TAPE READING (chat room cont.)

[FastandFurious]

Quote from Steve Tvardek:

Yes, I trade intraday and mostly scalp.

I am scalping as well, and as we both know, the market open, and market close are the times where we mostly make our money exlcuding news during the day, etc...though Marv's posts are important, and are the fundamentals of tape reading but I don't see how identifying a buyer, seller for scalping is applicable as many here make it to be. Please do correct me if I am wrong but we both use the open book, and I just go to sizes and look for market shorts for a few cents here and there. Though Marv's posts are the foundation of major movements/trends throughout the day, and if size is posted in the openbook, the buyer/seller is almost done not to mention a buyer/seller usually takes days to complete a big order where we hardly see any size appear in the openbook.

what's your take? Do you do position trade during middle of the day?

 

[FastandFurious]

Quote from Imagine:

I hope I don't kill this thread with the following, but I found it very interesting.

On Tuesday, I was "watching" a stock, where on the bid sat one MM ( QUIN ) soaking up everything in site. The WHOLE DAY.

The price movement wasn't much - up and down and in a farily constant range. Just by my observation, I think a fairly accurate guess is that QUIN bought up 80% of the days volume. He was the first on the BID the whole damn day.

Thus, I assumed he was either accummulating or covering. I have no idea how to tell if someone is covering. The stock closed down for the day, but most of the down movement was done in the first half hour of trading where QUIN wasn't on the bid.

All the other MM's did not try and outbid him for the most part, and the stock never broke out. I was amazed that so much volume could be soaked up by one MM without a challenge and without having him pay more due to his aggressiveness.

Anyways, yesterday the stock tanks - QUIN no where to be seen.

stock was xkem ( which has very positive news of late ) and yes it is an otcbb stock.

Anyone expect a stock to tank again, if this scenario repeats itself?

Could be a buyer and seller at the same time present and maybe that explains the range movement.

The big difference between a buyer/trader is that although they both may have the same size, when a trader covers his position, the stock will likely to go up as the supply is gone whereas a seller will keep stepping down on the offer to accumulate shares. On more of a graphical approach on the charts, traders with sizes will have much more choppy movement, up and down, whereas a seller will have a smooth downward movement.

 

[Steve Tvardek]

I disagree, tape reading (a combo of the old stuff and new stuff) is vital to successfully trading NYSE intraday. Market shorts and "size" are only the tip of the iceberg. These are the easiest setups to find because everyone can see size or a short stepping down. Usually, the best trades, are the ones that I see that arent really showing anything in particular. Maybe few ecns acting funny as well as a random print create a great setup that the avg joe doesnt see. In trading you have to be creative, not just look for big size here and there hoping to figure out what to do.

PS. BY "new stuff" I mean ecn activity and other 3rd market activity. These days, in a lot of what I trade, these markets are now almost leading the NYSE and learning to gauge their motives is key I feel.

Quote from FastandFurious:

I am scalping as well, and as we both know, the market open, and market close are the times where we mostly make our money exlcuding news during the day, etc...though Marv's posts are important, and are the fundamentals of tape reading but I don't see how identifying a buyer, seller for scalping is applicable as many here make it to be. Please do correct me if I am wrong but we both use the open book, and I just go to sizes and look for market shorts for a few cents here and there. Though Marv's posts are the foundation of major movements/trends throughout the day, and if size is posted in the openbook, the buyer/seller is almost done not to mention a buyer/seller usually takes days to complete a big order where we hardly see any size appear in the openbook.

what's your take? Do you do position trade during middle of the day?

 

[FastandFurious]

Quote from Steve Tvardek:

I disagree, tape reading (a combo of the old stuff and new stuff) is vital to successfully trading NYSE intraday. Market shorts and "size" are only the tip of the iceberg. These are the easiest setups to find because everyone can see size or a short stepping down. Usually, the best trades, are the ones that I see that arent really showing anything in particular. Maybe few ecns acting funny as well as a random print create a great setup that the avg joe doesnt see. In trading you have to be creative, not just look for big size here and there hoping to figure out what to do.

