Price, (Volume), Support, Resistance, Demand, Supply . . .

OK Frugi, if it isn't timeframe issues, isn't what you are describing as being after simply provided by a Level2 feed? That's the ultimate tick data.

It ain't price & volume, but may well be a candidate for issues relating to Supply & Demand.
 
Yay, result!

I can't believe I've not noticed this before, but MyTrack offers a sales (not time and sales, but still useful) window for futures, cunningly disguised under the Level 2 menu, so I'm happy! (Bramble there is AFAIK no Level 2 data for futures, just sales and market depth)

Trader333 I'm using MyTrack with Sierra. Sierra's minimum update period is 1 second.

It would be even better if Sierrachart updated more than once a second as MyTrack seems to provide it with tick data. Grrr.

Sorry to wander off topic.
 

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frugi said:
Regardless of whether I am watching a 60, 30, 5 or 1 minute bar form in real time I was wondering whether it is necessary to see every single tick of data that forms part of that bar, or whether a snapshot every second is sufficient? Sometimes I am sure I miss important clues because I am not seeing every trade go thorough.

Short answer: no, you do not have to see every tick unless you're trading ticks and you do not have to see every trade "go through".

I've learned my lesson regarding LII and T&S and won't be getting into it. Too many people just love it/them and can't imagine trading without it/them. That's okay by me. Whatever floats one's boat.

However, unless something shows up on the price bar as a completed trade, it's not your concern, assuming that your strategy involves making money out of the movement of price up or down. If you're concerned with assessing the balance between buying and selling pressure, your primary concern is the movement of price. The bar interval you use to display that movement is merely a choice. It has nothing to do with the price movement itself, that is, the price movement is independent of the bar interval. Technically, you could (and might, some day), use just one bar for the entire day and watch the little notch travel up and down, like a thermometer, which is more or less what traders did before real-time charts.

As for the clues, most intraday traders use some bar interval other than daily because they don't have the habit of detecting swing points and S/R without the individual bars (early traders such as Livermore had no choice but to develop that sense).

But these, along with trendlines, are merely a convenience, like the width of the line one chooses to note a highway vs a road. The movement of price is the focus.
 
dbphoenix said:
Sounds like a quiz. :)

And if one is sensitive to the push/pull, volume bars are close to irrelevant, at least to someone who's trading in real time (volume bars are much more important to EOD traders).

.

Hi Dpb,

When u say "sensitive to the push/pull", do u mean the buying pressure verses the selling
pressure.
Is this shown on the chart by the "ease of movement" in one direction compared to the opposite direction. (eg up swing vs down swing)

Is this shown by the the ease of movement of a swing compared to the last swing in the same direction?
On an individual bar basis it would be the size of a bar and how it relates to the previous bar/bars.

Many thanks RHK
 
rhk said:
Hi Dpb,

When u say "sensitive to the push/pull", do u mean the buying pressure verses the selling
pressure.
Is this shown on the chart by the "ease of movement" in one direction compared to the opposite direction. (eg up swing vs down swing)

Is this shown by the the ease of movement of a swing compared to the last swing in the same direction?
On an individual bar basis it would be the size of a bar and how it relates to the previous bar/bars.

Many thanks RHK

1. Yes.
2. Yes (assuming you're not talking about the indicator)
3. Yes.
4. Yes.
 
Ok- Early on in this thread I thought you were talking about how important volume is, because it is the volume of buying and selling pressure that cause price movement.
And if one is sensitive to the push/pull, volume bars are close to irrelevant, at least to someone who's trading in real time
Are you saying that after gaining a certain amount of familiarity with real time trading, you can pretty much tell what's going on with volume, just by the ways the bars are forming? By looking at a chart you can "know what kind of volume" was behind it - the way a tracker can look at tracks in the sand and say, "the dog was trotting along looking left at this point, then it stopped here, then sprang forward here and pounced."

