desired effect, and that perhaps im being too conservative. What i've noticed is that often at the point of entry liquidity might not be great, so ill enter half size. Then, once the trade starts moving in my direction liquidity will increase, the levels will all thicken up and the trade will run to target on what would have been a great opportunity to have full size on. But the liquidity wasn't good enough at the point of entry.

- How do you determine if the market is slippery? Purely on the DOM or are there other things you look for?

- Out of the last 16 trades, i've only traded full size 5 times. Im starting to think im being too conservative. 600 per level seems to be fine judging both by the price action and my results. Do you have a certain threshold below which you will reduce size or increase stop size?

- In your opinion has liquidity in general dropped over the last month or 2? Or has it been about normal?

Many thanks.

Let me come back to this on Monday - I'm overloaded today!

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  #223 (permalink)
 
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21st March



We are close to the all time highs. I'm on the lookout for a push to the high and then to see if there's any buyers up there for a push to 1900. If we poke through the highs and roll down, I'll be looking for 1859.50 then 39.50 and 25.25.



As you can see we have multiple distributions on the profile, the one directly below us is 61.50->66.50. If 66.50 breaks, I expect to see a churn to 61.50. At that point the bulls really need the market to hold or we could see 55 and then eating into the lower distribution. A bounce off 66.50 will be very bullish.



Yesterday we had:

"My 2 favored scenarios today are:
1 - Snap back up and take back most of what we lost yesterday
2 - range 46-54 area at these lows
"

What we got was a push down to 46.25 and then the snap back up to within a tick of Wednesdays pit session high.

Todays Globex session is mostly long and we are above yesterdays value high. So off the open, I'll be looking for that value high to hold which is 1866.25 - coinciding with the 66.50 number.

So a fairly well defined day ahead.

Weekly Numbers
Range - 1823.50 -> 1872.50
Value 1848 -> 1867
S1 - 1818.25, R1 - 1861.25

Daily Numbers
Range - 1844.75 (globex) -> 1856.25 (pit)/ 1866.50 (globex)
Value - 1856.25 -> 1866.25
Globex - 1862.75 -> 1872.50

Numbers just for today: 1861.50, 1866.50- minor lines in the sand

Other - 1880.50, 1859.50, 1839.50, 1825.25, 1799.25, 1760.25, 1723.25, 1713.50, 1685.25, 1660.50

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  #224 (permalink)
 
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24th March

End of the month Friday. So we may well hover here for a push through the high to end the month....



We are potentially done with the retest of the high having failed to get there on Friday. I'll be short biased below 59.50 and long biased above. My downside target would be 1839.50 & possibly 1825.25. Still - there is that end of the month thing and some people will be looking at the channel above and staying bullish if that is maintained.



Looking at the weekly profiles, we can see we are in the middle of 2 distributions. If we break 66.75 to the upside there's not much stopping us getting to 1880s again. If we break 53.50 downside, I see a more leisurely churn down to 46.



On the split globex/pit profiles, we can see how sellers came in on Friday after failing to reach the high - not a big shock. We could easily make that back today. We can see that the Globex session has so far failed to make new lows, so we could be in for an initial pop up off the open.

So 59.50 is pivotal. I think today is hard to call prior to the open but I think it'll at least give us a hint of how the end of the month will play out.

Weekly Numbers
Range - 1823.50 -> 1876.75
Value 1847.50 -> 1867
S1 - 181840.50, R1 - 1875.25

Daily Numbers
Range - 1855.50 -> 1876.75
Value - 1861.25-> 1876.75
Globex - 1855 -> 1864.50

Numbers just for today: 1853.50, 1866.75

Other - 1880.50, 1859.50, 1839.50, 1825.25, 1799.25, 1760.25, 1723.25, 1713.50, 1685.25, 1660.50

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  #225 (permalink)
 
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25th March



I think that covers all eventualities!

Yesterday we had: "We are potentially done with the retest of the high having failed to get there on Friday. I'll be short biased below 59.50 and long biased above. My downside target would be 1839.50 & possibly 1825.25."

But I was not expecting the 39.50 level to be hit in one day. I was expecting it to take a couple of days. Looking back on a daily chart though we have had a number of 20+ point days of late. In fact that makes 6 days with a 20+ point range, so my bad for not taking that into account.

So now we got close to the 39.50 level have we failed to get there just like we failed to get to the highs or are we now going to run through it to 25.25 and possibly lower? Well I don't know but if we do get a test of 39.50 today and it holds, then we should be good to 59.50 and possibly 80 again. Although probably not in one day...



I still have my eye on the areas with more activity last week. So will also be looking at 45.75 and 66.75 as minor lines in the sand where we could turn around.



And here we can see the past 3 days and how big they have been. There is an overall lack of liquidity with only 500 contracts or less per level much of the time. I was quite encouraged by the initial pop up yesterday and it took me a while to get the bias right, so a slap on the wrists for me not following my own rules.

We can that after the push down, we managed to retrace back to 1854.75 before the close, so that area is worth watching too.

