 Good morning, traders. Welcome to the Traders Lab. I'm Tom B. Thanks for being here today. We are streaming live Monday through Friday, 11.30 to one piece in standard time, and you are all invited to visit the Trader Lab. This stream is about integrating book map order flow tools with auction market theory and volume profile trading in the intraday developing timeframe. It's about market mechanics, understanding participant behavior, how you might detect it, and then how you might integrate that into actionable behaviors to participate in market activity. And this is not scalping, this is about alignment. All trading, in my opinion, should start with an understanding of how the market works. Indicators don't teach you how, but if you have an understanding of how and why, you might be better able to deploy your current trade plan or potentially adjusted with a better understanding of market mechanics. That is the purpose of the stream. This is not a trade calling event. This is for educational purposes only. Typically the way this works is I go back, we start from a higher timeframe, we look at the behavior as it develops, or has developed previously this morning, and then we go into real time. So all subject to available time and your questions. If you're in YouTube, there's about a 15 second delay. Also, if you have questions, feel free to post them in the chat whether you're in YouTube or the Bookmap Discord Traders Lab. And I will try to answer any questions as long as they apply to the general group because our time is limited. General disclosure, all Bookmap 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 a substantial risk of losses is not suitable for all investors. An 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 again, thanks for being here and thank you for visiting the Trader Lab. Remember, please, this is not a trade calling room, this is for educational purposes only. And you should, no matter where you hear an idea, what you read or anything else, you must always vet anything and make it your own. Quick overview of the process, very simple, auction market theory, shoppers. In the S&P's store, what's too low, what's too high? If it gets too high, buyers won't pay for it based on their perception of value. If it gets too low, buyers might perceive that it's on sale based on their perspective of what a fair price is. In the grocery store, it works the same way. The fair price is retail. That's where most volume takes place because that's where sellers and buyers agree on a fair price, so they interact, right? When the price goes down, in other words, they put it on sale, if you perceive that it is below retail price or at the fair price and you see a bargain, same as if you're an S&P shop or you're going to buy it because it's on sale, then the sellers are going to see the demand coming in, they're going to start raising their price up, they may put it right back to retail, and then that interaction takes place. But suppose the sellers go, you know, we're getting good demand here at retail. Let's just see if we can squeeze a little bit more out. So they raise it up in less buyers but still transactions. They raise it up, they raise it up until those buyers perceive that the price is too high relative to a fair price. And then those sellers, if they want to do the volume, have to lower it down. This is the auction and now it takes place. So you understand in all time frames are fractals. So this interaction takes place all over the during the developing day or even in the higher time frames. And that behavior is what we call consolidations. And when you see that chop chop back and forth rotation in a range, that is an interaction between the buyers and the sellers, obviously. Well those outside edges of those consolidations are actually the extremes. So in other words, too high then too low. And then in the median or in the mean, where the volume takes place is what's perceived as fair in that interaction between that group of buyers and sellers. And we can see that as it's represented by a tool called the volume profile. It's not an indicator, the profile is basically price and volume. So we can see that interaction because price by itself doesn't tell us volume. We can see delta and all that tells us as aggressors, but we can't see volume at price. By seeing volume at price, it gives us, I believe, a little better insight into the intent of the participants, where their exhaustion is, where the demand takes place and where fair price is. And then the market is going to move from location to location, testing for fairness and unfairness as it progresses up and down the range. And it's the range is the same process just in higher time frame. So think of this as fractal. In other words, top down, in other words, higher time frame down, microstructure up in the developing daily time frame. So we're kind of looking at this from two sides, okay? The time frame really is determined by what do you trade in? Do you trade five point ES rotations, six tick? Do you trade 30, 40 point moves? Do you position during the day time frame? And then you hold positions for swing trades. The process that you're going to see demonstrated here is all the same. And we do stay here in the more interday time frame because we all execute. And no matter what time frame we're in, we start in the developing day time frame and more of a microstructure. Context is very important. And we're going to talk about context today because today is different than yesterday. So yesterday's plan does not fit today at the moment. So we're going to look into that because one of the keys in my opinion is understanding context. Because if the market is zigging and you are zagging, it might not work out so well. If you can recognize the context and also when it changes, you might have a better opportunity to get into alignment and potentially have better opportunity for a positive outcome. Again, past performance, not addicted to future results, but you'll kind of see how this works, especially if you come here and visit the stream on a regular basis. Now, the tool that I use is Bookmap. It's an order flow tool and allows me to get down to the granular level. So I can see inside, inside that interaction between the buyers and the sellers. And we can see that with stops, detector, icebergs, which are orders that typically are executed by let's just say more sophisticated traders and participants than us who are retail traders, absorption, stop sweeps. We have a heat map so we can see the order flow and the ads and pulls. So there's a number of tools. And also with Bookmap, depending on how granular you want to get, you can get down to nanoseconds. Now for me, I can't see a nanosecond. It's like a blur on the screen. But the point is, I can zoom into a level where I can recognize behavior in the shortest microstructure possible. And at times, let's just say that can help me with trade management and execution. So let's go take a look at some of this. But first, let's look at what happened here in the higher timeframe. And then we'll go into where we are today. Kind of interesting, isn't it always? So this is our higher timeframe. And what this is, and it's really important in my opinion that you understand what the market says. The market is constantly looking for a fair price, right? Remember, what's the purpose? What's fair? So it's going to auction. And this is what auction market theory basically is. It's the same thing you as a shopper. Too low, too high. It rotates. This is a consolidation as an example. This orange line is called the micro composite. That's what we call these a composite so micro composite volume point of control volume point of control is a profile market profile term. And what it basically is indicating is where the most volume took place in this structure. So if we think about it as a shopper, it was on sale over here. And it got too expensive up here. So this creates this rotation between the participants. Isn't that just what a consolidation is, right? And inside a consolidation, no matter how short the timeframe might be, I mean, micro structure or the year, depending how where you want to take it, this behavior is all the same. So this is our retail price in here. So let's look at how this worked. This is a retail price that was left out from the last time we were out over here. Okay, another consolidation. So here's how this works. Let's look. Down here, too high, too low, retail, break away, break out, trend day, up, up. And now we go into new rotation, new retail price. Okay, break out of this one, previous retail price from over here, hit it. That's as far as we go. Next day, open, check it. Now remember, this is horseshoes and hand grenades and clothes above. Next, higher, higher. