 Morning everyone, welcome to the Traders Lab. I am your host Tom B. Thanks for being here today and we have some interesting things to share so hopefully you'll find the time we visit together useful. If you're in YouTube welcome and be sure to click the cog wheel, make sure you're in 1080p so you can kind of see what's going on clearly. If you have questions I'll do my best to answer them. Please post them in the chat and in addition since I'm running multiple computers and streams it takes me some time to get to the chats to try to answer questions so please be patient with that. This program is about understanding and learning market mechanics. It is not indicator based however if you use indicators you might want to consider how you might best deploy them but a understanding of market mechanics might assist you with that. In my evolution as a trader I do not use any indicators but it doesn't mean that that can't be done. It's really a function of understanding what's going on in the market and a one size doesn't fit all and if you do use indicators if you are constantly tweaking and tuning the issue and then going into multiple time frames which you will find is the reason this happens is because we have a random environment. In other words rotations are random while in a higher time frame we might have a sense of where the market might underline go. We don't know where it will go or how it might if it even does get there so that's the fallacy of indicators is really always trying to tune and that is really an optimization effort and that creates randomness. We're going to talk about market mechanics so you can have a better understanding of how the market actually works and that is what this stream is about and then if you can integrate your current process and align it with what you might see here you may or may not get a better outcome and that's up to your trade plan. So this is about market mechanics integrating book map with auction market theory and volume profile which is the way we the interaction of buyers and sellers is represented. The volume profile so you understand basically just shows us price and volume and if you stop and think about it the market is the intersection of the buyers and sellers whether it's just one or many and based on that interaction we can determine or at least ascertain potentially what the intent might be and this takes place in all time frames so it's not about scalping it's about attempting to gain alignment with higher time frame participants and that's what we're going to be talking about today. General disclosure all book map 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. An investor could potentially lose all or more than the initial investment. Risk capital is money that could 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 please remember this is not a trade calling room. This is strictly for educational purposes only. Is anyone having an issue with my audio? Okay thank you. Well thank you Jamie and trade futures thank you for being here. By the way we're having a trader roundtable this Saturday from a 10A to 12P Eastern Standard Time and all of you are welcome to come to the Discord Trader Lab. You don't have to be a bookmap subscriber and I'll post some information or you can just go to bookmap.com and just where it says join Discord click on that register and then come to the Trader Lab tomorrow anytime. Also in addition to this stream I do narrate through audio in the Trader Lab during the day as market conditions warrant and today was very interesting of course right. Is there anything that's not interesting every day in the market? Think about that. I think that's why we show up every day. What will the market do? So here's our process and I always do this because I know there's a lot of traders that are new and I want you to understand what we are doing and why I think order flow and market mechanics are so important for a trader to understand. Primarily it's auction market theory. Now there's various tools but auction market theory is the basis that all trade is built on and if you think about it it was Wycoff and I don't even remember this had to be really early on who really started putting together volume and price. It was his theories on volume that created really the evolution of auction market theory and if you think about it when you go to the store you participate in an auction and when I think of these processes I think it's easier for us to relate them to other experiences that we have in our life that we bring to trading. So it's not like thinking of this as some esoteric process you know you know an off-planet outer-world experience it's something you're already doing so you don't have to quote learn something new you just have to take your experience and bring it here. Some of those experience don't fit in trading that's a different conversation but the auction is a generic process. Hold on I've got to have a position here I got to deal with. Hold on. Sorry guys you know how it is. Let me just get in here. Okay sorry auction market theory auction market theory is basically buy low sell high. I know you're gonna say wow that's brilliant but let's talk about buy low sell high. Let's go to the supermarket let's all take a little walk in the supermarket and let's go to the let's try something different today. Let's buy a can of soup. You're gonna say but it's summer what do I need soup for but can of soup and we go when we see that can of soup and it's on sale. Normally let's just say it's a dollar a can. I know pretty good soup right but it's on sale for 75 cents. If you perceive the dollar as the rate and that's the retail price and you're willing to pay a dollar right but for some reason that seller wants more volume so they lower their price remember the seller has to lower the price to create and motivate that buyer you buy it at 75 cents you go wow that's really good you know so you buy it maybe you buy two right then the sellers go wow we've got some good demand down there let's raise our price and they raise their price back up now comes back to retail and at reach so you know what happens at retail think about it if there's a price that the participants perceive is fair it creates high volume right because that's where everybody's willing to interact that creates something in the auction that we call high volume node because that's just retail makes sense doesn't it. Now there's another part of this let's say those sellers go you know I think we can get more let's raise our price now you go to the store and you go you know dollar ten dollar fifteen okay I'll pay it dollar 20 a little less buyers are willing to pay a dollar 20 a dollar 25 basically we've run out of buyers okay that's the auction so now what do those sellers do well they lower the price to attract those buyers back until we get back to a fair price and let's just assume we're back at a dollar which is to retail price and again that volume that interaction of price and volume takes place retail does that make sense think about it pretty simple right oh Ron I see you're reading reminiscence of a stock operator that was the first book I read when I first came into the business actually I hadn't even gotten in the business I was thinking about it and this is back in the Stone Age you know you had to use a stone in a chisel and that was the first thing I read reminiscence of a stock operator and it just was so exciting to read about Jesse Livermore and in the early 1900s and just in a lot of things haven't changed since then and I really recommend everybody read that book it's not so much how to trade it's about behavior and there's many many lessons in it but I found it really motivating and it helped me decide to get involved in the trading and create a career so volume profile what is this you probably heard about it and you might think it's very confusing I will tell you when I first got involved with volume profile was in the mid 1980s and I actually learned it from the guy who created it which Peter Stottelmeyer and I went to something called the market logic school which you know where he actually taught the class and I learned it from the guy and I and I will tell you when I first got involved with it and CQG was the first platform so you know that actually had market profile I started working with it and it took me a while because I kind of came from system design and indicators you know so it was really a different way to kind of view the market I kind of had a sense of auction but not a complete understanding and I ought but when I saw the volume profile I thought I'd landed on you know the moon and it took me a long time to integrate it and I was not successful with it initially because it coming from indicators I was very much in a and I'm sharing this and we're going to take time today so don't worry about it because my trades are already doing their thing so I don't really need to be too well mind the store too closely so you know at first I was using quote kind of a rigid view it's going to do this it's going to do that because that's kind of how it was presented to me you know that it's going to go this far based on this and that you know all those little rules statistical things that I think initially we lean on and in a way we're looking even if it's not conscious for certainty and in reality there's nothing that's certain in the financial market because it changes and the auction so you understand as it's represented is really an attempt to find a fair price and what is more interesting I think about the whole thing is that it does it in all time well time frames which is a misnomer there's no time in the market we all come from you know five minute two minute three minute or this or that or range of this all right right I mean we kind of slice and dice the mark up in market up into some kind of order but we are imposing the order on the market we created the clock remember the sundial we created the clock the market does not think or care about the clock except the open the close maybe the EU that kind of thing you know ETH things of that nature but otherwise it's the volume in the participant behavior that really creates the market so time is not an element so but time frame as you guys and even me back when relate to it in the sense of how the market operates let's change that to fractal fractal is like those Russian dolls you know the little one inside the next one inside the next one so this is not about scalping I know a lot of us think gee you're looking at shorter time frames yeah I am but I'm going to show you and today I'm going to give you some idea of how this might work how we integrate the shortest time frame or auction between those buyers and sellers in micro structure to attempt to align ourselves with higher time frames because the opportunity as I see it is to align and catch a ride you know with a higher larger rotation but anytime you interact with the market you're doing it in a let's say inner-day or a more shorter term structure in my opinion something to think about now the other element about this and this is one of the more difficult areas for all traders and it was for me is context context is for example we've been going up right I'm just reading a little bit in the chat context as we were going north and if you guys know we had a target of 40 16 that I've been talking about for I don't know how long weeks right and if you notice and I'm gonna in quotes coincidentally the high of the day is 40 16 and I think it's 25 right so we'll talk about that today I think you're gonna find it interesting and you might even get an understanding of why I'm a fan of auction market theory in the volume profile so context and now how context changes can also impact your opportunity in the market and also how to participate and I'm gonna show you some of that today a little more than usual because today is really interesting it's an event okay so we'll look at that and the tool of course and interact in the market and the one I use is an order flow tool called book map and and really what big book map is for me is the tip of the spear it's kind of where I can get into the microstructure I can read order flow I can see stops I can see icebergs I can see absorption I can see all the the nitty gritty if you will in the more shorter term structures and that helps me understand the developing structure in the interday timeframe and microstructures based on the auction where I might engage and triggers to engage potentially in the market and it helps me really get into the minutiae because when I'm going to execute isn't it and when you execute isn't it come down to a risk reward parameter what is the minimum risk you can quantify that fits your trade plan to go on to potentially higher timeframe targets whatever that is per your trade plan so that's how I look at it and that's my process that I'll be sharing with you I hope you find it useful so I want to show you a little something here that I just kind of threw together and now don't let this you know don't bang your head on the table when you see this and I just kind of now this looks very confusing to you all this is so you know and it's is whenever there's a consolidation it's an auction so you'd see a lot of lines and things I don't want you to think too much about it at the moment what's more important is what happened over here you see this chop chop chop chop trading 101 it's a consolidation now I couldn't fit it all on the screen because I want to put the main issue on the screen if you remember I can't get all of this in here we had an area at 3857 we are big chop chop chop so in a higher timeframe and let's call this a higher timeframe it was a big consolidation right we had fallen out and gap lower if you guys remember this day in fact June 9th we basically got short against up here and our target was down here now I want you to know it's all random certainly I have nothing to do with it it's really the participants but this 40 1625 existed from a previous consolidation and this brown line represents let me see if I can get this a little clearer for you I hope what's called the high volume remember the auction right so this is where was retail in a previous location I just put through this together because this just you know we hit our target today so you know be patient and then we fell out of this consolidation it's a breakout you guys know breakouts right but this was the next level where retail then we gapped away from it this was the gap so then