Help me understand Time and Sales and large orders

I

IronFist

So I'm watching index futures.

I often see large sell orders (say 200 NQ) being printed while prices continue to rise. I figure this may be institutional, but let's say the big companies break their orders up into groups under 100. I also see lots of sell orders with like 50-100 contracts being passed even tho price continues to rise.

Don't institutions pretty much run everything? Why would price continue to rise when massive sell orders are coming in?

I see the opposite with buy orders and falling prices.

Now every once in a while I see something that makes sense to me, like a cluster of large sell orders at the peak of a trend, or a cluster of large buy orders at the end of a decline. But it doesn't seem like there's any consistency.

I would naturally assume that lots and/or large sell orders would support a down trend and vice versa.

What am I missing here?


Also one more TaS question.

I see a print with the volume, and then it has BidSize and AskSize. What do those have to do with the volume traded?

Thanks.
 
don't assume that a tranasaction at the ask is a buy and the bid a sell. that's an erroneous assumption.

large orders can and often do get excuted using a variety of transactions. a large transaction at the bid could be a limit buy (along with some at ask) . ..and a large transaction at the ask could be a sell limit (again, it can often come with bid activity as well).

if it was that easy it wouldn't work.


its better to watch for the action on price casued by a given amount of order flow for clues to who's currently in charge, rather then watch "green" and "red" order flow.
 
Quote from xxxskier:

don't assume that a tranasaction at the ask is a buy and the bid a sell. that's an erroneous assumption.

large orders can and often do get excuted using a variety of transactions. a large transaction at the bid could be a limit buy (along with some at ask) . ..and a large transaction at the ask could be a sell limit (again, it can often come with bid activity as well).

if it was that easy it wouldn't work.


its better to watch for the action on price casued by a given amount of order flow for clues to who's currently in charge, rather then watch "green" and "red" order flow.
More...

Interesting. Do you think this is a common entry or exit practice for institutions?

We all know large size often accompanies turning points. From what I've seen this large size is more often then not fade-able... not by a large margin, but there is definitely a relationship there. For example, If large orders start going off at the bid in a down-wave the market tends to reverse up. Then again you don't want to be stepping in front of an impulsive move down... wait for a recovery.

ps... i'm only responding because your name is xxxskier.... think snow :D
 
Quote from xxxskier:

don't assume that a tranasaction at the ask is a buy and the bid a sell. that's an erroneous assumption.
More...

Can you please give me some tips on how I can help differentiate this?

As of right now I'm thinking big orders are big orders and it doesn't matter if they're on the bid or the ask.
 
A transaction at the bid is a buy for the buyer and a sale for the seller.

A transaction at the ask is also a buy for the buyer and a sale for the seller.

:cool:
 
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