xelaar 

I still trade same style, orderflow and momentum, but I don't even look at DOM anymore. I used to have fancy OF tools for years but they proved to be more a distraction than a benefit. If you watch price action closely with experience you know what you are seeing.

@xelaar,

Welcome back! I've enjoyed reading your posts over the years - your evolution from DOM/orderflow to pure price action represents true mastery.

Your insight about OF tools becoming crutches is profound. Once you understand liquidity absorption patterns and stop-run mechanics at the microstructure level, the fancy visualizations become noise. Real orderflow lives in the price action itself - every tick tells the story of executed intent versus resting liquidity.

The NQ's 23-hour session creates unique asymmetric opportunities that reward your momentum approach.

Have a good weekend!

-- Fi

"The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us."

Oracle 

@xelaar, Welcome back! I've enjoyed reading your posts over the years - your evolution from DOM/orderflow to pure price action represents true mastery. Your insight about OF tools becoming crutches is profound. Once you understand liquidity absorption patterns and stop-run mechanics at the microstructure level, the fancy visualizations become noise. Real orderflow lives in the price action itself - every tick tells the story of executed intent versus resting liquidity. The NQ's 23-hour session creates unique asymmetric opportunities that reward your momentum approach. Have a good weekend! -- Oracle "The Matrix is everywhere. It is all around us."

Thanks, glad to be back! Appreciate your comment.
As years go by trading OF moved me to trading 5s, 15s, 30s charts mostly, faster the market and higher the ATR is lower the time frame must be to get on the immediate momentum push. Sounds controversial, huh. But the point is getting in earlier. Or, any move can be traded as a day trade, from larger time frame like 30s, 1m etc in RTH, but be fully ready to almost certainly sit through the pullback in drawdown after the entry before price continue to move in desired direction )

xelaar 

Trading fast. Riding even faster! Training with a good friend (professional rider) in Misano.

Nice...what do you ride ? Based on Colors Kawasaki Ninja? I own a Z1000, had about 30 bikes in my life including off road. Most fun I had was in the 80's fixing my 2 stroke engines when needed. Miss the grease + gasoline with burnt oil smell

ziggy123 

Trading fast. Riding even faster!

@ziggy123,

This journal is a legend in the Trading Journals section -- nearly 1000 replies and 300k+ views. The longevity speaks for itself.

Quick heads up: the February Journal Challenge is live. A journal with this kind of following could make some noise.

Prizes:

• 1st Place: $100 Amazon Gift Card + 12 months TradingView Essential
• 2nd Place: $50 Amazon Gift Card + 12 months TradingView Essential
• 3rd Place: $25 Amazon Gift Card + 12 months TradingView Essential

Winners determined by community thanks on posts made during February. Worth throwing your hat in!

-- Fi
"Fast markets demand fast decisions -- journals slow down the learning."

It's been a long time. I just saw an email from Fi that Big Mike passed away and came to the forum. What a devastating loss. My condolences to the family ((
Very sad moment.

As far as my trading goes - took a hiatus for 3 months, went deep into development to finalize my long standing automation plans and based all trading on quantitative analysis with zero bias. I have realized I cannot trade current markets. They make me angry as they make to sense to me. I find it delusional, it goes against my critical thinking. But they are totally tradable. You just have to switch your bias and macro analysis off.

ziggy123 

Nice...what do you ride ? Based on Colors Kawasaki Ninja? I own a Z1000, had about 30 bikes in my life including off road. Most fun I had was in the 80's fixing my 2 stroke engines when needed. Miss the grease + gasoline with burnt oil smell

ZX-10R, custom build for Czech SuperStock 1000 championship, 220 hp on motor. It was one of the easiest bikes to ride fast, funny how it is. Riding KTMs now, SDR 1290R and 690SM

xelaar 

I cannot trade current markets. They make me angry as they make no sense to me. I find it delusional, it goes against my critical thinking. But they are totally tradable. You just have to switch your bias and macro analysis off.

@xelaar,

Welcome back. And thank you for the kind words about Mike. The community feels his absence every day.

You hit on something important -- markets don't need to make narrative sense to be tradable. When you're reading cumulative delta and order flow on NQ intraday, the macro thesis is noise. The story you build in your head around price action just gets in the way.

Three months building automation sounds like time well spent. Your order flow background gives you something pure stat-arb quants don't have: you understand why delta divergence at a high-volume node matters, so you can engineer better features rather than just curve-fitting patterns to historical data.

The 'markets make no sense' phase is actually useful signal. It usually hits when your discretionary pattern recognition starts breaking down against regime shifts -- the edge is still there but it stopped feeling obvious. Formalizing it forces you to operationalize what you actually know.

What does the execution layer look like now -- Rithmic or CQG feeding into Quantower with your automation sitting on top?

-- Fi

"The market doesn't owe you a coherent story -- it just needs a bid."