it left a gap and we moved lower sold off and then we went into the chop ateria and all this is is a consolidation in a bigger higher timeframe now here's the other pieces inside of the consolidation or other consolidations right fractal remember the word fractal so when these two days overlap as an example that's an auction and what it is is where's too high where's too low you see and inside of this auction is the volume and with a volume profile we can actually see where the highest volume is taking place and where it's too low in other words remember buyer I'm not you know I'm not up here I'm not paying that forget it hey it's on sale down here so in this two-day behavior and this is just an example there was a fight between the buyers and the sellers this is on sale and they perceive value in this two days here so and you'll notice we broke lower and let's just look what happened when we came back up this day right here this red bar hit that on the nose so the buyers because we went down what did say this retail price was too high this is how the auction works remember and it's not that it's always too high or too low it's in the current perception of the participants so if you break away from high volume remember retail and in these two days these guys said yeah even though they auction both sides too high too low they agreed in this two days this was the fair price in these three days these guys too high too low this was where the high volume was the fair price we auctioned it again too high too low the fair price we break down and I'm just showing you one little element we come back where do we come back to exactly the fair price too high we're out of here boom we come back down we don't quite get to this fair price this auction it's too low where do we come back see and then we blow through here so we couldn't get back to this fair price so that's saying that was too low now remember it's an auction buyers can say I'm not waiting I think the prices go and higher and we get a trend configuration that's the big update we just had that a couple days ago right so now what well let's go back here 4016 this is the thin air this was the gap which I think I've been speaking about this for quite a while and this was the target price check in the big aisle I hope you find that useful now the past two days we auctioned and now we know we're in up in the gap right so now we know that let's just say the lay of the land is potentially to go higher right now I want you guys to understand that nobody knows what the market's going to do but what I find based on the auction is what it might do and when you understand auction market theory which is the basis the basis of all interaction between a buyer and seller in any marketplace and that's the gas station that's the supermarket you know wherever there's liquidity that interaction whether it's one buyer or seller who set a price in a value and agree or many and in the financial market there's many that gives you an indication now if we're buyers I don't know about you I want to buy on sale you know I'm a shopper aren't you hey if it gets really high it shuts off my buying but here was a price that was unfair so I call these price check in aisle three you ever hear him say that in the supermarket now when I talk about fractals and I try to share a concept of a fractal this auction is happening in all time frames that's why this 40 16 was my target now I have to tell you I had no idea and I accept the randomness because just like over here we didn't get back to it in other words the buyers came for it aggressively which created the trend day you say here the sellers could have come forward aggressively we could miss it there's also the possibility because this is trading that we could go through it say so all that's possible but for me the target was here and then it's what's the reaction is that make sense this is June 9th by the way guys so you know the date all right and we also were short on this day if you guys remember that if you were following the stream and this was the target and if you think I know what's gonna do it please I don't but what I know is what it might do that's the best you got in trading in my opinion is maybe please take some notes write that down maybe because if you operate it maybe you're gonna be mentally in a better place to accept the randomness of trading because it is random in the sense of will it do it how will it do it when will it do it all that is maybe isn't it so that's maybe so now you got maybe so what is the potential here by the way now the market 39 67 50 retail in these two days where do you think my but not a recommendation where do you think my target is for my current short huh let's take a guess and that's not a trade recommendation by the way I just trade the auction I don't know anything right does that make sense 67 50 losing my mind where are we anyway here hold on a second I just gotta move some things around please bear with now remember this is like horseshoes and hand grenades there's no precision in the market at best it's maybe hold on sorry guys I gotta do a little maintenance here yeah okay can you guys see what's going on does it make sense do you see this now I did this this morning and this was here this is the auction so in this two days right here the high volume or retail price now you had set yet sellers here yet buyers down here this is all this is going on and they interacted now today and now we extended today for the next level up here is it logical it might come down to 67 50 is everybody tracking how about the 67 50 can you see how it's if this then that if not then what if we get here and we don't get through then the market starts rotating the configuration is trading and I'm gonna show you this in more microstructure then what is the potential this was the fairest price retail at 67 50 retail at 16 70 25 too high where's the last fair price 67 50 target flat everybody tracking and these are not trade recommendations is this useful this is auction market theory so this is why I do what I do now any questions before I move on the orange lines here are called volume point of control and what and it's just another term for the highest volume in this two days so all these mean something all this little stuff but basically you see the bell curve that's called the distribution inside of this there's other little distributions and they're all giving you information but for these two days and when we talk about higher time frame I'm attempting to get aligned with higher time frames but I use micro time frames to participate and I'm gonna go into that in a little bit but I want to make sure everybody understands what this is this is the highest time volume remember retail for these participants so where the highest volume is was where the most transactions took place just like in your store right is everybody aligned before I move on okay let's move on thanks for your patience with this if you have a question post it before I go on to something else I do have some other things to show you but let's get over here whoa what's going on here this is when you say please book map be open okay now one of the things that I think is rather confusing this would see this is our target in here right