Good morning everybody. Can I get a check? Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. Thanks for the check. Good morning everyone. Welcome to the Traders Lab. I'm your host Tom B. I'm the live streaming live 1130 a.m. Eastern Standard Time Monday through Friday. Today is June 15th, 2022 Wednesday and it is FOMC day which means this is a significant day and we have a big situation going on with what will the Fed do regarding raising rates 50 BIPs or 75 of course is the question. The market seems to have baked in a 75 basis point bump and I suspect what we were seeing this morning since the market has been heavily on the sell side was some short covering. However, one never knows when it comes to these events. So let's get going. We're going to take a look at a couple of scenarios that played out this morning which will be something that we talk about in the Trader Lab and two opportunities both of which did not reach their objectives. This is to keep it real because that's the real world of trading so we'll talk about those. General disclosure all book maps, limited materials, information and presentations are for educational purposes only and should not be considered specific investment advice or recommendations. Live trading is in simulation demo paper trading mode and strictly for educational purposes. Live trading executed in simulation cannot accurately represent realistic trading performance. Risk disclosure trading futures equities and digital currencies involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors and investor could potentially lose all or more than the initial investment. Risk capital is money that can be lost without jeopardizing one's financial security or lifestyle. Only risk capital should be used for trading and only those with sufficient risk capital should consider trading. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results and as I always do I give a brief overview of what we are attempting to do so please bear with it and it never hurts to get refocused on the process that we use here in the Trader Lab and I'm going to invite all of you who are in YouTube if you haven't done it yet to come to the Bookmap Discord Traders Lab chat where you can interact with other traders and the whole focus of that chat is for the collective growth we have traders in there who have 50 years experience down to newbies and it isn't so much down to we all started out as a newbie but maybe with a little guidance our learning curve might have been shorter. The basis of the approach is auction market theory you already practice it if you ever shop that is buying something when it's on sale when you perceive the prices below value you buy more when you perceive the prices too expensive you back away and you don't buy it and then the sellers of that product need to lower the price back down to create the volume or the interaction of the retail behavior that creates volume so they can get the highest volume and make their net and that interaction is represented in the auction that is the behavior and we can see it using a tool called the Market Volume Profile Volume Profile is very simple in the sense it represents price and volume at any specific price point in the auction this behavior takes place in all timeframes so we can align with higher timeframes with the same process using more micro timeframes to potentially engage or execute in the market and that is one of the things we'll be evaluating and observing this interaction of multiple timeframes but this is not about scalping this is about potentially finding locations to take advantage of higher timeframe interaction and it is in the higher timeframe swings and you have to define higher timeframe per your view of timeframe and swings so for example if you're a day trader that is one thing but there are many swings in the market subject to the context context is something that most of us take a while to get our head around for example we can be in a downtrend but the market can be rotational the process of trading the downtrend is different than trading the rotations inside the downtrend so not only is this about the short term fractals but it's also about the alignment potentially inside of different timeframes it can be confusing I understand but we all start out initiating a trade in the shortest timeframe subject to the overall higher timeframe we're intending to trade it a little confusing but on the other side of that it is the individual trader who can create the plan for their own psychological alignment relative to their account side risk etc and that is something that the individual decides the objective I have is to show you ways you might be able to incorporate that create a plan and my approach here is to share what I perceive to be the minimum potential or structures to operate with and then it's up to each trader to expand upon that once they have a basic understanding of market mechanics this is not indicator based this is behavioral so it's the interaction of the participants in the market not a backwards looking indicator I don't use indicators now that's not saying anyone should or shouldn't but I find if I'm looking at a rear view mirror I'm not seeing what's right in front of me and book map is the tool it's an order flow tool that allows us to see inside the micro structures and for me that tool has helped me better identify and create actionable scenarios in shorter term timeframes when I perceive an opportunity for alignment and that includes things like stops icebergs order flow volume delta things of this nature and there's much more but for our purposes I'm going to keep it to a basic level so you can see how order flow tools might have a place in your plan and that's also up to each individual that's our process so I hope that makes sense also please grab a pen and a piece of paper please take notes you're investing your time so please get the most out of it if you find value and again for those of you who are new I invite you to join the book map discord traders lab chat to interact with other traders and leverage the experience of all these diverse traders with diverse approaches the only thing we ask is when you do have quote an opinion that it is based on some kind of support so we can all grow from it and that's the purpose of the collective so you're invited and in addition book map offers free education how to use order flow futures stocks options crypto and that's all free you don't even need to be a subscriber and nobody will solicit you any kind of nonsense so you can come in check it out in addition in the trader lab discord chat pin to the top there are downloads of some of the structures we're going to be observing here in real time and you'll are in you know that's available to you there's about 80 different configurations in meticulously detailed charts of some of this phenomena interesting and you may incorporate into your process if you see value in it and there's also a basic introductory webinar that I did that's also pinned to the top of the traders lab chat that you might want to take a look at it is basically a primer on how to integrate these tools auction market theory volume profile you don't have to spend your life trying to figure these things out there's no reason to make something that can be simple into complexity complexity obscures so we try to stay away from that anyway hope you find that useful and again welcome to the traders lab so let's take a look at what's going on now I'm going to share with you two opportunities that did not work out today so I hope you're going to enjoy that as much as we did now let me find the first one now we have something and it's in the traders lab I think it was let me just make sure I have this the right one yes and we call it the IB failure now there's a couple things about this and here's the reasoning behind it the nature of this trade and what it is it's a mean reversion trade it is basically a long after we have the initial balance taken out now so you guys who don't know the initial balance is the first hour of RTH high or low and it is called the initial balance it's a volume profile market profile term ok so this is the IB low now let's put the context together before this we open and we're above yesterday's value area high value area high is where the volume took place and based on statistics where this 70% is is called where most of this volume transacted is kind of what's called the value area and that's where there was acceptance of the price yesterday so we opened above it here so we open out of value ok yesterday's high was here now in the previous streams I have mentioned that the market was heavily short and that there was a potential and we don't know of course because we know we don't know and write that down it's all about potential and trading isn't it there's no certainty the best you have is maybe please write that down now you may think you can quote predict the market I think we all think there's no point in our career but I have a philosophy that if I keep my mind in the I know I don't know I can better respond to what might be demonstrated because it isn't up to me it's up to the interaction of the participants so that's just something I've needed to do so I don't become myopic that's it so you might consider that and again it's not what I do it's what you might find from your own experience or you still need to have experiences in your experience of course will be different than mine so we open above we're outside of value now we're inside a range but the market is saying it is out of balance so when we're out of balance there's a few things that can happen we can come back in and check so potential mean reversion come back or we can continue higher etc right so let's take a look so yesterday is high we know there's potentially stops up there so off we go you know and this becomes wherever it is right up in here the high around 3800 so now we don't know now I have a couple levels up here which I have marked previously and these are called high volume areas it's around 90 let me see where this one is 97 quarter to like 3800 so those are areas that are left behind that might be again might be material but I don't know this so I don't want you to think I'm clairvoyant because look nobody is but I know those areas meant something and what they represent is in the today in other words let yesterday and the day before so Monday Tuesday I draw what's called a micro composite in other words I combine those two days to look at the volume because they're overlapping so that interaction is the beginning of a potential consolidation since they're overlapping and since I'm trading inside of the previous days range that's important so I want to see where these levels are and this micro and we call them a micro composite this level micro composite high volume node was like one of these this is a consolidation and it took place on the high side of this overlapping two days it looks like this except it was in the two days so this high volume again looks like this this is not it I mark it on the chart and it's called a micro composite high volume node and it is basically remember the auction not too low I like that I'm buying them on sale up here oh boy that's too expensive I'm not paying that let's agree on this price let's do volume in here remember retail we all like this price until we don't and then we go you know let's just go check someplace else can we go an auction elsewhere and this is the nature of the auction in all time frames but over the last two days this was an area we had left behind and it's represented by this high volume node in that two day overlapping consolidation is that makes sense is everybody following me MD I do use the ETH for levels because that's the most recent auction in fact that's one of the reasons that I took some trades here that I'm going to discuss with you Carmo trades the difference between a micro composite high volume node in a composite high volume node is time frame the composite high volume node takes all the volume in that is ever traded here period all of it okay and currently since I'm bringing in volume from January 2020 and the lower we go and we start overlapping you know depending where we go here of course 2020 2019 I'll be pulling in all the volume and it's going to identify these areas it's coincidental but the fact that this was here and now this is new this was just created yesterday but they're in alignment again I don't you know I have no idea you know to me it's interesting but the most recent auction is where I give priority so this has been hanging out you know since we were here last time and it will move slightly as the volume changes but this is current this happened yesterday when we had the overlap so this is a new so as we unfold the story I kind of look at it in what's the most recent so if you kind of prioritize these things we have yesterday's RTH then we have the ETH which is the most recent behavior and auction and then as RTH which is today's trade starts developing then it supersedes the ETH but the ETH is my most current auction that I can try to lean against and that's what I did and you'll see that we took a couple of opportunities that didn't play out and that's life in the fast lane so I want to show you those because it's not about what also works it's just the nature of a trade and I hope you guys understand the outcome of any one trade is random it's really about following a trade plan and then whatever happens happens so I can't pick the high of the day haven't figured that one out yet but I do know the potential for behavior so I saw this now I'm not going to talk about earlier trades because I want to show you what didn't work it's easy to show you what works but I want to show you just two trades that didn't work I think it's just as important in fact I think it's more important because I want you to see I do not cherry pick these things I just trade potential and that's all we got in the market right so here's the potential we have a thing that we observe a trade and it's documented in the trader lab if you guys are interested if you haven't downloaded I have about 80 PDFs of different trades that we regularly observe and document in the trader lab and you're all invited if you haven't done it go to the discord trader lab and download these PDFs they're pinned to the top you can all have them give you something to chew on over the weekend if you want to hear in where I am it's going to be 100 degrees this is a good day to do research after the market or water your tulips so I want to show you this the trade is called anybody anybody have a question by the way before I move on I just want to make sure I don't want to forget everything okay alright it's calm that's interesting okay this is called the IBF and I didn't know what to call it but let me tell you again I gave you a little background why why I would go long when we're making a low of the day okay at the time the reason is I'm out of value I have shorts in here and this is a mean reversion trade and it is subject to context remember context and there's other times depending on context where I would be looking to get short and I did actually after this one didn't work and that one didn't work either so you're going to go well okay the reality of it is this is trading so let's take a look at this I'm going to show you what's going on so if we anticipate that this is a stop flush and we see icebergs this is a iceberg detector this is our stop detector 320 cell stops under the low of the day which is what this is this is the first hour low remember so and that happens at 930 central time 1030 easter so that low wherever that was was created back here someplace I hope should be over here so and that first hour does not lock in until 930 central 1030 eastern okay