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Webinar: Understanding Order Flow with MarketDelta Footprint and Anthony Drager
Anthony is a counter trend trader that most of us would characterize as a scalper. He usually takes 2,4,+6 ticks in 3 lot multiples for his ES trades. He is quick to exit losing positions by watching correlated doms for evidence of failure. He may scratch some good trades but he scratches many more bad trades.
Anthony misses the larger moves but he doesn't invest the emotional capital of riding the roller coaster. The lack of ticks is made up through confidence, size, and quickness. There is no holding on and praying. It goes or not.
At $100 per month I believe this room is a bargain. Market Delta does not require that you sign up for their charts, and you get to watch his footprint charts to see how the imbalances play out.
The videos explain how the pros take advantage of stops.
He is very accessible and serves as a mentor to any members that ask questions.
This is a method of logic and structure instead of a rules. He is very clear on entry and exit criteria.
I've been looking for feedback on the ES room that Market delta has just begun. It's run by somebody by the name of Anthony Drager. A search brings up some old videos from a company that no longer exists. I'm curious if anyone has any opinions …
With that said, hopefully the 3 months in the room have helped you in becoming a better trader.
Thanks for introducing Anthony and Market Delta, I have been interesetd in the Order FLow for some time but have not introduced it to my trading as yet. I will see if I can email him for that two day Guest offer into the room, and check it out. I found the section on Size & Risk, scaling out of a loser very good, its something I have been working on also of late. Thanks a gain BM.
I just got to watching this. I watched a similar presentation by Anthony a couple of months ago and have to say that they both were fantastic.
First, my only "caution" is that I think it's perhaps dangerous for someone to watch this and think that a 4 point move in the ES combined with what appear to be trapped volume means a rotation of "catchable" ticks is forthcoming. Sometimes it is, sometimes it isn't, and it depends very much on the day type. Often it's the faders who are trapped, and momentum continues. So, one has to be careful and realize that while market buys and sells are often indicative of positions being exited for a loss as Anthony said, that this may be new initiating volume and these new positions may very well be defended. See yesterday, May 2 ES for a great example of this type of behavior all day.
If I could sum up the two things in the webinar that I think are the biggest takeaways, they are:
1) The excellent presentation of the "why's" of market movement. At the very core, markets go up and down because of imbalances, and the logic is very sound and explains "shakeouts" and those other things that tend to frustrate us. You don't need a footprint to see it, though it can be helpful, as even basic volume tools make it clear to see most of the time.
2) The best part of the whole presentation IMO was 1:32 to 1:36. Hopefully not many people had tailed off by that point after they got their technical fix. As good as the overall technical explanation was, these 4 minutes of commentary on losses really does about as good a job of explaining failure in trading (my own failures as best I can see them) as anything I've heard before. "My best trades are small losers," Anthony said. @Big Mike also recently said to me, "the best traders are the best losers." In a nutshell, this is how my mind received the information and laid it out:
(a) Whether it's doing too much preparation for a trade, or if there's too much at stake financially on a trade, or if the profit objective is unreasonably large on a trade, or for whatever reason, the trade then becomes very important (important because money is at stake, or time has been expended in preparation, or the potential for profit is high).
(b) When a trade becomes that important, we really want it to work--so much so that we almost need it to work. When something is so important, and when we want it to work so much, then it is difficult to accept that it is not working.
(c) Because we cannot accept that we are wrong and that our trade is not working, because it is too important and the emotional/financial stakes are high, we hold out hope that it just might work still. Probabilities say otherwise, but our hope is strong, because... "what if" I'm still right about this. So we "give it more room" and move the stop. Or, we add to it. Or both.
So the basic progression is: (1) Trade is important ==> (2) Trade needs to work ==> (3) Hope that it works causes harmful behavior.
And Anthony gave the 1-step solution to cut this progression off at the root. He said, "devalue the trade." Clearly, he is not referring to treating the trade as casual, or having some apathetic attitude about it, which would likely cause harmful behavior itself, but rather, to not putting too much importance on whether a trade works or not.
A list of things that have caused me personally to put too much value into a trade is below. I'm sure you can relate to these and can come up with your own list.
1) Overplanning -- it should not take 2 hours to plan a single market trade. For more complex ideas, perhaps. But why should it take more than 10 minutes to conclude that "I'll buy here if I see these conditions, my risk will be this, and my target will be that"? The trade becomes too important because "I have invested something very valuable into planning it -- my time. And by God, it had better work. And if it doesn't, I'll find a way to make it work."
2) Financial pressure after loss(es) -- after a series of losses (or worse, one large loss), my tendency is to want to make it all back in one fell swoop. A series of sloppy events caused a bad day or two in a row, and now it will take either an Act of God or some sudden trading brilliance or some truly dumb luck to make it all back at once, none of which I should count on when it comes to trading. The trade becomes too important because I see it as my "way out" of prior stupidity, kind of a "get out of jail free card." I think, "if only I knew the market was going higher over the next few minutes, I could bet it all and get back to where I was 2 days ago."
3) Higher than reasonable profit expectations -- we all know that we are supposed to "let our winners run." However, when I begin to see those dollar signs and look at my profit objective and think of how nice it would be, then I am in trouble, because I are not objectively seeing the trade for what it is, but instead, for what I want it to be. I have cut short some really good winners, and this allows my mind to go the other extreme--trying to hold everything for 100 points, or for nothing. I can not tell you how many +20 winners I have let turn into -20 losers because I thought I was being disciplined and patiently holding for more, but instead simply had too many dollar signs in my mind. The trade becomes too important because of what might be--a huge profit.
4) Making a "call" publicly -- it can be dangerous to post a trade call publicly because then you're "on the hook." It's much harder to cut a trade that isn't working when anyone in the entire world with internet access could know that I was wrong too. While ego is involved in all of these items, probably here it's most evident, because nothing is really lost (in contrast to the others, where time, money, or potential money is lost), except one's own "face." The trade becomes too important because of what others might think of me if I am shown to be wrong in this case.
5) Lack of perspective on longevity of the business -- As Anthony said in the video, each trade is one of tens of thousands (I hope), so what if it doesn't work? It's just one trade. A gambler in Vegas goes all in on red or black, and doesn't care that much about next week, because he'll be back home. But as a trader, I want to be playing the game for a long time, and so I need to trade with tomorrow in mind, and not only consider today, or this trade. The trade becomes too important because I get tunnel-visioned and do not see the bigger picture goals of consistent behavior over weeks, months, and years.
6) Lack of confidence/self-esteem -- This is more general and a bit of a cop-out as it's not specific, but sometimes I just want a trade to work, and if it doesn't, it will bruise my ego, so I avoid admitting the loss by just keeping it on. The trade becomes too important because ego and feelings are at stake.
So, my current major goal is to reconcile my relationship with losses (actually develop one, instead of avoiding this relationship) and become more familiar with losing the good way!
I took the $100 Market Delta/ Anthony look-see. Anthony clearly understands order flow and keeps a close eye on bonds/notes as he trades. However, I realized on day 1 that Anthony is a former prop firm trader and is willing to take MANY low risk trade setups in a day for a 2 to 3 tick move in hope of catching a long runner. Knowing that wasn't my style of trading, I tried a couple of extra days to learn something from him. Indeed I did. Anthony was kind to contact me asking that I give it another chance. It was worth the look-see. To work best, one should use MD and Anthony's setup. His live charts on my monitor looked a little small. I couldn't always see what was going on.