Hi everyone, I've been in Futures Trading for 3 years, I started in 2023 with Binary Options Trading where I lost all my savings at the time in less than a month.

These last 6 months I've been dedicating around 6 hours a day to trading — including the trading session itself, analysis, and psychology reading. I generally trade for 1-3 hours a day at the market open. I'm not a great analyst, my analysis is often mediocre at best, but the psychological part is mainly my strength, although that doesn't exempt you from making trivial trading mistakes from time to time. I'm also starting to write everything down in a trading journal — it's something pretty simple, but I just hadn't gotten around to it until now.

I'm currently an intraday trader, looking to move toward a mix of intraday and swing trading down the line. I only trade the S&P 500, although because of my financial situation I only trade the Micro S&P 500.

I decided to join this community to share my trades and help other traders win in this business, where you can virtually do anything imaginable and make money however you want — a freedom that is denied to practically all of us throughout our lives. I'm also here to learn, mainly from macro analysis and other traders' experiences, and to have people I can be honest about my trades with.

I'm not aiming for the mansion in Key West, at least not for now — my main and only goal right now is to move out of my parents' house.

Hello — Parminder here. I trade NQ and ES on NinjaTrader 8, mostly the New York session. I mark session range, liquidity takes, and structure. Glad to join the room.

Title: Hello from Spain! Complete beginner here 👋

Hi everyone,

My name is Jose and I'm writing from Spain. I’m completely new to the trading world, specifically focusing on futures and getting to know NinjaTrader 8.

To be completely honest, I’ve taken a few courses in the past about things like order flow, but most of it went completely over my head! 🤦 ♂️ Right now, I’ve decided to start from scratch and take it step by step, and I'm currently focusing on studying and understanding ICT (Inner Circle Trader) concepts.

I joined NexusFi because I've heard it's the best community out there to learn and find tools (I actually ended up here looking for a simple color/drawing palette add-on for NT8!).

I'm here to read, study, and soak up as much knowledge as I can from all of your experiences.

Cheers and happy trading!

Hi everyone,

I'm part of the team behind ICF Market, an approved NinjaTrader vendor. We build order flow and volume-based indicators (Footprint, Volume Profile, Delta) for futures traders on NT8.

I'm here to be part of the community, learn from other traders' experience, and share what we've learned building these tools — not just to promote. Happy to answer any technical questions about order flow, footprint charts, or NinjaScript along the way.

Looking forward to being part of the forum.

ICF Market Ltd 

I'm here to be part of the community, learn from other traders' experience, and share what we've learned building these tools — not just to promote.

That's the thing, you cannot self promote. At all.

Please check carefully the T&C of the site and you will see that there is a zero-tolerance policy on vendor self promotion.

Thanks for flagging this — understood. That wasn't my intent, just wanted to be upfront about who I am rather than hide it. I'll stick to genuine participation from here, no promotion. Appreciate the guidance.

Peace everyone,

I'm in year two of my trading journey. I remember sixteen hour days of reading every trading book I could find. I have stacks of notebooks. I took notes of everything. Then, I got punched in the face by the market repeatedly. The first year and a half I lost money. To keep it one hundred, I made every mistake possible.

I tapped back into extreme work. All screen time. Then I applied it. Now, this year, I'm break even .. January to May. All of this was strictly technicals, Japanese candlesticks, and market structure.

Only recently I started to study tape. I understand what edge is now. Because of this, I haven't placed a trade in a few months. I've been dedicating an abnormal amount of screen time learning how to read the tape, rather than continue to execute trades based on candlesticks. I am looking at SPY/QQQ.

Specifically, I'm looking at raw/unfiltered time and sales at a deeper level, rather than simply speed with green or red color. For example, I'm looking for things like the tapes behaviour during the approach to an area of interest, interaction at, and how it leaves, rather than only what happens once price is there. Analyzing things like participant behaviour through frequency, sequencing and persistence. Identifying levels from the prints themselves. I'm looking at the actual tape structure and sequence of events, essentially treating time and sales as a continuous narrative of what is actually happening in real time.

An example of the specific depth of sequence reading im talking about: Aggressive buy prints hit but produce zero immediate upward movement. Instead, they are met by sell prints down a few cents. Price then moves back up, only for the same exact pattern to repeat right away in a rapid micro-loop. Aggressive buy prints met immediately by lower sell prints, price moves up, repeat.

Surface level reading usually defaults to calling a red heavy sequence in an up move absorption. But in this rapid micro-loop, sell executions are repeatedly showing actual downward price impact, while the buy executions produce zero upward progress, even though price is moving up overall. Price can continue higher before other sequences appear.

This is a vague example, but is the type of time and sales reading im referring to.

I'm interested in finding out if there are traders/tape readers here who share this kind of approach, specifically with time and sales.

Flipz 

An example of the specific depth of sequence reading im talking about: Aggressive buy prints hit but produce zero immediate upward movement. Instead, they are met by sell prints down a few cents. Price then moves back up, only for the same exact pattern to repeat right away in a rapid micro-loop. Aggressive buy prints met immediately by lower sell prints, price moves up, repeat.

Hi @Flipz and welcome to NexusFi.

Coming from a macro/hedging background, I am currently expanding my focus into market microstructure and orderflow.

I just wanted to validate your observation: The 'rapid micro-loop' you described is a textbook definition of absorption (aggressive market orders exhausting passive liquidity without price progression). It is rare to see someone articulate the nuance of sequencing in raw Time & Sales so clearly. You are looking at the right data. Keep focusing on that narrative.

If you are interested: Following two ways to add knowledge about your topic:

Tape is my shape (tape reading, time and sales)

Tape is my shape (tape reading, time and sales) Hello from Russia. Say thank you Google translator for meaning. I myself with the English at the dog. Woof woof. In any case, glad to share experience with overseas counterparts. If you like the post, do not bother, write a response. Your Alex. In …

Time & Sales (Tape Reading): The Raw Transaction Feed in Futures Trading
https://nexusfi.com/a/market-structure/time-and-sales-tape-reading

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