so for me that was an important area to observe I remember there's no trade recommendations here and for those of you who are in YouTube I want to invite you to our trade around table tomorrow and I'll post how you can do that again and also just so you know when I'm not live streaming I do drop in to the trader lab and do a little audio updates and you know little things like that okay so let's see if we can get back here I'm gonna try to do this and my computer gets really annoyed you know so just please be patient while I get back when we make that high and I just want to get up towards the high of the day and I want to show you the change and I'm also going to show you some triggering structures that's fun and also why a potential short huh you're gonna go really in where and why because you might say how do you get short well I think you'll find it really interesting where'd we make that high hold on guys I got to go look I just have to look at the clock you know because I get lost here since I kind of I'm not looking what happened I'm more involved in what is happening at the moment so give me a moment I'm just okay so that was around okay just before 9 a.m. I hope you're gonna find this useful if it's not you know let me know you see micro composite VPock that's what it's called that was our target and it's been sitting here forever now I don't pick the high I haven't figured that out yet but I do use targets so for the longs the targets are right in here you know a little bit above ahead I should say you know you see this here so this is the target now there's no way to know that that's the high of the day so don't think I know I don't know I see this and I go well that's interesting and then the thing that can happen from here is a test or not or just straight south of the border so let's look and see because I don't remember any of this long time ago it seems right so I have nothing to do now it's not unreasonable to me let me turn down this other audio here it's not unreasonable to me for profit-taking right especially because we had a key level right here so not unreasonable and how do we know what the market's gonna do I want you to know no way to know so if you know if you were looking at this to get out and then it does this to you that's life you know how about this it only gets this high and then reverses that's life that's trading so we don't know so don't think anybody knows so and I certainly don't I just want you to understand that this is trading and it's random in the nature of what it might do the market could come down 40 points and come back here later or never so I'm just saying so we don't know any of that but this was our target there you got it now we come back and this is pretty good selling right you can see it so let's go look what's happening I'm gonna try to walk you through this and I was narrating this in our trader lab I don't know about right here I think I talked about the target but then it was the context change remember context so this is one of those areas where as a trader we need to recognize change because I can see and I know from my own experience that I would keep thinking it's going up it's going up why because I didn't have the auction I didn't understand why it might come to a level and then not go any further which is right possible correct so hold on one second here managing the store if you know what I mean okay so this is called the volume point of control this yellow line let me explain now you saw the target at 4016 right that was that orange line this is really the same thing but it's in the developing daily time frame remember fractal so this is our developing time frame and what you're seeing here is the volume and price remember the auction what's fair what's unfair and the market is going to continually try to find a fair price in all of these consolidations and what a consolidation is is the interaction between a buyer and a seller oh it's on sale I like this I'm not paying that yeah but this is a good deal down here I'm not paying that and that's what a consolidation becomes and we see that in the auction with these rotations isn't that what a consolidation is rotate rotate well inside of a consolidation is retail and retails represented where the most volume takes place right remember your your soup so in this little auction and that's all this is this auction and it's basically this chop chop over here this is what it looks like chop chop chop oh it's on sale I'm not paying that see that kind of thing and inside of that is the volume and we can see it you know over here and we can see it like over here this is the same this is all the volume for the day so far and this is only what's invisible on the chart so what this lets me do the chart volume profile I can now isolate micro structures and this is how I use it to kind of see inside I'm going to turn this off this is shows us the it's called the liquidity marker and it shows me the ads and polls it's very nice it works with the heat maps you know what the heat map is this is showing me the order book and the changes so as the it gets added and pulled this will get dark if there's a lot of orders here relative see here relative to what's around it and as the years less it's darker you know less color and as it gets but here they pulled it say or they trade it I don't know but I'm going to take that off so just so I want you to be able to see it clearly liquidity marker it's called and this others if you're not familiar these are iceberg sellers those are icebergs and these are stops the greener by stops the red or sell stops okay and primarily we are the guys the retail traders who use stops so let's look volume point of control this is like retail right your soup dollar volume shifts up retail so watch what happens let's start looking at it yesterday's high overnight high the open okay so you with me right we're gonna go incrementally and I'm taking my time here I you know you know I kind of vary it from day to day sometimes now I'm just jumping into real time but this is such a significant event I really think we need to be looking at it you know you like how did we got to the 67 or whatever it was 6950 so retail watch market volume moves higher what that is saying in all of this that this is now the retail price so if we fall away from it is it possible we'll check it let's see now I don't know I don't remember what happened here I don't remember so you know we didn't well let me get back here trying to see where I am so too high okay watch so this is the liquidation okay now this is where we get interesting now the initial balance let me explain what this is remember the statistics always talk about these and write this down and please take notes because I think you know this is a different way to look at the market so if you want to you know the time we spend together if you're interested in getting the most out of this you're going to notice I repeat things and the reason I do is because this is a generic fractal process it happens in all time frames so I kind of repeat it because it's a matter of at least for me I needed repetition to learn and you know but it's the fractal nature so you're going to see the auction in all time frames but let's we're staying in a little