so this was the low and that creates the first hour low so I hope you guys are with me so we went all the way up to that micro composite high volume node CHVN up above and we failed off of there so that looked to me like that might be the high end of the day and at the time I don't know and when we come back into yesterday's range okay look to me like well maybe we're going to flush these guys but since we're out of value we can now come back in after we take these guys out is that logical that is called the IB failure so it's a trade we you know look at back here so here's the initial balance based on the early low and this is the first line so I guess you guys are with me now is everybody tracking just want to make sure we're in alignment okay because this is the real world we got to be real right so be nice every trade work but you know let's be real they don't so but here's the trade here so we have a couple of things context right so this is a long in the goal of the long if the potential is and remember the context we're out of balance okay so it's rotational once we get the stops if we have exhaustion then we have the potential to come back inside okay that's the that's why and that's the basis of this potential trade so let's look where does everybody keep their stops initially under the low of the day if you're long right that's the idea so here we have it okay iceberg stops you know and now here's another thing I like to look at let me try to get this lined up now you know I like to look at micro volume so here's what I'm looking at this is a consolidation so we break out we take out those longs long early remember run to the first hour low of the day initial balance low okay and we take it out chop chop so here's the stops here's the stops so this becomes now you notice we run through the stops and then we consolidate so I'm looking now and I don't know because nobody does are we going to come back inside well maybe right so I'm looking here and I might trigger on this is just me as I'm looking at this volume here because that's let's remember auction market theory too low other words low oh it's on sale I'm not paying that it's on sale now I'm not paying that this is a micro auction market theory that's too high I'm not going to pay that sellers at the I below I like this price and and iceberg right there iceberg buying so a little obscured 500 icebergs huh that's interesting I see the book coming up that's interesting this is now how I'm using book map it's subtle but I'm at a location remember it's the context up the location stop pick under here the book the liquidity changing in the icebergs I have a confluence and this liquidity taken on and not coming back in the book so can you see these pieces so I have a number of pieces it becomes along and here it was along for me right here lovely so then the next job is what scale so then my entry is from here stop goes under the low and that's around my three range which is kind of my comfort area so if I'm using and I'm but I'm going to be quoting so you guys know is I'm building this on a two lot process and the reason for that is that as retail traders in my view and I have to say it's not a recommendation it's just a viewpoint you need to focus on risk management first in other words the scale so it's a two contract process the first contract's goal is to pay for your stop now if a trade fails you take a full stop that's life in the fast lane however if you get risk neutral which means after you achieve your first scale you now have purchased the ticket to ride and then the next objective is the target based on the potential of the trade which does have targets and those targets are based on retail trader behavior is everybody aligned so far the long is right here so whatever time that is 956 ish central so 1056 eastern standard so right there okay you can see it on the chart I hope now look at the pieces icebergs sellers at 3779 the book the location the potential behavior aligned with the context out of value from yesterday so you need to think of in the pieces do the pieces support the context so it's a long and if you're risking three you got so 70 scale if it's three points three and a half now risk neutral now here's the targets VWOP mid are the primary targets for this trade so we got a scale and then what no bueno this is called almost but no cigar the trade fails under the structure so in the worst that would happen is your broker send you to gift basket okay trade fails now so far and I have to say so good because this is real I mean the sense of the real world is everybody see it the brother that is the trade Marcus if the structure fails that you initiate the trade on at least for me and I'm saying is you got to do what you do then you know you just have to kind these are ideas and you know you know you may have a better idea that's the idea of the trader lab Jenny it failed when it came back that's all didn't get to its target that's just and I'm showing you I'm not discussing trade management I'm discussing what I consider minimum parameters after that it's up to each individual to build you know so this is not a trade plan I am showing you fractals how to potentially initiate how to get risk neutral based on a two lot and that's it after that you know this is not a quote trading course this is an attempt to show you some processes and then each individual develops a trade plan if this is useful you know you kind of wrap a plan around this trade management is a function of time frame you know so I mean depending on how you look at this you might have been out here you know this is a short by the way trigger right here so this right here is a short so do you exit on the trigger you see that's a matter of your trade plan so I'm not discussing that I'm discussing initiation I'm discussing potential behavior risk management and then trade management is a function of time frame so that's an individual thing if you're trading a higher time frame then you would not be if you were bullish for some reason which I'm not the which doesn't matter what I am because we're going to have the Fed that may change everything but in the developing time frame this was a long and it's strictly mean reversion trade okay so your trade management is your personal process you need to develop that okay what I'm sharing is the trigger the context and where trade fails that has not that is not trade management I hope that clarifies it a little bit okay yes yes yes okay so let's look so this one failed came down took it out again alright now failed means it's a scratch assuming you just held it to the originating structure right that to me is the minimal in other words if you're using no trade management and you're going to sit through the rotations which are also random then that's something you might accept if that's aligned with your trade plan and the way you kind of sort that out is metrics you know you have to keep statistics and that's not part of what I do you guys have to kind of do that for yourself because that's really a personal thing and you have to measure you know the distribution over a large sample size it's not one trade you know one trade is not material in the scheme of things it's a sequence of trades that's kind of how it works okay so let's see other brother I don't think like that I don't know what it's going to do in fact once we get to fed time it's really nothing to do so we'll be in the market will thin out and it's not a tradeable event I don't believe for regular retail traders unless you have a substantial amount of experience and it's actually an isolated process at least it is for me versus the auction and FOMC when you have an input like that that is major across all financial asset classes it's a disrupter so it does not auction it disrupts the auction and then the market depending on what you know how it reacts to it has to reprice for the new input and then the auction can continue but along the way when that input happens it's a disrupter so it's to me the best thing to do for retail traders not participate but then again if you have a trade plan for it then that's your thing you know so this trade failed now so the trade failed so I have another trade I'm going okay we couldn't mean revert when we had the shot so now we come back we fail it becomes a short for me so we come below so it becomes a short so now I'm on the short side this one and this is the stop pick this is how it works chop break below context we couldn't get back in remember and write this down if this then that if not then what if this then that if this then that was that first law and then you know then that is go back potentially mean reversion get the stops if not then what then we break back below the first hours low then what then the potential to come back and check the overnight volume point of control which was the ETH's most accepted price same behavior that we were you know that we did all the way up on the top it's a high volume remember this was our so this is generic so now I'm just turning the ship around and I'm looking to go here overnight volume point of control the most accepted price in ETH and yesterday's value area high which was the reason looking for mean reversion that is logical now whether it works or not that's a whole different issue that's trading so here's the setup and it's not a recommendation so here's how this works chop chop chop our volume is here in this consolidation you can see it here in the profile here you can see it in this little auction and this is really a micro structure but it is going oh it's on sale nah it's too high you know it does this in all fractals so I'm looking inside of this volume in here the one up here is looking inside this volume over here and what this is is the chart volume profile and what it's allowing me to do is isolate the volume for what's on the chart so I'm interested in the structures you see because this is an auction remember you're a shopper well right in here there was a little battle buyers sellers buyers sellers and it creates the volume remember the retail price here then the market can move away from it if it thinks the participants and it's not me I think this price is too high and then it can kind of the shoppers come back in here chop chop chop chop right but look where we are we're under here so that means things remember if this then that if we didn't get back on the main reversion train then what is potential once we take out that low make a new low pull back pick the stops retail trader behavior write this down think like a retail trader don't act like one where do they put their stops above the initial balance low right here thanks for playing and then it becomes a short so that's what this was let's look here's the target here here so those were the target primary targets the goal is the scale you get short in here now I'm not so good I can't get short here why? it's me but I have the volume right in here okay break so this is it this is a triggering structure let's look chop chop I'm watching stop pick and you see the delta the selling so this was buyers with stops that's not long that stops and that's where the stop detector I find very useful I can kind of I don't know what this is right I don't know what this is are these guys getting long well if I see stops then I know those are not initiators though there might be some in there I know it's most of it potentially are buy stops not the same animal but they show up as delta because they're market orders right so this is a short so chop chop chop break high here now so this is a short structure so let's look and you'll see so what's the deal with this well if your stop needs to be here and if you're like me you're going to be getting in around here because me I'm not so good at that I can't pick the high remember so then I have to cover my risk so my risk is from here to here it's about three points which is my comfort so I need a three point scale you see lunchtime chop so I'll get my scale and then this is my target and I know if it gets inside here you know it could go further but I don't know but this is my primary target so everybody's with me right so we had the first long got a scale and failed now I'm not talking risk management if you have a process for that then you would not you know you would have a different outcome than me but I'm only going with what I consider minimum my stop is back over this high and it gets taken out okay so risk neutral that's two scratches and the trade is over okay does everybody see those two now this is pre FOMC you know that it's not a neutral day unless I miss something at least not yet I don't think we didn't take out the high yet did we have that looking nope where are we I'm looking at the NQ I'm not even looking at the ES I'm delirious okay so that is what I have to share with you today now so we had the long at the IB then we had the short off the IB both of those got scales and both of them failed we come back in and I wasn't looking at this one we have the IBF again and that one is getting the target let me go look at it and show it to you as long as it happened now I did not observe this trade because I wasn't watching okay but I want you to see it because it's the same trade so you know what the the way this works it's a mean reversion trade you know how I feel about mean reversion I underline and accentuate the mean because it's hard to find outside edges but I was using context remember for me and it's just my approach this is my primary chassis and it's in multiple time frames so this is the developing daily time frame but I'm aware of the ETH right that's my most recent auction yesterday's RTH and the other aspect is both days overlap so that's kind of a higher intermediate time frame so it's kind of that's the fractal aspect but for me and again it's just one way to look at all this is I'm using the micro time frame to attempt to get in alignment because in the micro time frame I have a better shot at staying in the risk parameters you know that are let's just say retail trader oriented now whether you want to keep your stops way outside or whatever you do that's a that's subject to a trade plan and you vetting metrics what I find is for me again only me personally and it's not a recommendation is that it's structural if a trade fails I don't know why I want to have it you know because if I get picked off and then the trade sets up again and it's just a matter of a random rotation and all of this is random in many ways then I'll go back in on the trade so this we had this trade again so let's go take a look at it and I think it was here so let's go look so long trade didn't get there comes back comes back in chop chop chop so now this is a long again so let's see if we can I want to look and see how this works for you yeah now this is up to you you know and you could see it's kind of flip flopping I feel like a flounder that got dropped on the deck you know because it was a long then it was a short the long both of them scaled so the risk management I think is pretty good you know because that's job number one write this down get risk neutral and you need to get the scale otherwise not so much but the trade is still potentially mean reversion for all the reasons and the thing is we don't know if we fall back out we can hit this and if we come back in then we can do this and it's if this then that if not then what so with this one so this we didn't get you know it's scratched we come back in and now we have this now let me take you back so you can kind of see what it looks like and this is not easy I'm not saying you know and these are not trade recommendations it's oscillating in here chop chop okay I have this volume here let me show it to you a consolidation under this IB right so let's look this is an auction right chop chop chop chop