Into the open, I'll be watching yesterdays value area and 45.75 to see if buyers jump in. The Globex session looks fairly neutral to me and I have no real bias going into today. We have been having long down days followed by long up days so there could be a lot of people looking out for that and of course, that expectation could be the very thing that forces us down another 20 points.

Weekly Numbers
Range - 1823.50 -> 1876.75
Value 1847.50 -> 1867
S1 - 181840.50, R1 - 1875.25

Daily Numbers
Range - 1841.25 -> 1866.00
Value - 1843.25 -> 1853.75
Globex - 1848 -> 1864.50

Numbers just for today: 1845.75, 1854.75, 1866.75

Other - 1880.50, 1859.50, 1839.50, 1825.25, 1799.25, 1760.25, 1723.25, 1713.50, 1685.25, 1660.50

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  #226 (permalink)
 
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DarkPoolTrading View Post
Hi Peter,

I have a few questions for you regarding liquidity. Hope it's ok to ask them in your prep thread.

Liquidity is only something i've been keeping an eye on for about the last 2 months or so. I tend to find that as the liquidity drops the market becomes more slippery. This is no big surprise since it would be easier to push the market around by a few extra ticks here and there.

I have a few rules regarding my position sizing as it relates to liquidity (talking about ES):
- If the DOM is generally over 1000 per level ill trade full size
- If the DOM is generally between 600 - 1000 per level ill trade half size
- If the DOM is generally less than 600 I wont trade (another approach would of course be to increase stop size,..but I chose not to trade)

So the basic idea is that when there is the potential for the market to be very slippery, I want to reduce or completely remove risk (dont trade).

However going over my stats, im not sure these rules are having the desired effect, and that perhaps im being too conservative. What i've noticed is that often at the point of entry liquidity might not be great, so ill enter half size. Then, once the trade starts moving in my direction liquidity will increase, the levels will all thicken up and the trade will run to target on what would have been a great opportunity to have full size on. But the liquidity wasn't good enough at the point of entry.

- How do you determine if the market is slippery? Purely on the DOM or are there other things you look for?

- Out of the last 16 trades, i've only traded full size 5 times. Im starting to think im being too conservative. 600 per level seems to be fine judging both by the price action and my results. Do you have a certain threshold below which you will reduce size or increase stop size?

- In your opinion has liquidity in general dropped over the last month or 2? Or has it been about normal?

Many thanks.

Liquidity has been low in the past few months.

As a rule of thumb, the liquidity will thicken up on the offer side as you move towards 'agreed upon' resistance - in other word a level of resistance lots of people are looking at. Similarly the bids will thicken up as you move down to agreed upon support.

In the past week, we've seen some decent ranges but prior to that we've have fairly low liquidity without the benefit of any additional daily range.

In your case, I think you are right to adjust for this liduidity but I'd say it also depends on how much room you gave trades before. This market can slip 3-4 ticks in a second because of this lack of liquidity so tight (4 or less ticks) stops can see you fall victim to this even when you are right.

For those days with low liquidity but not real increase in range, I'd say that you don't stand to benefit from the range but you are still more likely to be suffering from increase MAE. Are you able to track MAE for these trades and see if the extra breathing room paid off, even if you got not additional move for your trouble?

For me I like to see 1000+ for a normal day. When it gets down to the 500's - I'm more very cautious for a regular pullback but you can still see absorption at levels and a price to lean on. It just doesn't happen as often. Momentum entries are trickier in these conditions.

When it gets below the 500s on average - I usually go do something else but again you will occasionally see someone step up. It's just that you can't rely on reading the pullbacks as well in that environment. You have to be more selective and pass on more trades.

Let me know about the MAE.

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  #227 (permalink)
 
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DionysusToast View Post
Liquidity has been low in the past few months.

As a rule of thumb, the liquidity will thicken up on the offer side as you move towards 'agreed upon' resistance - in other word a level of resistance lots of people are looking at. Similarly the bids will thicken up as you move down to agreed upon support.

In the past week, we've seen some decent ranges but prior to that we've have fairly low liquidity without the benefit of any additional daily range.

In your case, I think you are right to adjust for this liduidity but I'd say it also depends on how much room you gave trades before. This market can slip 3-4 ticks in a second because of this lack of liquidity so tight (4 or less ticks) stops can see you fall victim to this even when you are right.

For those days with low liquidity but not real increase in range, I'd say that you don't stand to benefit from the range but you are still more likely to be suffering from increase MAE. Are you able to track MAE for these trades and see if the extra breathing room paid off, even if you got not additional move for your trouble?

For me I like to see 1000+ for a normal day. When it gets down to the 500's - I'm more very cautious for a regular pullback but you can still see absorption at levels and a price to lean on. It just doesn't happen as often. Momentum entries are trickier in these conditions.

When it gets below the 500s on average - I usually go do something else but again you will occasionally see someone step up. It's just that you can't rely on reading the pullbacks as well in that environment. You have to be more selective and pass on more trades.

Let me know about the MAE.

Thanks Peter,

Ok, interesting to hear that liquidity has been lower than usual lately. This is only something i've been keeping an eye on recently which is why I wasn't sure if this was normal.

