Becoming A TopStep Trader 2020

Looking to see what sort of reaction we get at these levels. Do they flush through, do they try and recapture the long bull trend?

Somedays I wish I had kept to my Daily Target, as Greed is bad.
Days like this where I take the money and then see prices go higher hurts a little.

The trend is your friend until the bend at the end!

It's Friday, notoriously difficult trading day for some as they spank their weeks winnings just before the weekend.
In an attempt at being a disciplined trader, I took one trade and got out at my daily target.

Now I can come back on Monday knowing that I had a weekend not thinking about being an idiot and that I earned more in
10 minutes than some might in a long time.



But the reality is - how much easier would life be if you stayed in a trade.


60 points x 4 = 240 ticks
240 ticks * $12.50 = $3000

Going to try and be happy with my 8 points lol.

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Filtering out the trade blocks above or equal to 250 will show when the reasonably big orders are coming in. When I see low volume prints on the dom up and down the ladder and then a 140+ sat about 6 ticks away, I see that as a level to be mindful of. Especially if there is an equal amount of volume on the opposite side of the DOM at a similar distance away from the current price. It is interesting watching the price come down collect the buy orders and then go up to the sell orders and vice versa.

I believe they are the liquidity levels and are used by market makers and algos to fund their trade ideas. So I am coming to the conclusion it is better to not place my SL near them. If I feel the need to put an SL in the market I should probably get out of the trade with the most amount of profit instead of watching price seek out liquidity and my stop.

Watching the DOM and the volume can be interesting when the Bulls flip to Bears and vice versa. I highlighted that in a couple of posts earlier.

The real reason I am watching the DOM now is to see where the Histogram is building up, as that is the balance where traders including myself get chopped up. I watch the DOM to see how much volume is in the market. When it's 500 bid and 486 offered that is a low volume market. When it is 2500 bid and 2800 that seems to be a fairly liquid / high volume market.

Some of the key levels get shone on by there suddenly being 1000+ lots of vol sat there. I like to see if price gets to that level.
Knowing that firms and big traders scale in and out of trades makes you understand why the ES goes up and down through a level many times.
Knowing that the market is open to manipulation means that I don't fully trust the DOM to guide me yet, but I am learning on the job and trying to read the tape as best I can.

One thing I do, is as the market approaches a liquidity level, I place a horizontal line on the chart. Price may travel through which means if it was 140 lots of buyers that get absorbed those traders may flip their position when price comes back up. As you watch the 140 lots get absorbed and your horizontal lines build up , you see whether there is a certain distance that these levels happen at between each other. They also act as markers for when the price flips the other way.

Also, when price has been going down for instance, and your horizontal lines have been placed, it is interesting to see when the volume comes in to defend a level, as you never get to place your horizontal line, instead, you have to remove one. It can be a crude indication of when the move has run out of steam and as I am a visual person, it helps me a lot.

The June & Sep contracts on the ES are trading similar volume on Friday - going to roll forward to September on Monday.

Looking through the CME web site - I found this study.
Interesting to see the depth of the book pre the crash, then the spike in sellers, and the demise of buyers in the peak of the crash.
Now it seems we are unable to get much volume back into the market meaning a lot of traders have been ejected from the market or are on the sidelines.

If we close the Gap early, we could see a continuation higher

So we filled that gap


As someone is reading this, thank you kind person. I feel I should keep trying to improve my explanations.

As the market can move quite quickly and keeping an eye on the DOM is one thing whilst placing a horizontal line another, I figured I should streamline the process.
That is where 'Alerts' come in.

Still a tad slow if you want to do it during high volatility but they can work. So far this is the quickest way of remembering a liquidity level that I have found.
As the price falls or punches through the outliers of volume sat on some levels, if you look down the 9 levels showing volume sat there, you may see another interesting Volume amount.



If price fails to move to that level and puts some space between itself and that level, you are left with your little bell sign, which can act as a reminder that some volume was left there should price return but also guide you when you come to notate whether price formed a higher time frame Sup/Dem zone.



Again, nothing really helps during massively volatile times as the DOM goes up and down sometimes faster than my eyes can refresh. But given half a chance, I have found myself doing the alerts more often than not.

Excuse the losing trade, I moved my SL to early

However, as you can see around the 3022 I still have a Bell sign.



You'll also see that I closed out on the swing low, something that I have been trying to do forever. Who wants to give any profits back? Not me.

I achieved this because as the Bell above the one that remains on the chart was triggered I closed out. 1 because it was at my daily profit target, 2. it was at the Gap open level (top of the grey box) and 3. we had made 3 legs down (within that range of 5-minute bars, from the swing high to my close,) which is easiest seen on a 1-minute chart.

Getting out when that level alert pings is improving my ability to take profits more regularly. It's not yet 100% full proof at getting me out at the bottom of a new trending move but if it coincides with a daily profit target all good.

Being right and sitting tight. That's where the money is.

Thank you @HiddenGap.
Fingers crossed I can do the sitting bit and not the ending of my life bit

it didn't even touch the sides, so that was a lot of small orders all bunched up

As the men in suits are still chatting - dropped down to a micro

5 minute chart - micro
going to see if we get a move higher now

I need to step away from screens, so I have put the SL to Break Even. This means I'll probably get stopped out Let that be a warning to you all why you should take the money, not be greedy and stop getting to Break Even.

A quick $100 in the Oil

Aided by the heatmap


Going with the Risk On or Risk Off moves helps with the intraday scalps

Someone can trade off this and make money - which goes to show you can make money in these markets in a bazillion different ways.
All comes down to money management.

Automatic SL got triggered at BE. I am thinking of turning this off as many many times, price will test my entry before heading off in the direction of my trade.
Hence why I entered again. I still believed in the trade.