higher time frame right now so this is called a naked volume point of control now let me tell you naked you know oh but it was the where the most volume traded yesterday this was considered the retail price right high volume plus price is retail at the time remember this is yesterday so if the market thought it was fair yesterday we have a possibility to go do a price check in aisle 3 isn't it interesting so and let me go back initial balance high initial balance low there's a 90% problem over a 90% probability that either the RTH first hour high or low will get taken out and of course we don't know which one right so past performance not necessarily take you to future results I'm required by the regulators to say that so price check in aisle 3 price check in aisle 3 what did we do in the higher time frame at 4016 price check in the big aisle are you guys tracking do you see something happening now what let's look are you guys with me so far I just want to make sure it's this is fractal and this is the point I'm trying to make and I'm gonna go slow now where are the stops VWOP I don't know if this is the current mid I don't think so let's go back watch the VWOP and where's the retail price here price check maybe let's see okay watch what happens here we come up towards it we don't touch it price check so price check in aisle 3 in the in yesterday's retail today's retail developing here doesn't make it watch what happens the market is trading you know this is our rotations who knows right the volume point and control moves down what is that saying potentially underline this is too high I mark them by the way they're not marked here because I'm marking them on my other book map which is the one I'm you know active with and I call it a variable high volume node all this is I don't want to forget that it happened it's saying is the participants think that price at this time is too high so I mark it are you guys with me does it make sense and don't forget after we get into this I'll get back in the real time with you guys how we doing in YouTube make sure nobody's passed out yet okay so too high volume point and control of course moves down all right retail so retail and don't this is kind of like now we're not paying this we like this price better intersection of right volume and price what does it do moves down again so what do I what am I seeing happen this is the auction well too high too high I gotta mark this one variable high volume node I just have a process I follow remember I don't know what's gonna happen right I know I don't know write that down you don't know I don't know or if you know you got to get send me a direct a message and we'll talk so and now what's what's happening is volume and price are moving together what it is saying based on auction principles too high too high and we're moving down so this is suggesting to me to potentially go lower now again I have no idea so I don't think I know so watch the behavior price check in aisle 3 right here you see this what happened was retail let's go back and check this price this is almost like I always think about it as a price check in aisle 3 because basically the participants at this time weren't willing to pay this price they weren't willing to pay that price but the market has the potential price check in aisle 3 to come back and just make sure is this really too high let's go back price check watch now we don't know oh so price check price check too high perhaps price check too low perhaps price check let's go back here go to aisle 4 for a change price check too high is everybody tracking can you see what's going on how about in YouTube is this logical the market speaks the market is going to check levels we don't know if how when we know nothing what we know is what happened in the short time frame and the nature of the auction is to check and we don't know right look how close these are too high fair price chop chop chop maybe too low that's why it comes back ah maybe too high comes back maybe too and we don't know well maybe too low well maybe this one's not too high let's go check this one see that's what creates this it's an auction so what happens right here I'm gonna take you now into microstructure it's everybody tracking I need to know because I don't want to go on because this is big time stuff guys if you can get this and think remember it's we don't know what the market's gonna do but it provides us with a lot of insight into what it might do and that creates locations based on your trade plan to potentially interact is that makes sense so remember nobody knows you know and if you guys figure out how to know like I say dial me up love to have a conversation now there's something else I want to show you I gotta go back up here remember this was our target that's the high of the day that's luck guys don't think it's anything more than that now you may think that there's precision but there's no precision it's just maybe this up here remember I said is an auction and you see how the volume tapered off that's showing you less and less interest as we're going higher now we fell out of it and now we're auctioning in this right this is too high too low too high too low okay so now again we don't know what it'll do but this is an outside edge in this we know unless things change was too high because that's where the retail price was and now we went down we check down here we check this one and now we're checking this one it's aligned with yesterday's high you know so we have confluence of items now I'm gonna take you inside so now we're going down to a smaller time frame and why would I do that and why would I potentially consider a short let's go back I hit my upside target we sold off I've fallen out of this area up here my volume point of control shifted down showing me that potentially these levels this one and this one are too high now I don't know but the alignment with this one is at this outside edge so it's if this then that if not then what if we don't get below here then what then what then how about check check and if I don't get out here then I have the potential to rotate and come all the way down to the other side so let's look in here I want to make sure guys I'm taking the time with this and it's not about my time it's about we don't get you know we have something happening today in multiple time frames and when that happens it gives us a real opportunity to see how the auction works and those of you guys who are swing traders option traders whatever you know whatever your thing is this is how you use this process for the to participate in these higher fractals all I do is look inside the developing time frame and then I go in and look at the same process in a microstructure and you'll see the same thing it is a generic process if you can think in fractals using a similar process you really will understand it then it's a matter you know of just really getting that recognition and that takes time so let's go take a look inside remember location right and the high oh six now remember it's ballpark you know there's no precision in trading if we had that it'd be easy wouldn't let me see if I can but okay here chop chop so too high watch too low here's our location too high alignment alignment right here this is your