chop chop I call it chop chop right because it's a auction and the real term for auction or and it looks like this you know too low by too low what it means is the buyers like this which you know that's life right that's was our short we don't know it at the time and they hear the seller said too high and it creates remember retail trader where the interaction of price and volume is is located right here now at the time you don't know you know because we're sitting short remember so until it breaks up out of this consolidation it's still a short but the volume is here so the assumption at the time is we can pull back to the volume and then continue down but so it's if this then that if not then what so let's look boom it breaks above that's why the trade was over right see this is your structure on that short this is right bang scale bang breaks above so now this becomes a long triggering structure so now and again you know it's like I don't know so here we have a new structure right in here now we're auctioning above this volume and this is the key right here now I understand this is minutia I don't anticipate you're gonna you're gonna go this is crazy or I don't know and I'm gonna tell you I don't know either well all I can do is read it and try to interpret it and like everybody else I get it wrong all the time you know that's trading you know but I'm attempting to read what the participants are saying it's not what I think I took a long I got a scale I scratched I took the short I got a scale I scratched so I know there's kind of a conflict or a fight going on I still know the market short and I know if I can get back inside my trade which is mean reversion is still on the table I just don't know right so I don't know now what do I see here so I rejected this I tested the volume this is my heads up I cannot initiate here because you know I'm looking for the short right so the shortest I think was over here no love rejected it now I'm coming back from the other side I can't sell it I don't know what to do right except I still have the potential now for all the shorts that are in here to get squeezed which is the mean reversion trade so I just hope you see so here I come back above the IB this is my IBF again right here the stop has to be under here so long and the stop has to be under here or long so you'll be long in here kind of back where we were before but now you have structure and you're hiding under here so now what's the job scale and where's the targets VWOP mid that why retail trader behavior stops it's nasty that's trading and this is your target right here does anybody have a question ES long impulse ES long impulse check context check context so you know what can I tell you life in the fast lane it's just the way it is you know Jenny the thing power I don't know if you're thinking right or wrong with it's a function of statistics you know if you want to run three three lot that's up to you you know but you got to look at it if you take the full stop how does that work against running a three lot and scaling the first two you know the only way you do that is you start you keep metrics I personally don't have an opinion it's not for me to have one because it's really psychological you know how do you lay out a sequence for example if you're running a three lot now you've got more risk right so your scale depending how you portion out the scaling what is the probabilities of your scales and targets I know I don't know but let's say the potential in this setup if we want to even call it that and I'm not even saying it's just observation and I have these observations pinned to the top of the bookmap discord traders lab and everybody is welcome to download their PDFs they have all kinds of examples of this this phenomena or behavior and this is based on auction behavior and retail trader behavior so there's a consistent process involved here whether anything works is statistical you know because that's trading and we really need statistics I believe in order to dance with the market because all these trades are random right it's just what happens over a large sample size not what happens in the micro you know in the short term because you can be doing trades that you know have a positive expectancy and there's days when you do those trades and you want to hit yourself with a two by four but it has nothing to do with you it really just has to do with the random distribution of outcomes hard for us to take because of our emotional attachment to being right and all the other and our attachment to dollars you know but that's the real world of trading and it's a different mindset so this is the long you get your scale this is the target here you know and this shifted here otherwise this would be the target but because it shifted then we have so you guys understand what this is this is a distribution this whole thing here this is where so what we did this morning we auctioned this remember that's what created this high volume node which is represented by this here this was the volume point of control earlier and that's and we label that come on TB let's go and we call that a variable high volume node that's what I call it I didn't know what to call it so I made that up because I want to track and what it does it just helps me see where the market at some point said this is fair this is that same auction I'm talking about it's on sale it's too high it's on sale it's too high it's on sale that's too high I'm not paying this gee I'm gonna buy I'm gonna buy three I'm not paying this let's do retail over here interaction of price and volume everybody's happy until we change our mind and we say I'm gonna come down here what does the market have the potential to do it may never come back here it may only come up into this area where it separates for stops or it may come back and check this price again I don't know so I don't the fact I don't know is okay because I never know anyway here's what I do know retail trader behavior think like a retail trader don't act like one so what do retail traders do think about it run their stops behind the mid in the VWOP and sell the mid in the VWOP so where's my target ahead of their potential behavior so let's look I don't know what happened here because I'm paying attention see this you see what that is right there first of all our target is in front of this right so done this is retail trader behavior see these guys remember what we used to do when I say we it's me too we would we'd say oh it's coming to the VWOP that's my setup and it might be I don't know so I don't know see the point is I know I don't know but I know their behavior so let's look you got iceberg selling the VWOP everybody knows about the VWOP it's the the most unkept secret on the planet and we do have a setup by the way which is not material in this context called VWOP the VWOP that's a different conversation you can see that one in the downloads but in this context it's not on the table because we are in balance so where's the next target here now I'm done I have no I don't care and the reason the point is don't care because we could have just come up into here and then come back to here I mean and again I know I don't know so I take what I consider primary targets so this is the next target and this is the next target in this observation that we're sharing there's three targets in the IBF I don't necessarily take the third one unless I'm in the mood and I'm more interested in high probability if there is such a thing in trading and the high probability is retail trader behavior so it's VWOP mid and this is the long ball this is what I consider the outside edge it's a developing value area and it's an alignment with the variable high volume node price check in aisle three this is the next target area remember area so if I'm up here and I see a sell trigger I could be out of it up here this would be if you were running three okay not a recommendation just give me a sense everybody understand the IBF that's right Jim you're not Jim is saying with the three lot you're not risk neutral if you scale out one at one R no you're not you have to have a if you're taking one off with three so let's just say you're risking nine points on the three lot you really need to get something you know close to nine to get neutral or you take one off at maybe four take another one off you know and you go to a target or you stretch for the next probability that's something that is metric driven I'm really showing behavior you know I think what everyone and this is where trade plan comes in it's a personal thing and it's really become statistical it's not anything more if I can share with you my objective with the trader lab was to kind of give you an idea how to read it you know market mechanics potential behaviors triggering mechanisms and then overlapping multiple timeframes that was the purpose of the trader lab the other part of the trader lab is the collective interaction of our participants to research these things and to come up with statistics and ideas on some of the things you know as you mentioned how do you manage the trade and the risk on if you're running a sequence of like a three or four lot you know or more you know and a lot of that's a function of range in time frame you know so there's a number of elements so I kind of think of it as I'm kind of working the minimum and that's why I kind of came up with the idea of a two lot so that newer traders would have a basis to build something on so I'm kind of attempting to give a foundation you know share a foundation anyway and it's not a recommendation and this is for everybody this is not a recommendation of how anybody should do anything but if you can understand aspects of market behavior and see some tools that might differentiate and some thinking that might help you differentiate results from other retail traders that may be a benefit to the trading community but then we all each individual has to create a trade plan and that should be driven on statistics so for me I'm really looking at it as a minimum you know what is the minimum configuration and that's kind of how I look at it so that's just me and I hope that's it but I can't go beyond that because then everything else is kind of a subject to the individuals context how they play so for me the minimum structure this is the target next target as you know the minimum configuration is really a two lot because it's like building blocks so if you configure risk neutral first your first contract buys you the ticket to ride and then it's the target and what target then you need statistics you would all these IBFs you know you can see why if you're running two you know two reasonable targets so you have a risk-reward ratio that justifies taking the risk and you can get risk neutral so we had two trades earlier both of them got taken out assuming you did nothing to manage the trade and they scratched for me that's a winning trade you know because what I got was the opportunity to interact with let's say opportunity in the market and I bought my ticket I paid for my ticket and here's the target see it here so in the IBF there's three targets really and it depends on the sequence whatever comes first so when this was put on VWAP mid and if VWAP and mid I think they're overlapping aren't they yeah that's balanced by the way write that down guys when your VWAP and mid are aligned that isn't often an indication of balance balance is another term for two way trade two sides okay so two sides are active today you know the higher time frame is kind of in park they're already in their positions we're waiting on the Fed right and this is just going to the volume is going to die out and we're going to hang out but we can still see auction market theory on display here so this is the auction the developing value area high and the developing value area low remember value area yesterday's value area 70% of the volume that's why I was on the short to come back to check this which you know didn't happen okay now we come back inside which was the long off of here now this is the developing value area in other words inner day this is developing it's not fixed right it's moving around 70% of the volume so far today is in the here developing value area high developing value area low and inside of this is what's considered fair well if this is unfair down here and we didn't get here then maybe we're going to revert and if we come back here which is the long then we have the potential to come all the way back here and then this here is our most so we have this is a developing level 70% of the volume and it tapers going up so there's less volume and this is an artifact so this is a price check in aisle 3 coming back to these retail guys right does it make sense can you see the pieces and this is the target I think that's pretty good what do you guys think? Darrell the three targets are just a potential you know the thing is and everybody should always remember we know we don't know so you know for me if I'm running the twos I'm done here because we have no idea if it'll get to the next time I mean this is the random distribution of outcomes right I have alignment though this and we know about price check in aisle 3 and this if you guys download the PDFs it's called the IBF and I've got a lot of examples of them they work by the way from both sides I mean and if you have range extension which means take out the IB high take out the IB low you get IBFs coming and going you can be doing it from the bottom up and if we take out the high of the day after the first hour assuming we're in balance remember context most confusing thing in this I think then you would be short coming back inside from both sides so it's really an interesting trade but it's not the easiest thing in the world because it's counter trend I mean it's a mean reversion which is kind of counter trend so it's an outside in versus inside out trade and I think it's a harder trade because I just think if we see the market going down the last thing many of us think about is trying to fade it so it's different it might not be the first thing you want to play with but you can get examples of this in descriptions of it if you go to the book map I never can remember how to say this the book map discord chat room and go to the traders lab chat and there's a bunch of PDFs pinned up there plus a introductory video that kind of goes over or a webinar I should say that goes over auction market theory volume profile and has examples but if you come here every day you'll see it in real time we haven't had an IBF I don't think lately so I wanted to focus on these today now there were other trades today but there's no point I just want to show you something specific and I didn't know it was going to set up again the third time and do its thing see that's the random idea of trading because we don't know so it did its thing which is kind of nice but in the meantime we had two scratches and this one got to target so I'm considering that a victory maybe any questions on this well power you'd be if you're running taking two off and then holding one but what about your risk you have tripled the risk how does that work you see that's the part that and I'm not saying it doesn't work just put this get due to statistics and just show it to to yourself you know yeah Jenny it's you know this is really just I think gives a lot of insight on how to understand market mechanics you know we all grow up on indicators and you don't learn anything off an indicator you're kind of well first of all it's backwards looking so it's like driving down the expressway you know or we call them a turn pike in the old days you know at 80 miles an hour being on the on driving looking through your every mirror I don't think that's for me that doesn't work so good so with this I can look at the behavior