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Since purchasing Jigsaw and watching order flow, my awareness of the market has increased dramatically.
I wouldn’t say that I have learnt anything new. I would describe it as obtaining a new sensory input. Kind of like those videos you see of people that have been deaf their entire lives and have medical implants that allow them to hear sound for the first time. Charts are important but they are a one part of a multi dimensional object.
I have been watching ZN,ZB,ZF, FGBL and what has been exceptionally interesting to me is how many people lose at this game. Part of my struggle was always this belief that everyone else was getting it right and making loads of money while I was constantly getting caught on the wrong side of trades. Since watching the order book, thankfully, I now see how insanely aggressive this game really is. Seeing orders constantly stacking and pulling, watching the nonstop thrust and parry, the huge battle at key levels has been really enlightening.
The funniest part is watching traders buying into a market that just keeps going against them. You can see the trapped traders and can imagine the pain they are going through. I have actually burst out laughing a few times at this.
It is still early days but I think that I have made the right decision to learn orderflow. I have only been watching for a week and a half now but I find that I hardly need the charts; in fact they are only there to draw a few levels as I get more out of watching the dom than watching a chart. It has made me a LOT less anxious, and I think it’s because I can now see just how much gets traded every second of the day and just how insignificant I am in this market.
Anyone else have a story about their first steps into learning orderflow?
the first thing i learned.. is looking at the dome can give you codnave distance ..you give the short term info more value than the longer term information. next do not make the leap of faith that all orders executed on the ask are sellers and the bid are buyers. if i am a trading algo trading the spreed between the ES and SPY and i have a 1000 lot limit order to buy and the market trades into may limit and that much gets filled on the ask...am i a traded trader now. no i am not a seller stuck short in the hole. next do not watch the damn thing all day long. record the first two hours of trading . replay and study what went on when you got to a area that should have held but did not ...then study the area that did. then look at a area that held but the move fizzled ,the one that exploded. you will build skill quicker. most index futures traders will have the 3 major contracts domes up side by side. so if your looking at a long on the ES.. they will not take it if the others are not lifting the bids too. i would start on bonds they trade much slower...but most new traders just have to trade the ES or oil that just can not help it. hope it helps
So much this. Crack is super interesting to watch order flow on, but I personally learned what's going on a lot better when I started watching Z's. I'd suggest giving ZN a week in particular. It's the most liquid product out there, and this makes the order flow signals a lot more clear and consistent.
if you are going to improve your bond trading i would be working on how to trade the yield curve. a lot of all the liquity you are seeing are bond spreads. most bond traders have the domes up on the 5 10 30 year notes ...some even have German bond domes up. it will take some time but if you know the inter market tricks of the trade it will improve your trading. learning that is not a waste of time...like looking for better shine waves on multi time frames
I'm also looking at the 30, 10, and 5. However, I've just been focusing on trying to be consistent with the 30 year. I've looked at it several times, but I haven't tried any spread trades yet. If you have any suggestions on how get started with spreads I'd be very interested.
Funny that you mentioned that, but after being a ladder based trader for over 2 years now, I find that staring at the order flow makes me MORE anxious. I recently have been trying to move away from being to attached to the order flow and using more limit orders in my trades.
Don't get me wrong, I still use the ladder, but only a very selective times when I'm not very sure about where to enter the market. Once I enter, I don't bother too much about the order.
Keep in mind, that you are basically playing a game that is dominated by artificial intelligence (AI). So, it is absolutely right to assume, that what ever you are seeing they have already seen way before you and are trying to exploit it already.
But, as you also mentioned, it is early days... best of luck!
Forgiven:
I am interested to hear more about trading the spread and the inter market play between instruments. Would you care to elaborate a bit more or drop another piece of the puzzle so that I can attempt to figure it out?
My preference so far looks like it’s going to be ZN as its thick, more controlled, less chance of slippage and easier to get out of bad positions.
KelvinKing:
Yeah I don’t know why but it has calmed me down significantly. My methods so far is to identify zones and once price reaches the zone I start watching the ladder more closely for clues on what’s happening. I think looking at the ladder continuously would scramble my brain and cause me to start seeing fluffy pink unicorns with purple leather wings flying around in front of me. So basically I dont stare at it all the time, rather choose the right time to use it.
Attached is a demo trade I did yesterday (Im testing scalping small targets with tight stops and leaving runners open). I was waiting to see what would happen at this level and the ladder clearly showed a shift in bias. Delta turned negative, there was massive absorption on the ask which held , sellers were clearly stacking, and there was a reversal signal on the chart. Had I only been looking at the chart I wouldn’t have had anything else to go on except for a level and a weak reversal signal. The ladder gave me more confidence to execute at that level.
You can find my own review of Jigsaw in the Jigsaw review thread. My review is very similar to your experience.
A suggestion on this thread though: if you are soliciting feedback on people's progress in learning Order Flow in general, then this thread should really not be in the Product and Vendors review.
If you want to talk about Jigsaw then I'd suggest using the existing thread review in order to avoid duplicates.
If you want to get the thread moved you can ask Big Mike or sam028.