this is a consolidation right chop chop chop chop chop right in here is our area to observe let's look now I'm in a fractal this is like getting your microscope out chop chop chop 81 stops go off here this is how I use now watch this is how I use the stop add-on the stop iceberg detector and remember who we trading against retail traders is this going higher how do I know well I see 81 I see 179 that's big number well I can't get involved here 16 is this the high no it goes higher 81 more stops I can't get involved there pullback three stops here hmm but it's not a new high new high Bing Bing Bing what's that one indicator 101 and this is not an indicator just is just giving us the tags that are on the trades this is called market buy order data it's available through the CME and Rhythmic and it shows us the tags and basically the tag on this guy was a stop and in so if stops are buyers right if I don't get more buyers aggressors above here this is potential exhaustion then what break lower exhaustion this is my trigger now what's inside of this volume there right here and here so it sees the volume here which is a micro thing I got to tell you I can't do anything with this until it breaks now I'm looking for a pullback to where the volume so let's see and remember there's no precision in trading at best it's maybe right here right here this is my entry my risk is over here six so let's zoom I'm in it here three and a half is that a viable risk I ask so high volume and let me here's the generic aspect of this this is an auction as much as this whole day is an auction the volume point of control is the fair price at the moment for this whole day developing day this is your high volume right here 10,000 contracts in the micro structure right here we have the same behavior this little high volume of 1500 contracts sitting over here 1600 contracts it's just like the VPOC over here is that logical same behavior so imagine this little thing up here is like your convenience store down the street and you know high price right and auction auction retail break away too high you notice the behavior in this time the bigger time frame too high right that's was a previous VPOC location that we left behind that we just checked micro structure just like your VPOC break away from it come back and check from below isn't that the same as coming back to check this from below is everybody tracking isn't it something what do you guys think if you think this is useful in you to give me a thumb hopefully up so thanks guys so this is how I slice and dice so the thing is remember the interaction between buyers and sellers is fractal so think of this as your little convenience store this process of break retracement to this high volume this is like your VPOC is the same process is break retracement to here same so if you understand this and you understand why we came to this it's all the same can you see it it's like those Russian dolls they're inside inside inside so you guys who want to swing trade you got it you guys who want to trade intermediate time frame you got it and what was my target coming down remember the high volume and I showed this to I just want to bring you back on the short where were we going here 67 half so high time frame here target coming up yesterday and the day before that volume created a fair price that's a consolidation they overlap right 67 five so short and I got you so right took the short here done doesn't mean anything I'm just showing you how to kind of organize it and I hope you find some value in this hope you guys in YouTube are kind of getting that as they say the lay of the land what I find really interesting is because I understand the auction and you can too I can use the in all time frames I can be operating against this time frame which was my target and potentially a short and I can tell you not for me but once I see the behavior change and we get into this two-sided thing right this is called balance this is a different context so if I perceive now both sides are active which is what creates this rotation this kind of a thing because this is too high too low too high right I'm not paying that oh yeah but I like it fair price well if I go up to the next higher time frame if I fall out of this and remember the initial balance remember that guys first hour high or low over 90% probability one of them will go if I hit my major target up top do you think it makes sense to think about a short unless we get back I mean and of course we can take this out and go north you know right we know that but what's the auction saying let's go back too high too high fair price price check in aisle 3 Bing bang price check in aisle 3 outside edge too high short got it then what I be stat then what south to the next to 60 sit well wherever right is this logical that is correct Jim if you're a swing trader you would be looking to get a short here and you'd be looking for the next higher time frame down which was whatever 67 ish whatever 67 half is that work or you're like me and you put the short on you go for the same target and there's probably more in the game but that's not part of what I worry about you see I just trade targets somebody else you always got to leave some for the sweeper right do we have any questions let me show you a couple other things are too well we're at this so short scale price check see in other words short scale scale number one then I be low now watch this right here watch just watch what is this break now forget we have this we're working with this thing 90% probability but what is this price check in aisle 3 is this still too high what is this watch does this look familiar does this look familiar does this look familiar are you guys tracking you guys see alignment and I'm using a singular process to dance with the market in all in multiple time frames but the same process this is kind of what why you kind of see me what appears to well a repetitive process because the process is generic it really is the market is continually auctioning in all fractals that's why I don't like calling them time frames but you know that's kind of what we all started out with was time you know but it's not time so let's look right here let's open this up just to see now remember nobody knows it could also come all the way back around because this is balance but what we did is we broke away and remember what's the purpose of the of the market what's fair what's unfair so if this is retail what the market is doing if it comes back and again remember nobody knows so don't think anybody knows anything here right because the point is we don't know all you have is maybe so let's look this is a one lot so 12 stops went off up in here this is a one lot I call that Louie with the one lot that's Louie we haven't had Louie here for a while but I'm bringing them back so that's Louie and again we don't know price check in aisle 3 are we gonna blow through it don't know so let's look chop chop we only had a one lot up here now for me this is a possibility to initiate here or not now if I'm already in this thing from 06 area nobody gets 06 on the button and I scaled coming down that I you know but I want to see the behavior but I want you to see the behavior chop chop break pullback check break chop chop