and understand market behavior it's market mechanics it's not indicators in my opinion so I'm just really using market mechanics and structure all the structures we see here in the behavior which we can see with some of these tools you know this is stops this behavior we can use this if we understand what creates it and that's the market mechanics we can also use the market mechanics to see potential triggering structures based on and that's the thing about understanding auction market theory and consolidations you know and then we're looking for behavior you know it's just a confluence of pieces and then we take our risk and we you know things work or they don't you take a stop and it's a trade this is what I've come to you know accept in randomness is part of trading because you don't know so that's why you got to keep statistics trade journal things in that nature now do you notice what we're doing here by the way so what is this potentially back in where mean reversion not a recommendation but you can see it right see where'd we go here chop chop micro structure potential short right here where to here but you guys understand this right I mean if you don't I understand you don't understand but do you understand it right here what this all means let's put the pieces together we're in balance two-sided we came back in mean reversion it's to squeeze the theory this is a primary objective see the retail behavior we also have a set up which is not qualified view up to V pock why the next target in the I B F is this and because we had this see I'm putting pieces together price check in aisle three remember in the supermarket right so what do we do chop chop this is our trigger structure break high target isn't that interesting close to the V H V N remember this is trading there's no precision it's like a horseshoes and hand grenades break low trigger pull back to where the structure short target here I don't know is that and then what here why retail trader behavior we're taking advantage of their behavior let's see if it gets to the next target now we're going to go into fed time you know so we're going to be in park here will be chatting and visiting will be having a pina colada together or margaritas you know whatever your thing is for me it'll be ice water but yes can you see this yes does everybody see what this is now I know we haven't discussed this but I want you to think like in the auction we came up this is our recent price price check in aisle three we and here's what this says this was the fair price we moved away from it the volume now took place here the volume point of control shifts down it says at the moment this is too high that's what the market is speaking now remember the market can come back and revisit a price that it liked before and go is this still too high and what it did here it came up to our parameters it came into what's called that low volume node is the outside edge so this is all this alignment right we have a triggering structure then what where are the stops yes here what's mean reversion mean reversion is back to the retail price then what where the stops here that's the straight from and you'd be in here you know doable if it fits your risk plan scale helmet and we could now you got stops under here you got the stops under the IB think like a retail trader so this is the next target are you guys following yeah Jim you know what is it's understanding what might happen in the area there's no precision it's just a matter of watching it the thing with the three lot you know we're talking about stats that's really the hardest part I think in doing this is the patients to go and accumulate the data because the thing is to develop confidence if you don't have statistics you're always going to be changing it so the statistics and my I always use an analogy and I apologize if you've heard it a bazillion times but I know there's many of you that kind of are transient you know you come in you hang out you visit you leave you know whatever which is all fine but the thing is that the statistics are important think like a casino I mean let's just think like a casino for a moment and I always use this analogy blackjack and I'm making numbers up so don't come after me with the machete let's say they get 6% net over the year what they don't know is the distribution of the iterations of individual hands that are played at the blackjack table or the size of the bets things of that nature so there's going to be people who come in there bring the suitcase with 100,000 and leave it there that's a good day for them there's other people come in and walk out with 100,000 not so good it's a random distribution but because they know at the end of the year they get 6% they don't go change the game every time somebody walks out with a big win because they know over a large sample size it's just part of a distribution in trading we're in the same business we need an edge so you need to determine how you get that edge and it really doesn't matter as long as you have the metrics I mean we all you may think that you need to trade a 3-lot, 4-lot, 5-lot whatever it is how about maybe you don't maybe you need you just need a 2-lot and if you have high metrics based on a plan you trade 2 and 2 3 and 3, 4 and 4 5 and 5 I'm not saying that should be your plan I'm saying is if you have however you can slice and dice the metrics now the thing to understand about this process it works in all time frames you remember and I don't know if I have this chart available I want to see if I can show you some I just want to show you a higher time frame in the same process I hope this works and I don't make trouble because if I try to open something up here the thing can really get nasty here let me turn this around so you know this trade is short and we're going back to the IB we don't have to look at that for a moment I just want to show you that was an improvement let's try that again now this is the same process in a higher time frame this was last Thursday if you guys remember this is higher time frame same process this is just like your price check in aisle 3 that we just looked at in the developing time frame remember the VHVN we were just looking at this is a consolidation of all these days before we broke out on Thursday okay we were leaning against this in the higher time frame for selling there was no longs if you guys remember you were following the stream last Thursday this was the shorts short short short and you remember I was trying to get outside I think I had two stops you know in theory because we were just narrating they weren't we don't call trades here but this was where we were shorting and we were selling it was rotational until it broke out once it broke out then we were short around 85 here to here all the way same process to a high volume note this is what I call a micro composite volume point of control this is the high volume in these consolidations all we're doing is the same thing in fractals which means micro time frame with those little consolidations with the little of high volume this is the same process so we are trading inside higher time frame so for those of you who want to hire time frame you still got to initiate and lean on something so all we're doing is attempting to trade and this is what I call fractals trading inside out so I just want you to see it's the same process so from here to here or in mean reversion if we're down here if it was like today it was the return to it or in this case the return to it in this case the return to it the return to it now there's more here because I haven't filtered this one out to get the primary ones like this one is it is now but it wasn't at the time because I was working from this to this anyway I just want to show you this is the world of fractal you know think of those little Russian dolls you know that's kind of what this is in many ways so see we hit our target price check too high if this then that if not then what if we don't cut here what is it saying too high where our retail stops the longs have their stops under here that's why this is the target and then after that doesn't matter it can still go down it can do anything forget we have FOMC so I think the market's gonna pretty much get tired here but there's stops under here so this is why this is the next target is everybody tracking VHVN is just like that V-PAC I showed you that in the higher time frame okay that's what this is in a micro time frame same thing is that other structure I just showed you let me just show you again that VHVN is like this except here this is an intermediate time frame so that's why this process I think is very learnable and transportable into time different time frames this is like that other one this is the current volume point of control this is considered the fairest price but we are rotating around it too high where's the fuel here retail trader behavior so I trade into what these guys because I can rely on them and I want to try to use where their stops are as targets so I want to be on the other side does that make sense just me yeah I like that handle P-shooter P-shooter the two lot has been great strategy works for your plan in your brain yeah your heart rate you know the point of the scale I have found is the psychology around it besides the risk management you know because it allows you in my opinion to calm and when you don't if you're trading a one lot I think you're always on the edge of your seat and your FOMO and your fear is triggered continual you know the fight or flight so how do you calm that noise down well I you know the scale really psychologically I think it's pretty important so what's the price is it worth paying a full stop in exchange for the ability to calm yourself and hold the trade through counter rotations to your potential target kind of a question but I think the psychological noise that roaring in your head that says move your stop bail out it I'm gonna get you know all that crazy and understand where the crazy comes from this is the next target we just got it where the where the crazy comes from is that you're wired you know not to step in front of the bus your brain doesn't know that this is intentional it's still going to trigger those chemicals that swamp your logic right so this trade is done unless you're trading more contracts I'm okay with this one what about you right wasn't this our our entry up here right chop chop chop break high break low trigger retracement to the micro high volume node right there see it that's your short bang stop up here once we break down you can move your stop if you want or just tuck it you know to wherever you want it to go up to you and now here if you're running more we're back to this same trade we were on before remember we were trying to get to the overnight volume point of control it's like turning the anchor around and trading the context and the thing about trading like this is we don't know so I'm okay with not knowing I know I don't know so I've accepted that I don't I get annoyed I have emotional responses when I you know take a stop and I do or I get a scale and then the trade comes out and takes me out and my job is to keep taking the trades as long as it appears to me that I'm still in alignment the thing about trading is rotations are random you know it's kind of like if you step away from it it looks very logical but what about this stuff or this why this and this is the same short if he didn't take this this right here let me get back here is the same short we tried earlier to go for here you see can you see it's a process in randomness so now so if you're running so for me the primary trade is to here because of stops but it's also the same setup that we took the short that didn't get to the target the first time around remember it was this one over here right didn't get there well now it's the same trade from here back to here rinse repeat it's just you know that's just the way it works I don't know can you guys see what's going on here does it make some sense a process in randomness well the meal I mean it is about randomness it really is and you know you guys I hope a lot of you have taken advantage of the free PDF downloads of all this stuff over in the discord book map not to mention the free education on stocks options you know using different processes using this tool of order flow and you know try to understand looking inside the behavior of the participants I think is valuable you know it is for me I never figured out how to read the dome you know when I started they didn't have a dome when I started you wrote your ticket time stop by hand time stamped it picked up the phone gave the order time stamped it again you got your fill back time stamp you know there's a big ka clunk you know you put it in and it would stamp the date and the time that's how it was done you know so repeat he does a great job so we are rotating in value see this value area high value area low this could be a target but this is statistically a target so we'll see if it gets there now this comes back in the trades over you know but let me give you the but where's the stops under the low retail trader behavior so this is putting this see the fact something doesn't happen one time doesn't mean it it won't happen the next time this is the next target two done you're running three next is this logical and remember we don't know so all you can do is it's maybe at best and then a trade management process because you know the last thing I think you want to do is get within get here and then have it come all the way back on you so but a short from over here I think this is all doable I don't you know this is at least for me it is you know I don't have a problem with this fact I would be pretty happy with it and I wouldn't even be upset about what happened before because there were scratches well two scratches you know a long and a short that paid and I'm only showing you what four trades and you're seeing them in real time so this is not hindsight that's just the way it is this is what I can say this is what I think trading is I don't know if you have anybody else has a different viewpoint of it but this is just kind of what seems to happen you know it's everybody with me on this okay any everybody kind of see the rationale behind all this how about you guys in YouTube part of the rationale for me is retail trader behavior you know kind of what they do because I need I need them for the fuel I need and I know their behavior just think of your behavior because that's you know we all kind of do the same thing and you know at some point so what one of my mantra is think like a retail trader don't act like one so I want to be on the other side of their trades and their behavior because I need them you know I need their stops so that's what this is we're seeing sell stops that's what this is sell stops sell stops so I want to watch for exhaustion in their stops that's an indicator to me of behavior I may want to be watching down in here see the book see the algos and if I see a buy trigger I might want to bail out subject to your trade plan watch this right here see this let's watch this this could be a trigger and I don't have an issue if I get out here and then it goes to here you know I I'm not going to pull the gun out and abuse myself with it I I don't it I'm past the point of holding myself to a point of precision because I've accepted there's no precision at best it's maybe remember we didn't hit this we got close to it we got here which is the next target well it could have gone here and it could have even taken out the high of the day right all that is possible so I don't I know that now this could be a reversal right here do I I could be out right here and be done with it it doesn't matter does it I mean when anybody be terribly upset being short from wherever it