PS. BY "new stuff" I mean ecn activity and other 3rd market activity. These days, in a lot of what I trade, these markets are now almost leading the NYSE and learning to gauge their motives is key I feel.

Marv explains that one has to watch the tape from beginning to end. I have a software that looks for size and lists them so I just type the symbols in one after another to see if the short is stepping down. In this sense I really cannot concentrate on one stock to observe the full subtlties...at least not during the first hour...during middle of the day or latter part of the market open, I will have the opportunity to carefully observe them if I catch a buyer/seller coming back to work on their order, but then again, the buyer/seller may be gone to lunch, etc...

 

[Maverick74]

Quote from FastandFurious:

Marv explains that one has to watch the tape from beginning to end. I have a software that looks for size and lists them so I just type the symbols in one after another to see if the short is stepping down. In this sense I really cannot concentrate on one stock to observe the full subtlties...at least not during the first hour...during middle of the day or latter part of the market open, I will have the opportunity to carefully observe them if I catch a buyer/seller coming back to work on their order, but then again, the buyer/seller may be gone to lunch, etc...

That won't work. It's not as simple as looking at size stepping down.

 

[FastandFurious]

Quote from Maverick74:

That won't work. It's not as simple as looking at size stepping down.

right, you have to watch out for many factors include but not limited to: where he prints, size, quotes, refreshes, high/low of the day, double prints, perfect prints, etc...

 

[Bogwaluth]

What would it be as simple as? Tons of people say you just have to keep watching the tape. I do...every day(Mav you are right, it is SUPER boring)

I can see some stuff...but I don't know what it is. My personality has to know what something is. There has to be some sort of basic way of explaining tape reading. People learn by doing and by being taught. Some skills require both. Show me one card player that doesn't know the rules of the game, or a surgeon who just practiced surgery without going to med school.

If something exists, it can't be taught.

Like golf, you learn the fundamentals of the swing, then play golf. Work on fundementals, hit balls, do drills, play golf. Repeat ad nausem. Then one day, your body gets it. Some people have natural talent, others need lessons.

Maverick, if you had to teach this to someone, would you simply say watch the tape? Do you know anyone who can teach it? I can sometimes spot a move, but only a micro random one. Most of the time, I have no idea what is going on.

LOL. At least I get it enough to only lose money to the juice. Man if Gross money was all mine

B

 

[Bogwaluth]

Oh, not to mention. If you know it's going down, how do you gauge distance? Being able to call 2 penny moves all day while neat, will just make you broke. So why would you enter something? What makes you say....hey this guy has more to go.

Most of the big moves I find on the chart are some silly 500 bid stepping up, but then I have no idea when he's gone until he prints below the start of the move

 

[FastandFurious]

Quote from Bogwaluth:

Oh, not to mention. If you know it's going down, how do you gauge distance? Being able to call 2 penny moves all day while neat, will just make you broke. So why would you enter something? What makes you say....hey this guy has more to go.

Most of the big moves I find on the chart are some silly 500 bid stepping up, but then I have no idea when he's gone until he prints below the start of the move

he's gone when the chart goes down a bit. The specialist won't let it go down too far as if he will be pissed if he just bought that much stock and now it's 2 or 3 dimes lower...

when the bid prints, the stock does down,
when the offer prints, stock goes up,

this is logically as if the offer would only print if someone where to receive it, and that reciver is the buyer, the more buyer, the more stock will go up because of more demand and less supply

 

[chud]

Quote from Steve Tvardek:



PS. BY "new stuff" I mean ecn activity and other 3rd market activity. These days, in a lot of what I trade, these markets are now almost leading the NYSE and learning to gauge their motives is key I feel.

Steve, do you watch all the prints that go off on the ECN's? I've been filtering those out and only watching NYSE prints.