chop break pullback check this is where the volume is see what happens this guy comes in that gives a little kick in the pants too but this is I'm just showing you behavior if you can start reading it now here's the the caveat you're gonna see auctions if you will in the microstructure everywhere like here break pullback right here notice this up chop chop break pullback this guy comes back in this is order flow that kind of gives the market a little kick not a recommendation I'm just saying but this is not you know this could be an area to get involved if you weren't in or do add up to you what's your trade plan so let's watch now remember I've got an IB stat down here somewhere it is yeah this and then my target below so let's just watch the behavior and then we'll try to get in the real time over 90% probability right so that's done now let's watch and there's another setup and by the way those of you if you haven't done it if you come over to the trader lab in the bookmap discord chat there's about 60 PDFs pinned to the top of that trader lab chat that shows all these kinds of behaviors so you can kind of look at them and study them a little bit and see if you can kind of make sense out of it this is also a short here against the check in aisle three right too high break below check from below too high IB potential short right here let's go look I still hope you guys find this useful because I know I'm spending a lot of time on it but I want you to see how you put these pieces together so I be low 90% probability break what happens potential profit-taking or not pullback here's volume you can see it right there this is your area that we're under here this is the area chop chop chop Louis with the one lot I don't know I got this little micro auction here this is your retail too high right there can you guys see the high volume note now I don't know so don't think I know anything I don't know but I get exhaustion Louis with the one lot and one stop remember stop the virgins remember high volume little like your little retail auction in here too high exhaustion coming back too high but I don't know break okay now what where's the volume see that little node that's like your little V pock in here right here break pullback price check in the micro aisle down the street at your convenience store too high short where's our target everybody remember wasn't it 60 something or other or 69 I don't know can't remember but you know what I'm saying right down here I think that'll kind of do it what do you think any questions the assante the I be low is the first hour high and low of our th oh boy this is net was narrated in the trader lab yeah Mike I use the microstructures because it's the same thing in all timeframes or fractals which is the appropriate term for it I'm what I'm doing here in the stream and you know this all happened as you guys know in fact I was as I was doing the stream I was telling you what the target was we hadn't even gotten there yet so you know but I do not this is not a trade calling room I don't do it that's just not my thing and there's regulatory reasons for that too so but I do narrate the auction in the trader lab when I'm not streaming when and for those of you who are wondering I go back at times when it's appropriate and other times I just stay in real time but I do not call trades absolutely not my intent and we don't do it that's that it's always nice when nothing is working come on let's go okay so this is the target on the downside now for those of you now I have no idea what the market is going to do from here because in fact if I look at a higher time frame hold on a second we could fall back inside this whole structure let me just pull this chart up again for you guys to see it this is the higher time frame that we've been talking about for probably weeks right and this was the target which is here right and this was the target coming up this was the target coming back down this was created before today because it's these two days this is the high volume so this is retail in this time frame if we fall out of this we can come back here not a recommendation just saying we can also consolidate in here you know so I don't know you know that part is not for me to determine as they say not my job does that make sense oh boy is this helping you or is this a waste of our time just let me know because I'm not interested in wasting my time or anybody else so just let me know just want to know so this is where these levels come from and if you've been following the stream we've been talking about this for a long time the short up here if you guys remember which and this is all from you know previous we talked about it this was the target and so you know nobody knows so there is no way to know so we had this short and you notice the high volume node right here which I can't it's covered up that was the high of the day this was the low of the day and again you know what it's random and if you got to accept randomness this price check in the big aisle this return price check in the big aisle this is all I need to do I don't need to do anything more than this by the way there might be more and that doesn't bother me because the market is long and where are the stops under here this outside edge but we might not get there right so for me it's higher time frame here to here and I did not get that because I'm you know the high of the day is not my thing you know so but now I'm gonna be looking for this 040708 back on the downside if we come out of here we can sit in here and rotate right we're back here we can come down to the outside edges remember too high too low too high so we just check retail and this consolidation that's what this is so in the micro structures at 06 we saw the short in the higher structure we did a price check logical simple random so anyway hope you got something out of it my time is just about up I don't think I have much more to show you because now it's going to be rotational and this is more of a scalpateria but let me show you what you have we're below the first hours low we're below the highest volume from yesterday too high we went off that 4016 too high we came down to the target below don't know are we done and now we're gonna rotate you see this fat thing over here this is called the distribution it is a look at what it is so you know consolidation see chop chop chop chop chop right that means the shoppers too low too high and there's your high volume in this auction this is retail this is your fair price at the moment now remember what the market can do it can come up it can come back it can come back here or not or continue south of the border and you know that's not my job to know that but I will say where is it too expensive outside edge where our stops outside edge let me explain as long as we're hanging out what's going on and what the profile is telling me remember chop chop chop we had the short right break pullback that was a potential short or not doesn't matter to me I'm just showing you structure chop chop auction break pullback short too high and then the microtime frame too high break target here finito chop chop now let me show you this you see where we broke away and then we ran that is not auction this is what an auction looks