was I think it was here you know 82 call it to like 65 I'm good yeah repeat if you can't see the chart let me give you the YouTube link the scream the stream you know is real time in discord but it fills up we got room for a hundred and so if you're in the stream come on over to YouTube there's a 15 second delay and I invite all of you over in YouTube to come over to the book map discord trader lab chat because it's real time over there and there's a huge well let's just say a large crew of traders with all kinds of experience and it the idea behind it when I thought about doing this was that we have a collective and that we can you know leverage right leverage our collective experiences data mining all that other stuff for the benefit of everybody the only thing is if you have an opinion it needs to be based on some kind of material fact verses I just believe such and such based on you know nothing because it's about real trading you know the real world of trading and we all face the same difficulties and challenges nobody's immune from this there's no exception we all go through the same track and we all create beliefs that we bring from the outside world the trading that don't fit in trading and we don't know that because nobody tells us you know nobody shares the real world the trading we get a piece of software we open it up they got all these indicators oh my goodness let me try this one oh my let me put this and this one the second one oh gee I want I'll do this indicator in the 15 minute chart and I'll do this one in the five minute I use the move you know all that right you guys all know that and I always ask why do they have 80 indicators in there wouldn't just one or two good ones work so we go down these rabbit holes of trying to create a and we're ultimately attempting to curve fit something in a plug-and-play environment with nothing other than a belief that we'll find the right one or the right combination and the part that really twist your brain is things can work intermittently or combinations may work and then they don't work and then you go on to the next idea the next idea well along the way what's happening is you're not understanding or ever learning about market mechanics in the nature of the true nature of a market because those indicators don't give you that it's kind of like training wheels on a bicycle that you never get to take off and you never learn to balance on a bike because you're always changing those little wheels you're never learning the market and nobody tells you that now I'm not saying it's not right for you I'm saying it wasn't right for me and I think a lot of retail traders go down the rabbit hole you know because you're constantly repeating this search which really doesn't have much of an answer I don't think I mean I'm sure it works for some but most of the traders I talked to they're you know I would say a lot of them aren't doing that the other element of these inconsistent processes is you can't quantify them so you don't know what you got and you don't know when it changes I mean just because it's random if you watch my video or webinar that's on the top of the bookmap discord trader lab chat it's pinned up there along with all those pdfs you can download you'll kind of get an idea of what that is I did system design I used to be a swing trader trend follower so it's not like I haven't done it you know and I don't do it anymore like that but I didn't know you know I didn't get introduced to market profile until 1985 and even then I couldn't figure it out so you know and over time what happened was I you know worked at it worked at it and started recognizing behaviors and adapted my viewpoint of it and developed a market understanding that was not like based on any indicators so I don't use any indicators I can kind of see what's going on right here so that that frees me up so I don't have conflict this I'm just talking about me you know I'm not saying it's what anybody should do but I thought there might be some value sharing some ideas with the trading community and then it's up to each of you to dig into it if it resonates with you Andrew I don't know about you know extent I don't think about IB extensions or any of that I'm not I kind of it's almost like Fibonacci and that's pretty much what a lot of these extensions are you know Fib extensions retracements other than 50% retracement in a trending market first time I don't even think about those I don't think about fibs and it isn't that I haven't I want you to know been there done that Elliott Way been there done that harmonic cycles Fibonacci cycles time cycles projections harmonics I can go on and on I can go on so long I can't remember how you know how much stuff because it's not part of my thinking anymore but I've done a lot of work over the years and I'm just saying is I find simple so the more I add into my charts because I used to think more gave me more information and all it did was create for me it took me out of the flow of the market and what the participants were saying regarding behavior and value and my mind would fixate on a number the participants don't care you know it's like fib you know well is a 62 percent retracement is a 78 percent retracement is a 1.25 percent extension or 200 what is it I don't know does it matter I don't think so at least it doesn't for me why because if I have that statistic then I'm not managing my trade based on the behavior so for me I'm out of this trade now here's the other thing it can come back here right here pick the stops and now continue down and that's a potential setup for me now and or I just sit here because it's fed day and I go you know I got less than an hour do I care that's up to you this is a short but I've got this structure right here that we rejected so this is my obstacle right the volume right in here so if I'm getting short where am I going to get short 67 and I got to be scaled out at 65 you see that's just too much you know 67 and a stop over 70 three-point risk and I only got room to here which would be my scale I can't do it right because of this because what happened here we had chop chop break low chop chop break high the volume in here was too low see where we came I can't take the short but you can see the structure this is why I narrate by the way I can't chew gum and walk at the same time so I can't trade and you know do this but if this is a trade for me except it doesn't qualify because of this I can't risk three and scale two even if it goes on to this target now if I had a runner we were talking about it right I said I'd be out here because I'm not going to risk giving all this back to get here you see I'm good with this because I got short where was it it was up here right somewhere right 82 it was so 82 you know I mean by short we narrated and observed it was it's not never you know we don't call trades here but this I want you to see structure part of learning the auction it's and it's a different way to think about it is what creates this why this is auction market theory remember too low too high too low too high it's a consolidation inside of here was the volume now I'm going to show it to you in the microstructure I just want you to see how this happened whoop get back here I've been alerted is it interesting now it's coming back up it see how structural it was this right here this little this is your auction right in here is your shoppers I'm not paying that up here at the top I'm not paying that down here ooh that's wonderful I like that I'm not paying that boom the intersection of price and volume creates the high volume node that it's right there in the middle of this consolidation you can see the same thing over here when we move away from it is saying at the moment this is too low now the market can always come back you know we got the Fed all bets are off all this structure and everything goes out the window because now we're going to have a fundamental event and it disrupts the auction so but I'm just saying it speaks so I'm reading the auction that's my primary tool right and I'm reading this in a microstructure remember I go down as low as I can because this process is generic when we went and went up to that developing value area high it's the same as where 70% of the volume is in this little microstructure now I'm not going to measure it but I know what's going on in here and the high volume is that retail price and you can see it right in here when we move away it's saying in a microstructure that's too low so that's why I was out of the short now let's talk about the potential short from the IB and this is the beauty of auction market theory where's the volume it's here pull back this is a potential short that doesn't qualify so there's no short where does it come back it test the top of this volume comes back to this the outside edge of this consolidation where now this volume is located which is here right in there so that volume which is approximately where you see a little white line is across there so too low price check reversal so that's why there was no short here because of that if this then that if not then what if this is too low and we break back up then we have the potential to do a price check in aisle 3 in the micro aisle which is what this is if you were short here which under certain circumstances might be appropriate this is your obstacle right here can't do it does that make sense you gotta think like that in my opinion one way to look at it anyway are you guys tracking we're in balance futuristic yeah good question yeah um balance so this is mean reversion again we can come back here it's outside in you know at the moment but there's not again nothing to do you know this is like nada so we're gonna put the vehicle in park and we're gonna sit on the side of the road let's all have a picnic what do you think and now I'll still talk about microstructure because this is really what you need to practice I think is an understanding you're not trading in the middle of any I mean this is not like you're gonna see trigger structures everywhere like this is a short trigger structure right but that doesn't mean you initiate because you have to kind of go up to higher time frames and look at the structure you're overlaying the microstructure and this is something that you so you have to think it's like a vertical multi-dimensional chess game I think you know the market speaks so I'm attempting to share with you as a way to translate the language or it's like music I think of it sometimes as dancing you know like there's you're reading your partner and you kind of get in alignment or sheet music because this market is continually speaking like this this downside rotation somewhere once you get used to understanding this it's almost simple what is not simple is what's gonna happen next I mean the rotations are random so this is a short right except where are we nowhere so there's no trade but if you can start recognize the point of what I'm trying to make in this if you can translate what you're seeing then when it shows up at a location you have the tools to participate assuming underlined you have a vetted trade plan and you know statistically you have an edge at a location then the trigger helps you get in the trade and know where it fails because you have a structure that's kind of part of these pieces so I can see there's a counter rotation there's no trade why? why? it's like running across the street on Park Avenue during rush hour in Manhattan no it could do anything here but we did see a short trigger but not a setup does that make sense? other brother it's fractal so this is my primary chassis this is the developing and that's why it's called session volume profile this is all the volume that's traded today it resets every day our TH open so this is the session so it shows me these distributions and a distribution is just so you understand what they are it's a consolidation like this up here was a consolidation we had the high price we fell out of it saying yeah too high we're not paying that we even had a trade that went back and checked it right up here too high now we're back in this distribution that's what we're trading right now this is now the fair price the volume point of control is right here so that means this is retail down here at the moment is where it's on sale and it's mean reversion potential to come back here so you could be this and we just saw a microstructure that said it's short right well but the deal here is it's mean reversion so potentially back here so what do you do with the selling structure you see nothing so it's alignment so where's the buying structure here and what did we do we pulled back and checked it held it what's the potential back here you could you know if you can read this it's almost and it's a process for me it's a logical process and I think in process and that's one of the reasons why so many of you in the trader lab are able to incorporate this and are getting some benefit from it that is now material right because it's if this then that if not then what if we don't get to this target we again got close and we have a buy structure we come back in we pick the stops now theoretically a short except this if we come back to this and hold it then what's the potential here or not again and we have a sell structure what do you do do you short it or do you ignore it because the context in the developing daily time frame is mean reversion which means here let's watch if this then that if not then what what is a little wacky about the whole thing I think is alignment and not getting my opic in a micro time frame but overlaying the micro time frame on the higher time frames you see so what I'm and that's when I talk about trading inside out that I'm trading attempting to share with you just some ideals that's all this is on market mechanics and behavior and then it's up to you to say okay what's it saying you know what is it saying well our short was fine and we're going for this until this now there's two ways to trade this thing for me out for you maybe you hold it and you get out when it fails to take this out what's your trade plan me not so much instead you come back here watch this what are you thinking I don't know back above we get the selling trigger but we're in mean reversion where does it pull back here potential long here right or not can you see why you need to understand the context and then it's a couple of functions it's where do you engage with the market what is the potential and nobody knows what part is maybe at best so this there's your stop pick under the eye below and then you'll be looking at a potential long and then you'll be going for this if it doesn't work it doesn't work and the thing is would you have a scale I don't know if it fails you're stopped out that's it there's nothing more to do let's watch see what it does not trade recommendations all we're trying to do is is observe potential behavior so let's watch and see if we get the v pock before we take that stop out which is the structure see this is why it's this it's not here why retail trader behavior they're under their stops are here so for me I got to be behind structure I don't need to stop down here down here why would I do that because it fails here here's your test of what the volume look let me try to isolate this I want you to see market structure if I can get this spread out for you I want you just to see where the volume is so this chop chop chop in here see this volume where'd we come back here stop pick under the IB if there's no further selling then there's this or not no idea see so this is you know we get below here chances are this is going south of the border but the stop cannot go here because that's retail trader behavior the stop needs in my opinion I'm just giving you one way to think of it needs to be under here where the