Are we getting to plain old pure price action...?
JO
 
JumpOff said:
Ok- Early on in this thread I thought you were talking about how important volume is, because it is the volume of buying and selling pressure that cause price movement.

Are you saying that after gaining a certain amount of familiarity with real time trading, you can pretty much tell what's going on with volume, just by the ways the bars are forming? By looking at a chart you can "know what kind of volume" was behind it - the way a tracker can look at tracks in the sand and say, "the dog was trotting along looking left at this point, then it stopped here, then sprang forward here and pounced."

Are we getting to plain old pure price action...?
JO

You're asking several questions.

Yes, volume is important. But the volume bar is siimply a way of illustrating volume action. What's important is the volume itself, not what's used to represent it, just as what is important about price is the price action, not the bar interval chosen.

And, yes, you can get a pretty good idea of what's going on with volume by the way the bars are forming, but not of course in hindsight. That's the difference in watching them form and reviewing a static display. EOD traders, of course, don't have the luxury of watching them form, so they require some sort of representation of volume such as the volume bar. A gardener has a different appreciation of a rose than someone who buys one at a stall.

And one can eventually get to plain ol' price action, if one is watching it in real time, but since volume of some sort is required to move price, it helps to understand the nature of volume. One can also admire a car in motion, but in order to understand why it does what it does, one must know something of the accelerator and the brake and the effects of inclines and declines, as well as abrupt encounters with immovable objects.

Trying to interpret price in hindsight without volume is possible, but one is working with a handicap, like beating egg whites with a knife.
 
Hindsight

So someone looking even at one minute bars with volume data gets different information (or lack there of ) about volume than someone watching real time level II info or tick data. Here are a couple of hypothetical one minute bars and some fake tick data to go along. Additional hypothetical info:these are both coming after a steady run up and this action is taking place near resistance. If you had been watching in real time, what would you guess about the volume of trading going on in each example? Can you imply which is likely to have had more volume?

(Lets call them "the top bar" and "the bottombar" to keep things clear...)

Thanks, JO
 
JumpOff said:
If you had been watching in real time, what would you guess about the volume of trading going on in each example? Can you imply which is likely to have had more volume?

It wouldn't make any difference to me since the buying pressure is clearly greater than the selling pressure. But that's probably not what you're going for.
 
dbphoenix,

With due respect, I find your interpretations are hindsight. There are stacks of similar chart signals that will give opposite results. I have been trading for many years and have never got to the bottom of volume.

To quote Brian Marber in Jim Slater's book " Shares can fall on low volume, and they can rise on low volume as well. The former is supposed to be good news and the latter, bad, but neither cope with the fact that the share has undoubtedly moved one way or the other."

To me, the study of volume clouds the issue and I venture to suggest that my own signals would get me into and out of trades on your charts without using it.

Regards Split
 
Splitlink said:
dbphoenix,

With due respect, I find your interpretations are hindsight. There are stacks of similar chart signals that will give opposite results. I have been trading for many years and have never got to the bottom of volume.

To quote Brian Marber in Jim Slater's book " Shares can fall on low volume, and they can rise on low volume as well. The former is supposed to be good news and the latter, bad, but neither cope with the fact that the share has undoubtedly moved one way or the other."

To me, the study of volume clouds the issue and I venture to suggest that my own signals would get me into and out of trades on your charts without using it.

Regards Split

All charts are hindsight, particularly annotated ones. That's the nature of charts and annotation.

As to "good" and "bad" volume, I've pointed out many times that volume reflects only the number of shares traded. What matters is the effect on price, not the quantity of volume per se.

And I'm sure your signals are just fine. You'll note the "volume" is in parentheses in the title of the thread, since what moves price are buying and selling pressure. Volume is simply a manifestation of this dynamic.
 
dbphoenix said:
And I'm sure your signals are just fine. You'll note the "volume" is in parentheses in the title of the thread, since what moves price are buying and selling pressure. Volume is simply a manifestation of this dynamic.

dbp
Can market makers mark prices up or down even when there are few or no trades ? RobQ
 
robq said:
dbp
Can market makers mark prices up or down even when there are few or no trades ? RobQ

Why not? But somebody has to be willing to pay or settle for the price.
 