like chop chop chop right too high too low too high both sides break away no auction run that creates something called a low volume area or node and this is a low volume area you see how it curves in rips and then starts auctioning again in this area which are outside edges our stops if we rotate back up and what can happen is we come up in here and since it's an outside edge you pop stops and then if there's no follow-through we get continuation with what potentially is the trend which is down so so this is how an auction works and now we can slice and dice it down to top fractals so let's go look I hope you get something out of this anyway this is what I do and again it's not a recommendation you know I have no idea if you know anything but this is the mechanics of the market and all this is doing is using what the market the basic function of the market is to find a fair price and it's going to run all over the place trying to figure out where that is and the way it finds it is it's the interaction between the buyers and the sellers you know and at times we can identify that behavior and if we can identify it then we can interact with it if it's if it's aligned with our column setups right by the way if you're interested in any of this I invite you to the trader lab there's PDFs about 60 of them of different configurations of how this might interact also there's an introductory video I did last year for book map and they're one of their advanced trader webinars about an hour which gives you an overview of this thing you know auction market theory volume profile and specific pointing out specific behaviors that you will see which very similar to what you're seeing here but with a lot of detail in minutiae circles and arrows that kind of thing do you see there's anything else I could show you let's just see see this here chop chop now where am I towards an outside edge see chop chop break high break low fine can't do anything like that come back out outside edge see the stops picks the stops stop pick alignment with liquidity just saying but here's the key component this let me take it back here so we could just see what it looked like at the time so at the time we fell out of this there's your low volume node chop chop break pullback where are we coming to an outside edge low volume we're rejecting this distribution over this distribution equals consolidation okay too high so now we're auctioning this thing okay outside edge so now I'm looking I got this and I know I have stops in remember in this because this is where we broke out and what's at the outside edge is a consolidation stops why everybody's trailing their stop retail trader behavior so again I have no clue so don't think I know anything because I don't so here I see the stops I see the book so watch here's your high volume here's your outside edge this is where your risk is this is your pullback to this volume which is in here if that's part of your plan this is a triggering structure again these are not trade recommendations I'm just sharing the auction and how you might integrate it into your plan I want to invite you guys if you haven't the open invitation is for the traders roundtable it's going to be tomorrow 10 a to 12 noon eastern standard time it's going to be exclusively in the traders lab it's not going to be on YouTube it's where you can bring questions and I can tell you two hours is going to fly if you're interested go to bookmap.com and you can join the trader lab you don't have to be a bookmap subscriber it's an interactive group of traders a great group we have it's collaborative in which we bring our collective experience with the goal of getting better currently we're setting up a research group into trade management that will work together along with me to bring potential solutions trade management is an issue that I think you know every trader should be interested in and there's no one way or right way to do it a lot of that is sort of timeframe fractal you know oriented and there's no secret sauce when it comes to a lot of this as you know I don't use any indicators but when it comes to trade management it is structured in the sense of having a process you can measure now the whole key of having a trade plan is you have a consistent process if you have a random process you probably won't be in the business very long because you can't quantify it randomness is really our enemy the market's random so randomness times randomness equals chaos so for me that's why targets are kind of way I work because I can kind of measure these things I can't met the fact if it goes you know down to 50 from here it's not my concern 40 06 ish you know down to whatever 69 67 50 wherever it was is fine with me you know that's all so you guys you're welcome go to bookmap.com by the way you don't have to be a subscriber you won't be solicited and you'll have access to a lot of free education on order flow you'll have education on stocks you know multiple time dimensions you know kind of like what I do also other approaches crypto if you like cues you like options what's your thing financial products all different ways and different tools and that's all part of the what bookmap offers it's really pretty amazing they used to charge for this you had to be a subscriber but currently it's available to everybody and I kind of think as my mother used to say free is good so register go to bookmap.com if you're interested in the roundtable come to the trader lab we have traders in there I think our senior trader has 54 years of trading makes me look like a puppy and then newer traders too but it's a collective experience it's a great group if you know trading is kind of an isolated experience you know we kind of all live under a rock think about when you got involved in trading the fantasy of what it was and if you've been doing this for a while there's a really a different reality to it and no one can relate to it unless they've done it no one understands the psychological issues that you will discover about yourself that you've never had to face before because we bring an experience from our quote outside world and lives and we think we can fit trading around that the reality is we have to change our behavior in order to interact with the market the things that protect us outside the fight or flight and all those triggering mechanisms are actually the enemy to being successful trader so not only do we talk about the mechanics and behaviors of the market we talk about the psychology in the obstacles that we all collectively face as traders you're not unique believe me the thing is you just may not know that this a lot of these elements that you wrestle with are just part of the process of becoming a trader so thanks again for being here I look forward to seeing you tomorrow in the trader lab it will not be streamed it will not be recorded it's just going to be an audio interaction I will be answering questions you can post them I also want to let you know that since the time is limited I will try to focus on questions that will be most beneficial to the group there's an unlimited number of you that can come in and get on the discord audio stream so there's no limits thanks again have a great weekend if I don't see you we'll be back here next week