structure fails structure fails you're out thanks for playing see you later mean reversion back here maybe maybe not everybody's going to lunch but let's see so I see the book I see this but they've been pulling you notice let's see if they pull they pull and these guys come up it's like it's like the tide you know but you don't know these are algos right so they can if they come down here they can push it but where's my primary input it's the auction and I don't know with these guys what's going on you know this is algos you look at them and I just sort of go I don't know resting liquidity I have a different opinion but this stuff you know they're in a different planet than we are so let's see this needs to clear if they come down they can push into this and there's nothing we can do as retail traders but I do know what created this and I do know we checked it so unless this all fails this is next let's watch I hope you get something out of this you know mean reversal and then now we're going into Fed so I don't you know I don't think much about anything but if we get here then the next target would be here and I have clueless absolutely is everybody tracking you know this is just this is just I'm just trying to share ways to interpret the behavior and today's not such a good day you know at this point there's really nothing going on but you can still observe auction principles you know you know and can you build a plan on these behaviors so there's no indicators for me because I want my mind focus on I guess what you might call the primary market behavior which is auction because you have to go back to what is the purpose of a financial market it's to get participants involved on both sides the buyers and the sellers so it's where do the sellers sell and where do the buyers buy but isn't that happening in all time frames so if we can start from the bottom up and understand the higher time frames we can then try to align and on the developing daily time frame once we kind of get the lay of the land and also superimpose that over the ETH and yesterday's RTH we have some insight to the participant's perception of value or out of value and then we act accordingly the target for this VPOC by the way is not at I usually give them a couple of texts that's my theory leaf sum for the sweeper but this is mean reversion is everybody tracking is this worth is this useful I guess is the real question are you getting anything from this auto on book map it's really a way to see inside better that's how I use it the order flow the stops the icebergs add another dimension to the participant behavior you know and it allows me to isolate volume and structure and more micro that's very useful for the way I like to trade you know and I think anything you can do that differentiates what you do from what the herd does is give you an edge right mean reversion so let's see if we get to the next layer where's the retail stops here so that's the next target so this is mean reversion primary targets back here so you got your scale you're all happy now and your risk neutral or you scale the head of this but this is the primary objective this is where retail traders have their stops where's the stops here so this is the next layer and you'd be done that's all it is I think it's okay it's alright for me now this is what the market is offering we don't know so you'd be long from here you'd have a scale and you'd be going for the next one you'd be risk neutral if you want pull your stop up you know lock in a few donuts up to you so you need a trade management plan that's an individual thing but for me and I'm just telling you me I see no reason to risk outside of here I don't know what that gives you because if they took this out then they're going to take that out so what do I get for that risk I'm kind of a risk adverse individual so I'm always looking at the structure if I'm triggering off a structure which is right here you can see this and now it can do this come back here so my stop has to be under here now once we pull out of this whole thing you know if you want to trail it you need a plan for that but you might move it here last test of the volume in this structure now you're going for this that's it useful well it's just practice you know other brother seeing everything there's nothing if this is for me years of research experience thought and what do they say weeping and gnashing of teeth no but you know a lot of work and but it's very logical it's just the recognition interpretation you got to study it to the point where it becomes unconscious competence you know right here I'm seeing behavior if I can't get back up there to VWAP then it's going to rotate down to V-Pock and now I want to see the book come up that would be nice if those guys push it because where's the stops the algos know where the stops are to so let's see right here I'm just looking I'm saying ok we can come right back to V-Pock now and it's not that I know what it will do because I know I don't know but I could see the micro structure that says we're going to have a rotation it may never get to mid VWAP and we got to have forward FOMC you know so I don't know so let's observe the behavior and it can rotate all the way back down remember this is the market it can do anything right but let's go back to but but where's the stops VWAP in mid that's why it's my target not a recommendation of course just saying so let's see what it does yeah the brother it's just practice time yeah serendipity it is balance because it came back inside so that creates mean reversion we are in balance so that means rotational trading and it's just us you know I don't see really what do I see here 499 the you know it's the retail is primarily the ones who are long in this thing at the moment everybody's pretty much on the long side here as far as the market goes but I mean based on what's going on down here see everybody's kind of long so everybody's long by everybody I mean the book the delta this this I'm measuring but this means nothing for me because I trade the auction I just have it here it's a curiosity to me but I don't look at that and go well everybody's long so I'm not going to get short because that's not my primary input my primary input is the auction right it's my chassis as I call it I run my trades in here and then the higher timeframes I trigger and operate in the more micro time frame see the high volume is right here right across here we need to come out of this high volume or we're going now remember this come right back here and this may never get here because that's maybe that's the best you got in trading is that maybe stops are here so that gives me kind of a I kind of suspect this is more likely than coming all the way down here again but I don't know but when I design these things and I don't take credit for any of this I'm just saying as I kind of observe you know over a lot of time then I know where stops are and then think about us again retail traders what's our experience well I'm going to keep my stop behind the VWAP or the mid well if that's the case and a lot of retail traders are doing that then I suspect underline that we have the potential to get here before we get down here and again I don't know and plus we have the Fed which is but that's in material I'm trading the auction at the moment does that make sense well Jeremy I got to say that because I'm not calling trades it's not a recommendation so let's see if we get to the VWAP and mid before the trade goes south at a border now again I'm just trading this auction or showing I'm not trading let's just say I'm just sharing some ideas but let's think about retail trader behavior and where their stops are and are we going to get those guys out before we kind of rotate and take the lungs out you see that's isn't that the question so we'll watch and see what happens we are running the clock is running down to FOMC so you know but based on the auction and retail trader behavior that VWAP admit is on the hip rate and we don't have to get there this rotation or any rotation so as part of your trade plan you kind of have need to think about well what do I do now ask yourself what do I do now if I'm sitting here long right now hypothetically speaking because you know we don't know how what would you do if you don't have the answer you need to have that answer and you might also be I don't do anything because the trade hasn't failed but then you have to be willing to give this this back how do you feel about that if you don't want to do that then you need some process because we got pretty close see that's another question write that down and that's an individual thing that's your trade plan you see how you do that I still have an open target but how do I what do I do if it does this flushes all the way down again now we still have FOMC but let's leave that out of the equation at the moment you know what do you do about this if you go I don't know then you got to kind of figure that out for yourself I can only kind of I'm only my objective is to just bring it so far and then give you some tools and then if you if the tools resonate with you you know in other words you can kind of see some value in them and then wrap a business plan around the tools you know so it's kind of giving you some raw tools that I think are pretty good and then that's where you have to do the work and create the trade plan because it's you know location this is like real estate location location location triggering risk management right in other words location means where of course you got to know why then it's risk management then trade management right targets all that so and these rotations are random you know this whole thing this stuff that's random you know they can quite get there well pretty close so if there's longs in here where their stops potentially under here remember I said it looks like we're going to have a counter rotation where would it go potentially back here then we might go back up here or not see I can think like this I don't know what it will do I do know what it might do but other than that I don't know what's going to happen after that are we going to take this out and keep going and wipe out the longs or is this just a stop pick and then we come back up to the target don't know so that's trading I guess is everybody with me on alert no I have no delay there's a 15 second delay on YouTube those of you by the way in YouTube I hope you're getting something out of this you know if you are interested I have about 80 PDFs you can download of examples of these structures behavior and also a webinar I did on the kind of the methodology or the process of thought you know talks about auction market theory the mechanics and also specific details on some examples trend day configuration and then an example of a trend day configuration that changes into a mean reversion configuration it's real interesting I think because I picked those days because one of the issues with trading I think is understanding context like this example we're discussing here is mean reversion it's a different context so it has its own mechanics or understanding I should say of behaviors which is why the VWOP and the MIT are the target up here if you understand me reversion you would understand why you would also understand why we just came back here what is this you would understand it you would understand why this is the target and again it's all random I have no idea we fall under here then these guys are vulnerable down here who's vulnerable down these guys are we going to get there I don't know but that's the trade and then the rest of it is maybe so let's see how it plays out before FOMC the SDC well the SVP is the session volume profile this is taking all the volume that's transacted from RTH Open the CVP which is I think you're asking about is the chart volume profile it lets me look inside whatever volume is visible on the chart so I can isolate the auction right here and this is the auction this here this is an auction too high I'm not paying that oh it's on sale that's too high I'm not going to pay that oh I like this it's on sale there the high volume node that's in this structure the fair price where this volume is right there at the top of the arrow well it acts like a VPOC now in the developing time frame the whole thing the retail price so we can still rotate down to the other side here and I have no idea that's the mystery of trading so this is the target because it stops if we don't get up there and this is not the best time for anything because it's FOMC whatever 15 minutes whatever it is but that's your target watch so it's this in a micro time frame that high volume is the same as this high volume in a higher time frame hope it doesn't confuse you probably does and this up here is the same behavior in this auction up here this was too high so we could stay right here or come up here or down here and it's and I have no idea so that's kind of the lay of the land at the moment that's the fractal nature of this thing so I don't know STC session trade I don't know what the STC is I have no idea this is what I do I'm sure there's better ways to do it but this is what I do it's just and this is really up to the individual to do research and find a better way by the way the purpose of the Trader Lab is a collective of traders we work together to try to find a better way that's you know we're all kind of doing the same thing but instead of being trading is kind of a lonely sport it's easy to be isolated because we're trading except other traders I try to talk to my wife about trading her eyes glass over and she just looks at me like and this has been going on for a long time no doubt right that's just the reality it's isolated yeah repeat I am involved with the development at book map on tools and beta testing and all that kind of stuff yeah T. Bickey I have no idea I can't think like that because it doesn't you know I'm clueless I kind of stay in the in the the state of I know I don't know and the thing about predicting I don't know anything about it you know I can't I just try to align myself with what I perceive to be the intent of the participants and I try to align myself with retail in the sense of what they do and not do what they do so I don't think I don't know if this I think this trade is in park and it's probably done but again I have no clue and being we have 15 minutes to go for FOMC there's really no reason to be doing anything in here but you know so you know this is where strap your helmet on and you know I personally do not get involved something like FOMC it's not that I can't get involved but it's a different plan so you know I'm not going to discuss it here because if you're not a positive don't have a positive expectancy or a specific trade plan for a fundamental event that is disruptive to you know to behavior and can create outsized risk and there's you know you should be a tourist you know because it's its own behavior it's unique yeah Donald that's great you know in book map they do I'm extending an invitation to all of you who are in YouTube if you haven't done it to the bookmap.com website or even I think at the bottom of the YouTube video where the description is if you click more there should be a link to the discord book map channel I guess you call it and in there there's a lot of free education options stocks using these tools even crypto options you know there's some really good options stuff based on market maker behavior and hedging so there's other tools that are available and the education and these ideas are free even if you're not a bookmap subscriber you're all welcome and if you come to the trader lab you should download the ADPDFs I have of examples of different structures and mechanics and a webinar on understanding volume profile auction market theory and how to