Tape Reading
- Thread starter trader28
- Start date
Agreed, I pulled up IB's market depth last night (daytime for you) and kept a rough running total in my head for the 5 bid columns and the 5 ask columns and I knew what the price was going to do before it did it. So much for the 1000's of hours screentime Steve reckons you need, maybe he just doesn't have a knack for numbers. Now I use a proprietary set of indicators called Kwikpop which pretty much always keeps you on the right side of a trade but the key to the running total in your head is knowing when to disgard the total, ie: when the trend has changed, Kwikpop certainly helps in that regard because it is very momentum based but mostly it is just a feel for the numbers. So I encourage you all to stop listening to people (me included) and just go and do it for yourself
Well Steve T is the superstar, I'm just a small part time trader now. I trade 8-15 hours a week, only mornings and if I take 5k+ for the month I'm satisfied. I'm at the point in my life of taking serious steps to diversify away from trading, particularly day trading.
When I say tape reading, I mean NYSE tape because the Nasdaq Level II Time & Sales is quite different. NYSE tape seems very easy and clear cut comparing to the swinging prints and the 100 share refreshering MMs on Nasdaq. You cannot scalp Nasdaq like NYSE, humans cannot beat computers on that turf. If you think that the tape will be same forever and ever based on the NYSE (like pinabetal says) then you would have been trading Nasdaq stocks instead of NYSE as they move faster and for much bigger moves. I started trading Nasdaq this year with a little bit of success, and I quickly recognized why so many short term traders kept flocking to NYSE. For me, it was more chart intensive, a wider time frame, much less trades and higher risk. I've never actually felt the dear in headlights effect like that before. Not easy at all and it requires full time dedication to transition from NYSE to Naz.
As for the Hybrid, I highly advise people to do searches about this on the web as well as the NYSE website. The Den of Thieves has been sketchy about giving all the details. From what I can gather, the Hybrid is actually NYSE's way to stonewall SEC's Regulation NMS and preserve their racket for few more years while at the same time taking steps to transition toward an electronic NYSE. Tapereaders shouldnt get too excited, the Hybrid has some really shady & f**ked up rules regarding order fills and the 5 cent swipes that take it into specialist auction mode. It seems that through the Hybrid, the specialists can go in and take priority on order fills for themselves/client and then just leave the rest of the electronic orders out to dry. At the same time, they will be much harder to read as the order progs, daytraders, etc will be providing a whole lotta noise through the real time Open Book.
It still remains to be seen how it will turn out but I'm kinda looking forward to seeing the hot homies, energy, steel sectors trade more Nasdaq style. It will make it much easier to just take entry points, set stop loss and targets without the specialist screw.
Hello prey, you're welcomed.
You're naive, arrogant, unexperienced and you probably think you're very smart.
That's a definite death sentence.
I had 30-40 people working for me, when I was 23. I was young, dumb and arrogant and still could succeed in real life business.
I think you're at it, because you are bored. Everything seems to be too easy, you feel like you could put up with challenges far exceeding what you have encountered so far.
But this is not a challenge. there is no way to succeed, nothing that "works" mechanically.
You have to change inwardly and outwardly to become predator instead of prey. And you personally won't, simply because you don't actually need to.
Better go to a jungle survival camp or hitchhike through Africa on a shoestring...
The Tape is the tape. Nasdaq, NYSE, AMEX 5 minute..30 minute..one hour..daily..weekly..monthly.. stocks..futures...well it simply doesn't matter if you know how to read the tape. The tape can be read in ALL markets in all time frames.
I can surely scalp the Nasdaq with just bid/ask size and price and volume, . Don't even need level 2 to scalp it. Nevertheless, many times the moves are bigger but that just means more money if you get the direction right.
Tape reading can certainly help get the direction right in all markets in all time frames.
The tape doesn't lie! That is probally why Gann called his book "The Truth of the Stock Market Tape.
Just the charts for the time frame involved along with volume. A simple bar chart with open close and obviousley the range and volume. Just have to know how to interpret what you see on a bar chart and how to correlate that with volume to get a view on where price will most likely go next. It's not 100% but I can tell you this it is right enough to make some jack.