order flow

Hi there,

I have recently discovered the work of Larry Harris on market structure and I have to say it is by far the most interesting stuff (trading related) I have ever read so far. I don't have his book yet, but I'm reading the papers you can download for free at his web site.

Anyway, when he describes the different market participants and how/why they trade, it seems like everything revolves around reading the other market participants intentions by interpreting the order flow. Since I trade with a market maker I obviously don't have access to the order book, and non-institutional ECNs order flow is not representative of what's going on at the interbank market so it wouldn't make any difference if I trade with a market maker or an ECN, either way I wont have access to any valuable information on order flow and therefore I have no way to know what the other market participants are up to.

So...maybe there's some hidden secret way to look at a chart and extract valuable information...but I have no idea how that's possible. Maybe I'm supposed to look at the chart and "assume" what are the other players doing and where are their orders, but this uncertainty doesn't give much confidence.

I guess my question comes down to this:

Is it possible to find and exploit any kind of inneficiency in order to achieve successful trading even when You don't have access to order flow information and the best you can do is "guessing" what the other traders are up to?

comments?

Candlesticks and supports and resistance levels are the best tools to interpret
where the strengths and weaknes lie in the market. Raad the J16 thread and it will become pretty clear.

Thanks for your answer, but I'm looking for something different than traditional charting, price action, TA, etc.

good luck to ya

Yes, it is possible to exploit any kind of inefficiency in order to achieve successful trading. But you always need some kind of insider information. No one can have the full picture of the order flow in Forex but its sure that some players can have some part of that order flow and exploit it. Most of them are big player such as banks, institutional traders etc.

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