use some of these tools it'll just save you a lot of time and then you can check it out you know we all pay so much for education in our travels and our desire to learn and for many of us we have not gotten a yield out of that we also go down all these rabbit holes because there's so much information out on the internet whether or not it has value that's something you have to determine I have found that when I started in the business there was no information we didn't have the internet we only had a book you buy a book my first class was at the Chicago mercantile exchange in classical bar charting and then charts were kept by hand so I still got my ruler from back when I started I don't have the pencil though and every Monday you'd get a chart book it was almost like you know how the MLS used to be with real estate you get a book every Monday that kind of thing well it was the same way with the charts you'd get a book and it would have last weeks and then every day you would add your daily open high low close bar and whatever markets you were following so that took a lot of time because I used to follow a lot of markets back when I first started you know so things have come a ways but the internet being the source that it is now creates overload of the information and a lot of it I don't think has any value because it's very easy to you know go down all these rabbit holes so you've got the other problem of too much and how do you sort it out you run out of time or dollars before you ever get maybe to something that you can actually use so you don't need to do that book map you don't have to be a subscriber currently to get all this and I just think it's pretty amazing and of course if you find value in how the tool was used of course subscribe to it if you don't need it don't bother I've used book map since 2015 in its infancy and you know I've been involved with it it took me time to understand it because like everything there's no quick fix you know and you just have to say okay is there value in this tool and does it give me something does it give you an advantage and then it's a matter of cost you know it's like anything else do I get a yield well I do so I'm okay with that so we got 10 minutes ish to go for the fed so I'm going to my helmet out of the closet in my flak jacket and just sort of you know see what happens don't be surprised if it's a violent move if you get your data lagging in your computer chokes a little bit that can happen if there's big volatility because there's going to be a lot of potential data crunching you know so don't be surprised and just see what you can see out of it you know so Jared if the discord link isn't working then go to bookmap.com you'll see a link up in there and give it a shot you should be able to get in there I don't know why the link doesn't work down here we'll have to keep the can a few times and get that fixed so if you do get in there go to the TraderLab chat not the voice channel because it's full and click the pin at the top right of the text channel it'll take you to the top and you'll see the pdfs you can download those you're all welcome to that and there's also the introductory video up there a webinar I did you know which is kind of your crash course on auction market theory and you know all that so you may find that helpful and then you're all invited to participate in all the education there's order flow education every day there's specialists on different areas icebergs stops how to use them besides what I do but reading the minutia of the order flow pretty interesting I think if you're not familiar with how you might integrate it also check contacts stocks crypto options so there's something I think the value here and it's free free is good so you might just want to check it out anyway and the trader lab is a community of traders working together trying to get better together because we can leverage our experiences we have trader in here one trader has been doing it 50 years 50 years is a bit there's a lot of experience there and there's others that are new you know trading newbies so everybody has a perspective and everybody brings something and even if you don't have the answers that's not the point we all have the same questions so anyway you're all invited feel free oh the link worked oh great okay yes yes yes yes yes yes one minute till yes yes yes long three by three long three by three 30 seconds till yes check context check context 20 seconds till news event yeah everybody I'm going to be in standby mode so I'm just going to watch like you guys you know I would recommend that this is not an event that retail trader should be involved in unless they have a specific plan risk management adequately capitalized and all that I'm just going to watch it like you guys are you'll notice the book will start thinning out so I'm just going to sit back sip some cool water well the book's thinning out because you know the algos turn off and you'll notice the book is starting to go dark and you're going to see here the it's all going to thin out it's going to look like the NQ most likely so again nothing to do so I'm going to go silent here for a little bit hey Al, hi there observe how the book is thinning out see the limit order book this looks like the NQ over here see no algos it's dark helmet on this is the neutral IBF we were talking about we went up to the HVN micro composite high volume node at the IB high broke through came back so this is mean reversion these are not recommendations it's too fast for anybody right so let's take a look at that see now so this is the what's called the neutral day and a retracement so we came up to the level micro composite high volume node at 3800 you can see the exhaustion chop chop chop micro structure break low pull back to the micro volume at 3800 and a potential short back mean reversion and I'm not saying anybody should do this have done it or anything else I just want you to recognize the structure and you can see it come on my poor computer is going I'm going to get you see this here high volume location high of the day at the time the initial balance high and remember earlier today in the stream I said there's a couple ways to play this since we only had the initial balance low taken out it was outside in you know towards the mid towards the VWAP so those of me in reversion it works from both sides download the PDFs and you'll see examples now we get the report we take out the stops there's the divergence price wise high of the day only 8 buy stops thanks for playing chop chop chop break so right in here let me isolate come here I want to show you that I can so here's our volume here's our volume here's our location now this is all for report velocity remember where's the buy stops over the high of the day so velocity here's 200 buy stops high of the day logical price moves higher 4 buy stops potential exhaustion don't know micro volume watching don't know location now you start in the deduction of the potential alignment high volume break pullback location under the IB IBF right stop is two ticks over here right not taken out target mean reversion target potentially here and then that trades over up to you where are we now where are we now overnight epoxy life in the fast line doesn't matter by the way everybody see this thing I don't know where are we here anybody everybody see that repeat I didn't know what he was still kicking around he's automated or this or this his CCI is automated he's got to be around since the 90s or 2000 I think so anyway by the way this is now material this is the high volume area it's like a VPOC but it's in the two days of overlap so this is a next level up high volume area it's just like a VPOC it's no difference than the microstructures where we have these little HVNs except now we're in an intermediate time frame we've also traversed the full range of yesterday of value remember this was a target coming down that we didn't get to well now we're in here so now that puts this and this and this all this on the potential hip hurry just saying now my focus as you remember is on based on two lots so this is for the you know kind of like building your foundation piece the rest of this is all in the game subject to the number of you know either how you manage your trade if you let the second one run or if you use microstructure that's a different topic I just want to try to get you guys a tool that you can build a business around it's my goal so you know where I'm at right do you guys see the short off the top the IBF from the top on a neutral day yeah repeat Woody's been around I wasn't sure you know if he was still cooking if you know what I mean but I do remember Woody I think you know I well I don't have my memories a little blurry you might imagine but I think late 90s 2000 right in there is that sound right repeat do you guys see the potential short that took place as an IBF based on neutral IBF configuration everybody nobody what do you think yep so okay those of you that are in youtube um if you're not if you don't know what we're talking about here come on over to the book map discord chat it's free you won't be solicited harassed or any of that nonsense none of us will put up with that right and so doesn't happen there's a lot of free education there stocks options crypto of course this and um order flow specifically you know all kinds of different things and you don't have to be a subscriber to take advantage of it if you're interested in why there was a short off the high of the day which is something I talked about earlier in the stream I call it a neutral IBF it's a mean reversion the same trade that we were talking about this morning which was from the long side is from the short side it is outside in trading something that most of us probably are not you know mentally attuned to uh but it is again contextual uh though there's pdfs I've got about 80 of them in the trader lab you guys are welcome you know to come over uh visit download them there's also a fundamental video or webinar I did on auction market theory and volume at least the way I interpret it you know my interpretation may not be what's in the mainstream and it may be uh directly conflict with what others uh view and that's fine right uh and it's not a indication of a rigid process it's kind of an understanding of market mechanics and behaviors that you will see repeat just like by the way right here is a selling trigger right right see alignment alignment this is your chop chop chop with the micro volume right here the break it's a short see where to back here you know so I'm not saying anybody should be doing this right but that's over 10 points anything wrong with that I don't know it's up to you so but you'll see this everywhere let's look at another one I wasn't even paying attention you know I've been distracted short short short I'm just showing you the structures okay bang short see so these are triggers those of you in triggers you can look at the key about a trigger is to understand it needs alignment with something just saying see the retracement to the volume back here break so here here here short triggers not recommendations just showing you somebody was asking me are these triggers right well I understand the only reason I see them is because I've been looking at them for a little while like a long while so it's music for me I just see it okay I know what creates it so I know what's inside it you will too if you do the work and the work means replays screenshots annotations I have binders and binders and I don't mean the skinny ones I mean the fat ones in fact I have so many of them I throw them away as they get outdated because it's a progression of research and knowledge right isn't that what we do I consider myself like from a trading perspective is like a forensic scientist I'm looking inside I'm trying to find the clues and the hints I'm trying to differentiate my behavior in my view of the market from other traders you know and the bookmap tools one piece of that right and I can trade without it but I can't trade as well that's the difference because I can't act as quickly because I can't see what I want to see that's it that's it so you know is it worth it to me to have an order flow tool and is it worth it to me and for me yeah it is you know I'm not saying it'd be worth it to you but it doesn't take much to cover the cost of something like this and I'm not I don't sell bookmap you know I use it you know that's it and after and it took me a while to figure it out I'm a slow learner I didn't understand it I didn't understand any of this and we also when it first came out it only had the bubbles and the liquidity there was that was the basic tool back in 2015 was really you know but it was the most sophisticated tool of its kind with the heatmap when it came out it was originally created for I think you know high-frequency traders that was the original and then you know when other traders became aware of it they said hey I want that I want that and that's actually how it evolved so it was not a retail product it was an HFT so that'll give you some idea you know the quants wanted to use it and they and you can kind of see if you go into the add-ons it had a chase execute for writing code and creating an algo so all of that you know that's kind that was like the first part of it pretty much you know so that's the evolution of this product and it was not intended for retail it's just the retail went hey I want that so that's you know by the way here's a triggering structure not a recommendation let's watch see it see the alignment bang so watch the retracement that's all not a trade recommendation we're just touring they pull they can open the door you got to be conscious now watch Joe Nick's a neutral day is market profilage and really what it means is the high of the day in the low of the day are taken out and more importantly it's the first hour I should say the first hour low in the first hour high in the market profile world the first hour high and low is called the initial balance so this was the first hour low when we had the FOMC announcement burst we took out the first hour high which at the time was the high of the day and then we took it out when we take it out and it was taken out on stops and we come back inside it sets up mean reversion it was the same trade we were taking from the bottom when we were under here initially back inside so all it is and it's called mean reversion and it's a specific contextual trade and that's why context is such a difficult component for traders because they don't know what's going on a lot of not that any of us do believe me we don't know what's going on but the fact is it's possible at times to detect potential that's all you got in trading is maybe so maybe if we don't keep going after we come outside and we see the exhaustion which we could see with the stops the divergence and the stops we saw exhaustion you fall back inside then everybody who's long is off sides then it's that come all the way back to balance and potentially out the other side which is what we did that's the trade what happens after that that's a different animal it's like a different issue does that make sense under yourself Jeremy I don't understand right Jeremy we got out under the I be low right Pete so we did come out the other side where are we here do we make a new low Pete I think we did see this target here micro composite VPAC this is a price check in the intermediary right see how this aligns now let's be clear nobody knows what happens is we know what might happen we don't know what will happen so I don't know ever what's going to happen so let's get that straight right away the other part is I don't know where it will go other than where it might go that's also the fact we got in here we got under here we had this but this was the most