You didn't ask me, but I'll answer from my own experience:
You are absolutely right here. SPX/ES flow is a crap and just a mixture of different interests.
I think heatmaps can be useful when trading some uncorrelated to sp500 small cap stocks
The following 3 users say Thank You to matteo83 for this post:
The WAY I use BookMap is very simple. When I get to an area where I'm interested in (Zone, Trend line Break, Previous VPOC, ETC) I pay close attention to BookMap and look for increase or decrease of volume, (Stop Run or Iceberg orders from the MBO indicators) and decide if I want to take the trade. Its called reading the ORDER FLOW.
BookMap is Nothing but a replacement of a standard DOM, BUT it gives you the information of past Volume that you don't get in a DOM. EXAMPLE: let's say at ES 4700 they're showing 1,200 contracts at that level. (EASY you can see that on your DOM, on BookMap you see that on the heat map) But we get closer to 4700 and they pull that contract out of the way and it now only shows 200. If you have a great memory, you can say to yourself, "Hey they just pulled a 1,000 off at 4,700 we must be going up." OR down. With a DOM you have to rely on your memory, with BookMap you see the exact moment they pulled that 1,000 lot. SO look at BookMap as a memory device. (Old guys like myself can't remember what we had had for breakfast let alone how much volume was a 4,700 3 minutes ago.
Good Luck.
Carl Mitchell
The following 3 users say Thank You to Flyer873 for this post:
My intrest in orderflow got me into BM. At first its overwhelming. And once you have everything dialed in, it can be helpful. I went full on with all the MBO Iceberg, Stop run Indicator, Spotgamma etc. Wow I was seeing so much info... and paying for it. Ultimately the cost of BM subscription, data, and all the add-ons outweighs its usefulness. I would like to have the info but they really milk it.
However, for about an extra $40 a month, through TOS I have a version of bookmap that pulls data through DXFeed. Its just a slightly older version of BM and you can't add the add-ons. I compared both side by side before I canceled through Bookmap and just kept my TOS version. The data was identical and I had both futures and stocks.... just not MBO, but that's only needed for their indicators.
I will say that I did study how icebergs (hidden orders) and stop runs looked and reacted when I had the indicators and that experience was helpful to understand orderflow .
I actively use BM on TOS. I primarily use BM for scalping, noting liquidity events for future levels and confirmation of my levels.
The following user says Thank You to jaycee for this post:
Bruce, I am looking for more information on the MBO Bundle Indicators settings. Is there a detailed webinar that discusses the Sweeps/Absorbtion indicators?
I want to know what thresholds to use for the different markets.