I had intended not to post on this thread as dbp was clearly unhappy when I made a comment on level2 on a previous thread.
However, specifically in answer to robq, yes the MMs on l2 move price in anticipation or to fake without any actual trades going through.
Having read dbp's posts I must say everything he has said that I have read, is absolutely spot on and anyone who disregards his comments or doesn't learn from them does so to their own detriment.
IMHO, his understanding and exposition of volume has not been surpassed on these boards.
There will be no further comment from me on this thread.
Richard
 
dbphoenix said:
Why not? But somebody has to be willing to pay or settle for the price.
Are they compelled to fill any size at the prices quoted? I always understood there were a variety of ways for them to circumvent having to be much exposed during artificial mark-up/down times.
 
There can be a lot of cumbersome and repetitious talk about volume in relation to price. If it cannot be condensed into a pithy attempt at a few guidelines or trading technique points, where's the value in that when you are trading live? None.

Take day trading.

Take price alone. Take INDU or YM. Use candles and pay attention to the wicks and tails when they occur; you may become seasoned enough to play successfully this way alone. With a few other keen observations, by themselves, of price action, you could become expert through experienced playing.

Support and resistance, sure. Are they that important? With such lines in the sand, when will they hold and when will they break? How should you be positioning your play to keep onside with the market moves? Is that every minor move or just major moves. If its the major move you seek, how can you recognise main moves at their inception?

The truth is not the search for any ultimate truth. Its the research, study, play and skill accumulation that gives you success.

The Holy Grail may be grasped at last by the few; no one is barred from the challenge.
 
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fudgestain said:
There can be a lot of cumbersome and repetitious talk about volume in relation to price. If it cannot be condensed into a pithy attempt at a few guidelines or trading technique points, where's the value in that when you are trading live? None.
OK Fudge. You're not unique - yet. But if YOU are able to condense your guidelines ino a pithy attempt - you will be. Otherwise, you'll be just another one in the long line of bull-s*hitters.

What have you got to say specifically in relation to this thread's topic - apart from rubbishing someone else's attempts?
 
FWIW, if I could provide something pithy, I"d be offering a course and charging the big bucks. But I can't do that yet. Which is partly the purpose of this thread: to discuss the subject.

As to tick bars, range bars, etc., if fudg were to explain exactly how he uses them, that would be helpful, I'm sure.
 
big moves with small volume?

I was hoping that some of you more experienced traders would have something to say about my drawings on post #156. I've been paper trading the forex for a while, and I've noticed that there are occasional wild swings which seem to have nothing to do with the overall trend of the price movement. I'm guessing it's the large players just shaking out the stops, and judging the response to see if things are right for their next move. It seems to me that these wild swings (which I tend to think of as fakes) exhibit the pattern of the top drawing of #156.

They can easily encompass a 100 tick range in less than 10 seconds. They often move just as fast in the other direction 10 seconds later and then return to a "normal" range after less than 15 minutes...

The lower drawing on the other hand may be the same range, over the the same time, but then often goes on to new trends.

I only notice this info when I am watching the tick chart in real time. Looking at a one minute chart 1/2 hour later, you really can't tell what was going on there.. I am curious to know if these kinds of wild swings happen most often with high or low volume?

Since there is no volume component of forex data, I was wondering if volume could be implied by these differing patterns of price action? Fudgestain, are you saying that some of the charts you use include the volume (or some kind of implied volume) in the price bar somehow? You metion tickbar or range bar - I am not familiar with these terms. Will you be so kind as to post some pictures? The ideal thing would be to see a plain price chart next to an enhanced chart of the same period.
Thanks,
JO
 
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