recent auction which was the last two days this was your VPAC your volume point of control for the two day volume so this was the fairest price of the last two days I'm taking it up a notch to the next time frame this is the fairest price today at the moment and this moves around and the micro structures are the fairest price in these little consolidations so it's a generic behavior this was the next higher time frame in my little world this is not a coincidence does that make sense David it took me a while to get comfortable with book map because I didn't understand and their education has really expanded over the years but the tool was not complete compared to what it is today it just got enhanced because we didn't have icebergs we didn't have stops it was black and white it looked like this is the legacy this is what it looked like when it first came out this was what it looked like so you were trying to differentiate look at the difference and how you can read it it's like any tool and it evolved now I like this better I can see the difference in the book better where the larger bids and offers are so I can see that better and I can see the movement clearer of the algos it's just easier to read but it wasn't like that it took me time and it was a new thing for me because I didn't grow up with the dome when I started trading I would pick up a phone and talk to your guy on the floor there was no domes and when I started trading there was no volume we didn't get the volume and that's why technical indicators like on balance volume which are really tick were kind of substitutes for volume based on the number of up and down ticks all this nonsense those were the tools that evolved to try to supplement not having this information so that's kind of so indicators evolved also to try to fill the gaps because the data wasn't available and all we had then we had tick charts and then the first CQG came out with something called the TQ 2020 that was like their first charting package where you could actually have time charts, tick charts and then it was loaded with oscillators and all the typical stuff you know so that was pretty hot and there was another one I think called Compute Track which was a competitor early on and then Bloomberg you guys all know about Bloomberg I think he started his business the Bloomberg terminal I think came out around 80-ish or 81 you know the main idea that's kind of when I started and obviously I was on a different planet than where we are today pull back to V-POC and VWAP potential short opportunity not a recommendation this is mean reversion right but look where we are I below high volume node VWAP V-POC mid what do we do I'm going to close my eyes off thanks for playing potential short watch not a recommendation now we already got to a target so potential retail just rotational trade where is the volume down below we got it here see the alignment with the liquidity here scale would be in here I'm not calling trades and just telling you what I'm reading because I don't know you'd have a short nothing wrong with this right it's almost 10 points thanks for playing now you hold or you're done say watch it's everybody tracking I mean I'm not really paying attention right but you know other brother I don't know what it's going to do so let's observe the behavior here this was a target right don't forget that now it can do anything if we break below here I'm going into the bunker and I'll catch you in a month but can you see a short what did we do let's take this now I'm operating remember in multiple time frames so this is where it might be confusing but I'm isolating fractals this is the developing daily time frame this is the higher time frame we checked it we went away too low at the time where'd we come back to this one this is the same is that this is higher time frame this is developing time frame price check in the big aisle too low at the moment remember subject to change back here take the stops where are the stops mid VWAP second aisle three here's your stop pick break pull back break high break low potential short wherever you feel you want to jump in you do your stop has to be here now remember we already checked this how far do you take it I have no idea now you're wearing that helmet again and you have your trade management plan we take this out under here because we're in yesterday's value see we can do anything and this might be rotational in here same process fractal higher time frame developing daily time frame micro time frame micro volume inside if this then that if not then what if we check here and bounce then what's the potential back here if this is too high then what's the potential rotate back here and maybe stay inside or break out of here and then what do we got this this this don't know however check there check back at the VPOC inside a higher time frame in a developing time frame using the micro structure for triggering is everybody following sorry I'm not familiar with toss I toss is really a stripped down you know repeat I don't follow you you have been here for a while repeat I hope you've been well really I feel like I know you I don't know repeat at this stage in my trading you know around in my head and you know what I'm talking about is this good guys you getting something out of this is there some value in what you're getting can you use it you guys over in YouTube I hope this is helpful you know it's trading you know and at best we know we don't know so please remember that and all you can do is do what you can manage your risk is job number one and then try to put the pieces together in a process that you can bet and have some kind of probability that you can measure if you don't have that you're a gambler and that's not so good I always say if you're going to gamble go to Vegas get a cocktail see the show and you know whatever else maybe the buffet for me a ribeye might do it but the buffet and maybe I don't know but if you're you know also in YouTube if you haven't come over to the book map discord chat to the trader lab you're welcome to come over it's free of course there's a big group in there that interacts and it's the idea behind the trader lab was to leverage all our experiences there's traders in there with 50 years experience and we have traders that are just kind of getting started you know so everybody brings a perspective and an experience but the collective knowledge is the leverage and how we can all get better there isn't one way to do anything in this it's only in the way to kind of you know what gives you a sustainable business and what are some of the pieces and that's what my objective is with doing this also if you don't there's PDFs you can download in the trader lab about 80 of them of examples of these behaviors and the documentation of them which you might use to research and build your own plan there's also a introductory webinar on the mechanics of this auction market theory and you know how to use how I use it anyway and what I do I don't think is what many others do and I'm not saying any but there is no right or wrong way to do anything it's just the way that you can believe in and what works for you so I just share some of the components of what I do and it's really about kind of giving you a foundation and a structure that you might build something on for yourself and create a business this is about the trade trading is a business and all businesses have overhead cost of production so if you have a plan that you can believe in and belief is an important part of it then you have the ability to have a business and then you look at this differently and you look at it a random distribution of outcomes you don't look at it, gee I wasn't right today because your trade plan is your guide you're accountable to the plan you create not to the randomness of what is the market and the participant behaviors the objective is to try to recognize behaviors that tend to repeat in the market and whatever tools you use that's great it's just a matter of do you have statistics if you don't have statistics what's going to happen is you're going to keep jumping to indicator to the latest fad to something you hear over the magic indicator I made $5,000 somebody will say you can have it for life for $600 all that nonsense which you all know about well you got to do the work and then you can skip that part of the the travel the road we all go on right or the next indicator you can skip it all I'm saying is you got to find what speaks to you and if you don't vet it you can't believe in it because then you'll be changing it the other thing is you need a consistent process you have a way to measure it if you can't measure it you can't quantify you can't create belief because you're always going to question it that's what's required it's not the fun part of the job I mean the fun part of the if there is you know what I mean the part of the job that's fun is doing your thing and seeing it work over time and knowing that along the way it's not going to work it's just overhead you can never completely separate yourself from those emotional states but you can recognize what creates those emotional states and put them aside because they're going to be triggered by this kind of behavior but if you have the statistics you can open your stats and say you know when I take this neutral IBF it works x percent of the time I get to the scale I get to the target you know whatever it is I get to the opposite target all the way on the other side x percent and I know that how many do I want to put on okay two three four whatever it is based on my research and that's how you do it in my opinion watch where we are this is important the behavior right here see the stops watch the behavior here this is important so this is important this is important here so let's see is everybody with me um did you ask a question of me Sarnsson did I miss it Sarnsson did I miss something Sarnsson did I miss something Sarnsson did I miss something Sarnsson it it's kind of where the reaction is and I am trading the fractal so I'm trading inside out so coming down you know I'm looking at this for the neutral IBF because it might not come outside you know so in the configuration we're in this is the target coming down if this would be an extended target and now that we're under here things can get funky you know so now it's the potential because this is material this is material so now we're breaking below it then it's going to become a retracement to it and if not then not that's just the way it goes but this can get rather nasty and I don't know but the priority of inputs is micro inside macro you know and up so I was trading inside of this but this was the developing behavior and then the micro structures are the more the triggering behavior to identify so let's watch this here and just see what happens okay no trade recommendations guys you know remember all we do here in the trader lab is observe potential phenomena and we go from there you do need a trade plan so watch this right here watch this watch the structure watch the volume you can see it there so watch these are the areas to watch we're just tourists yes short 2p short 2p unfortunately we have sellers at 3740 S&P vice talk 274 short mid-place reversal short mid-place reversal so we're observing this area not a recommendation just keep you know tighten your belt and see how it behaves right in here short 2p watch this right in here right at the location we're just observing right you can see it right here right here nothing to do right short 3 by 3 ES long 2p long 2p ES6 long consolidate so that is not happening check context check context short mid-point reversal short mid-point reversal there's another triggering structure to observe only it has to get below that so it's a composite v-pod nothing to do long mid-point reversal long mid-point reversal NQ short 1,230 short 1,230 nothing to do so now we can come back up NQ long end pulse check context short mid-point reversal Fairly choppy so you know this was important it's not done yet you know but I have now it's out of my you know my level of understanding because this now becomes you know back to this contact yes pretty wild huh VHVN tested 3790 price check and aisle 3 watch the behavior here gotta watch the behavior up here also this is a potential area to observe right here let's just see no clue very volatile I spur executed there very put yeah he went off microstructure and these are not recommendations we're trying to read it we have alignment we also have stops up here so let's observe so this is the alignment currently with a developing time frame on a retracement this might have been an outside extreme there still stops sitting up here so we can come up here this is the alignment for the initial short remember we took all the way from the top in theory you know that we were discussing this has to get below here otherwise we can continue going higher the reaction took place here because this is a level that we have isolated we come above it then so we have to watch and see what happens both sides are really going at it aren't they sorenson why don't you just watch it if you haven't if you haven't watched it you're just not going to be up to speed for the language and some of the other things here a lot of what you're going to see here is really more in the current time frame you know now fed day is just one of those days there's you know it has outsized risk and opportunity you can kind of see it on display here the way to view this is really like a fight let me look at something here yeah we have a potential target up above at 3831 not on here shame on me let me check that this is the next potential up here and of course it's not a recommendation but this is a volume point of control that was left behind last time we were up here now we've kind of we've auctioned both sides right I mean this is a pretty wild day you know this checked it remember that there's no precision in any of this came back inside I mean we've gone both sides it's a two-sided trading one of these guys and it might be the sellers right are going to be in trouble the market's been short so we can squeeze and that's apparently and not apparently but that's potentially what's going on here so the shorts might be pushed out and if we can get through here there's this there's this so we'll see now if Powell's testifying you know we're being moved around by comments and perspectives and perceptions thousand icebergs going off here 800 over here you can kind of see there's a lot of buying going on in here also this is showing the large lots are active on the buy side the 10 lots and even the little retail guys so everybody's on the long side at the moment even the big players so let's see if we get here this would be the next potential target based on auction market theory and if we get through here we can get up into this one higher time frame this is an artifact that was left behind in the daily the developing daily time frame that we had left behind it's a price check in aisle 3 this was a price check in the big aisle this is a price check in the in a daytime that we said was too high and the market traded away from it so now we have the potential to come back and check it is that still too high in the interday time frame we had checked this and you if you remember we had sold off it I think the first time we were up here so these levels are material but since it's an auction things change and obviously with the Fed we have fundamental inputs going on here that disrupt the whole thing so anything can happen which is every day in trading anyway but today is more susceptible remember this is our potential target up here whoops sorry about that so make it volume point of control was a target on the way up close is that good enough have no opinion structure chop chop chop break h