Quote from xxxskier:
this is a good thread, similar to my line of thinking.
i am an early user of market delta with ES (about 4 years now) and have been through various "phases" of how i use it. for example, i used to use it to "fade" what looked liked little trends within larger trends. but for whatever reason, the past 1-2 years that strategy became less successful.
my current style of trading (which has been very successful) is to try and identify the initiative buying/selling and then go with the momentum if i believe and/or think i can identify what the big players are doing and how they seem to be doing it. . to do this i use cum delta, composite MPs (merging days together) for the longer term view and my version of a T&S.....one filtered for large lots compared to a T&S that is not filtered.
in general if i see a trend with initiative activity i will try to "follow the trend"....or at least hop on for a ride. when i'm wrong it's often because i wasn't paying enough attention to other factors such as various internals i watch.
at times, i will not "go with the immediate trend" if i don't see support in the internals moving in the same direction.
one thing that i learned the hard way (and this is why i changed how i use market delta a few years ago) is that in ES you have to remember that there are many different players with different motivations, different goals, and different styles. just to name a few there are directional players, pure speculators, inst. hedgers, retail "hope and pray" types, and others. they don't all enter a trade the same way and they don't all exit a trade the same way. some scale in and others go all in, some scale out and others scale out, some prefer to use resting orders (limit orders) on entry and/or exit... and others prefer to act fast and lift offers and hit bids.... and some are simply testing price levels to see what type of activity occurs at that level....and there are floor traders trading the Big S&P contract that sometimes "get out" or flatten using the emini.....plus many others players and styles.
so i guess my point after all that rambling is this....you can never be certain if delta accurately reflects the intention of the big players. and don't forget, then there is the situation where lots of little players can absorb what a few big players are doing and push it the other way. in other words, green delta does not always mean "buying" and ES will go up and red delta does not always mean "selling" with ES going down.
for me, i have to look beyond ES at other market factors to help me determine whether this is the case or not on any given day.
i like this thread a lot, but i just look at things a bit differently.