The Tools Have It!

 I'm really enjoying this extra volatility we have. Lots of opportunity. It's a matter of picking the right market and the right periodicity. There are times when the NQ is too volatile but the ES is good. Traders I know are even switching to the YM to slow the speed. For me, the right bar size seems to be the criteria I look for as the bar size determines my stop loss and risk.

The chart below is the 1 minute ES. I liked it very much this week. I switch between the 1 minute and the 30 second bars. The chart below is a footprint chart with lots of additional information highlighted by colouring and arrows. There are a bunch of different providers of these tools and its a matter of hunting around to find the ones that provide the information you want in the form that you can see it easily in the heat of battle. I use three or four different Ninja add-ins  to get the information I need for my trading plans. I think that finally I have as much or even more order flow visibility than I had in the pit. The main difference is that there are now no order filling brokers that identify the possible origin of the "paper" we are trading against. But perhaps that's a good thing because we can identify both size and probable icebergs as it happens.

There are great tools out there now. Using them is more than well worth the cost if you also learn how to use them. Not hard now. Again, context is very important as is evolving as both markets and tools evolve. Just looking at the chart below shows me the trades jumping out. 😁 I hope you can see them too.