Below are 11 trades which I traded 50% size because of low liquidity:
Continuation / momentum trades:
- MAE: -3
- MAE: -5
- MAE: -1
- MAE: -7
- MAE: -9 (this was me breaking my rules and increasing my stop size by 1 tick. Got stopped out anyway!)
- MAE: -6
- MAE: -1
- MAE: -3
- MAE: -8

Reversal trades:
- MAE: -1
- MAE: 0

I will need to go back and look what the range on the day was like for each of the above trades.

As I mentioned in my question, I reduce my size if liquidity is generally between 600 - 1000. Above that, ill trade full size. However after looking at my stats I think I need to adjust to the low liquidity environment as you said which means im likely being too conservative at the moment.

My stop is 8 ticks, which im starting to think warrants trading full size provided liquidity doesn't get ridiculously low like below 500 - 600. As you said, then it's probably best to go do something else.

Thanks again for the reply. Food for thought.

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  #228 (permalink)
 
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I'd say there needs to be more adjustment if you have a 4 tick stop than an 8. It sounds like you are still "in tolerance" of that 8 tick stop with this volatility. Maybe a little more conservative but not like half or quarter size.

Tight stops would be getting murdered now because as you have no doubt seen, it can just whip 3 ticks in a second which is rare when it's more liquid. Saying that, it doesn't just whip 8 against you.

Let me know how you get on.

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  #229 (permalink)
 
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26th March



Yesterday was a tough one for my style. I mentioned this to a (fairly large) prop trader I know (picture me as young Luke and this guy my Yoda). He puts it down to all the "minor" levels we've created over the past week and how it's created a lot of different areas to play off. So the white lines above are more local areas I'd not normally play off. I still wont be playing off them today but am just going to be more wary in this area.



Yesterday we had

"I still have my eye on the areas with more activity last week. So will also be looking at 45.75 and 66.75 as minor lines in the sand where we could turn around."

Now I'm more thinking that 45.75-66.75 will be an area where it's going to be choppy and rough trading.



Yesterday was interesting. An initial push up off the open with a huge step created in the profile @ 61.50 - that was a 'gimme' trade but there was no immediate follow through. After the 10am news, we had the usual post news volatility but it then calmed down came do 1862 and seemed to be holding there. Then - just a few minutes after the news, the market dropped about 2.5-3 points in one swoop - it was rapid to the point I thought I'd missed a major news event.

We did end up retesting the Globex low yesterday before moving back up and whilst it was a slow start we still had a pretty healthy range.

Globex action today so far has been mostly above the close, so slightly bullish. We have so far been mostly above yesterdays value and above the 59.50 level - I'm still bullish above there but considering all the crosses over that level, it's becoming less important.

I could see us bouncing off one of yesterdays levels but I think we really need to get out of this 45.75-66.75 area for any clean moves.

Weekly Numbers
Range - 1841.25 -> 1866
Value 1850.75 -> 1862.75
S1 - 1840.50, R1 - 1875.25

Daily Numbers
Range - 1848 -> 1864.50
Value - 1852.25 -> 1860.75
Globex - 1858.25 -> 1862.75

Numbers just for today: 1854.75, 1866.75

Other - 1880.50, 1859.50, 1839.50, 1825.25, 1799.25, 1760.25, 1723.25, 1713.50, 1685.25, 1660.50

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  #230 (permalink)
 
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27th March



Now we are at the bottom of the chop zone again. There's been lots of emails flying around about how this action is the start of a major down move. I'm still neutral on the overall outcome. South of where we are now & below 39.25, we should move more freely but if you look to the left we did chop around there too in February in the 39.25-25.25 area.



Yesterday we had:


"I still have my eye on the areas with more activity last week. So will also be looking at 45.75 and 66.75 as minor lines in the sand where we could turn around.

Now I'm more thinking that 45.75-66.75 will be an area where it's going to be choppy and rough trading
."

And we can see that now we've started to spend some time below 45.75, so I'd personally like to see that hold for a move downwards, I feel we'll have cleaner moves. If we do head up, then I expect it to be harder trading all the way to 1866.75.



As someone that only trades the AM sessions, pictures like this always make me weep. We can see the push up through the Globex high failed and then we spent some time chopping around 1860-1864 before taking a dive in the PM. The Globex session is long so far but not overly so. If we can keep above yesterdays close into todays open, we have a case for an initial reaction down which could have some follow through if we hit yesterdays low.

I want downside basically because I feel it will be a better trade. If it moves up, then I'll be cautiously plucking away at it. Trouble is with yesterdays move missing the weekly low by a tick, I reckon we may just head to the top of the range again.

Weekly Numbers
Range - 1841.25 -> 1868.75
Value 1849.75 -> 1863.75
S1 - 1840.50, R1 - 1875.25

Daily Numbers
Range - 1841.50 -> 1868.75
Value - 1852.75 -> 1868.75
Globex - 1842 -> 1847.50

Other - 1880.50, 1859.50, 1839.50, 1825.25, 1799.25, 1760.25, 1723.25, 1713.50, 1685.25, 1660.50

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