Welcome to NexusFi: the best trading community on the planet, with over 150,000 members Sign Up Now for Free
Genuine reviews from real traders, not fake reviews from stealth vendors
Quality education from leading professional traders
We are a friendly, helpful, and positive community
We do not tolerate rude behavior, trolling, or vendors advertising in posts
We are here to help, just let us know what you need
You'll need to register in order to view the content of the threads and start contributing to our community. It's free for basic access, or support us by becoming an Elite Member -- see if you qualify for a discount below.
-- Big Mike, Site Administrator
(If you already have an account, login at the top of the page)
well the thing is that i would have to update the indicator on multiple forums and that questions or requests would be splitted on different forums too.
So i prefer to share my indicators here on NexusFi not least because I know that BigMike is in charge here ;-)
I guess you could just share it by providing the link to the download section, most NinjaTrader users know about this website.
All the best,
Mike
I never lose. I either win or learn. Nelson Mandela
As always thanks for your quick reply. Great..........I'll put up your FootPrintV2 link in the thread for gemify's DOM add-on (not sure where the NT download section is). BTW V2 is working very nicely and even better when I finally figured out how to size the bars/footprint histos with the chart's Y-axis price data (I had posted it as the X-axis in error as its been a long time since algebra classes) left click hold up/down slide. But as always with all the newest and greatest tools you geniuses code...........there is no such thing as the holy grail. I thought Cumulative Delta was my rainbow to the pot of gold too........
Great work though and I may be aging myself but with selective tools from the bag of tricks........I hope I have as many lives as Felix the Cat
I would like to give a little bit of insight in how i use this indicator and to share a few things i learned along my way.
This is most interesting for people who are still jumping around trying every new tool they find in the hope that it will compensate for their lack of trading skills and open the door to unlimited wealth
I've made my first live trades around 2010 in the forex market.
I was absolutely fascinated by the opportunities presented in this market which were accessible for everybody.
Soon after, there wasn't a single available trading system or indicator i didn't had in my repository. My charts looked like a Christmas tree.
I've spent every and i mean every free minute before my 4-Screen setup and tried to "crack" this trading-thing.
After burning a few micro-accounts and the feeling that i missed something important, i started to read books about trading. Many books. Books about technical analysis, books about fundamental analysis and books about trading psychology.
My trading started to improve but i was still far away from profitable.
Since I am a programmer, i pretty soon started to code my own indicators and met with other people doing the same.
One fine day i made friends with an absolutely gifted programmer and trader. He also traded the forex market and i've got the chance to get an insight into his thinking, his analysis and his trading.
During the next 2 months i've learned more than i've learned the 2 years before.
From here i again made some progress but after a few losses in a row often slipped into some kind of destructive behavior, which ended in a hilarious margin call of my first real (not micro) account.
This was the time i decided to step back from trading and take a break. During this time i had started another job and i needed to learn some new skills. so my free time was pretty limited.
This somehow ended my first journey into the world of trading with important insights.
Every (new) trader has a personal loss-limit, from where he starts doing stupid things.
Find out where your personal loss limit is and build yourself a framework of rules to handle these situations.
Take measures to protect your capital. Leave your trading desk and come back when you are able to make proper decisions.
Losses are part of your trading.
Either you find a good way to deal with them or you will never make it.
This is an important psychological aspect that you have to master in order to become successful.
And this is nothing you learn in a day. It will take time and practice.
Just go to youtube and search for "no loss trading". People try to avoid this feeling in any way but taking losses separates the profitable from the unprofitable traders.
Being aware of this is the first step in the right direction.
A few years later i was introduced to Futures and started to trade the ES.
Out of all the available futures, i still prefer to trade the ES and the MES today.
Maybe because the movements are a bit calmer compared to other index futures or maybe because i've became used to it's character.
When i started to trade futures, i've been fascinated by volume.
I spent quite some time to study VSA (volume spread analysis) and later started to implement volume profiles and footprint charts into my trading.
This felt like the missing piece. The possibility to finally understand why price acts (in most situations) how it does.
I believe that the saying "Volume precedes price" is true and very valuable.
But like with many other things in live, you need to practice. A lot.
Having the right tools at hand is important but with the tools alone you won't make a dime.
As i said in my first post, there are very profitable traders out there using their 10 period sma and some old school tape reading.
The reason these traders are so successful, is their experience and their mindset.
They have seen every possible chart pattern thousands of times.
They know when and how price moves and... they cut their losses quickly and let their winners run.
In short, they have a very positive expectancy and are doing this for many years, day by day.
a few things i learned from them:
if your trade gets stopped out, don't react with something like "sh!t, f*ck or "damn". react with an "interesting" and try to find out what happened.
You paid for an experience, take advantage of it and learn.
After a few weeks you will automatically adapt this behaviour in your everyday life and turn other things to the better.
If the market can't go up, it will go down.
Yeah this one sounds stupid but honestly, how many times did you buy into resistance or sold into support and anticipated a breakout?
Price dancing around in this resistance area looking like it wants to pop, 5 Minutes, 10 Minutes but it just can' get through.
And then it just reverses in an instant hitting your stop and you look like an idiot buying the top, once again
A simple rule to improve your trading is to not buy into higher timeframe resistance or sell into higher timeframe support.
Instead, wait for the area to properly break and then trade the retest of this area.
There is a book called "One Good Trade" by Mike Bellafiore of SMB Trading.
Specially if your are fairly new to trading i would at least try to inherit the basic idea of "One good Trade".
Try to make one good trade. Wait for a really good setup that you can trade with a good risk to reward ratio.
Be patient and then execute the trade following all your rules.
After that trade, take a short break and then make another "One Good Trade".
Don't jump the gun, don't chase the market, don't take trades where you don't know where to put your stop or target.
Try to focus on one type of setup.
Don't start and trade breakouts, reversals, continuation and pullbacks.
Pick one of these setups and practice or as Bruce Lee once said: "I fear not the man who has practiced 10,000 kicks once, but I fear the man who has practiced one kick 10,000 times."
In 2018 i started to trade Cryptos until earlier this year when i somehow started to miss the futures market and a solid trading platform.
So i came back, reactivated my futures account and well, here i am again.
So much for the theory.
Maybe there is one or two things you can use on your journey.
I've been traveling from time to time and always had a laptop or a tablet with me.
After a while i got used to a one screen setup and to this day still trade from one screen.
My workspace looks like this:
I'm trading the ES and the MES.
For context i use a 240 and a 15 minute chart and for the actual trading i use an 8 renko chart or a 1 minute chart.
Context means that i'm usually picking levels from the 15 minute chart and then trade them on the 1 minute chart.
This way i get an idea of the overall momentum and possible targets.
I usually have the VWAP on that chart and from time to time i use the halftrend indicator.
But usually i just trade with my FootPrintV2 indicator (Custom profile Size: 30 Bars, FootPrint in profile mode).
The following screenshots are all taken from the 1 minute chart and show various situations of possible trading setups.
They are out of context (because the context chart is missing) but all of them show pullback situations where either the delta or volume map provided a level for an entry.
Most of these levels can be traded with a fairly tight stop.
For the actual entry, i switch to the Footprint chart and stay there until the trade has either reached it's stop or target because the FootPrint chart provides much more information to manage the trade.
On the FootPrint chart i look at a few things.
Delta: Do we have more aggressive buyers or sellers? Absorption: Even if the market is moved by aggressive buyers or sellers, there is always a buyer and a seller for each transaction. Passive orders can stop and even reverse a move.
Imbalances: Fast moves either by buyers or sellers point to areas of a strong imbalance. These levels can provide direction and short term support/resistance for the following candles. POC: The price at which the most volume has traded and its position in relation to the candle. often acts as short term support/resistance for the following candles.
Price: How does the price move and react to certain levels.
It's not that easy to explain FootPrint setups with images but here are a few of them.
Try to spot absorption and look how price reacted to previous POC's and Levels:
If i'll find the time, i'll post a few complete setups of trades i took, walking through the whole process.
All the best,
Mike
I never lose. I either win or learn. Nelson Mandela
There is another one similar addage "Market moves to size"
The one thing that doesnt lie in futures traded on one exchange are the actual trades and their size. The depth of market can be spoofed like any other auction; there's usually a "shill" in the room or order types like "icebergs" among other even more sophisticated algos hiding in the weeds. But trades/volume tells the supply/demand story and reveals the next incoming wave to jump onto; IMHO.
Thanks for sharing your learning curve and your trading setup along with how your custom programming skills further the process. So agree with screen time and finding that one individually personal set up.
I think we've all been there done this: Every (new) trader has a personal loss-limit, from where he starts doing stupid things.
Trader beware <g> (surf's up) just a day at the beach but watch out for Ian 2022
What you think those traders were talking about offline on those external chat apps; anything to do with depth of market maybe? <rhetorical question>
Thanks to all
Regards
Bruce
@Mike.....Thanks again mk77ch for your valuable and generous donations in code and time explaining your evolution/process/philosophy!!! I think I'm seeing how imbalance affects the footprint histos and hope its not a mirage <g>. BTW I've noticed little colored markers just to the right side of the vertical Profile (Custom) histo along the y-axis (between the histo bars and the price; see picture) that have the same color that I assigned the footprint histos; what generates those if you have a moment they aren't static and seem to sometimes disappear as the market moves on:
2 red markers @ 29735 & 29734; 1 green @29746 approx:
i'm sure there is value in the Depth of Market but as you already mentioned, there is also a lot of spoofing and pulling of these limit orders.
So personally, i don't like to use the DOM to make trading decisions and i find the actual traded volume more reliable to lean on.
The DOM consumes a lot of attention because of its flickery nature, nothing i like to deal with while trading.
This might be incomprehensible for traders using these information but im doing fine without it.
The markers on the right of the custom profile are bid/ask imbalances.
They may disappear when more volume trades at these levels invalidating the imbalance ratio.
If you have for example 800 contracts on the ask and 100 on the bid for that profile column, you will see an ask imbalance.
While later on more contracts are traded on the bid this ask imbalance disappears.
All the best,
Mike
I never lose. I either win or learn. Nelson Mandela
As always thanks for your quick reply . Totally agree with the depth of market unreliability (why I was amazed that article was in the news the day the subject came up here yesterday morning and felt compelled to post it here). So when you say "800 on the ask and 100 on the bid" I'm presuming you mean traded on the bid and offer with respect to the previous last trade at that same price?
I'll have to play with chart trading as I only use the DOM for order execution and modifications to visualize my open position and ATM stops with respect to last price traded. I look forward to this weekend when I hope to deep dive into your earlier posted trading strategy/examples.
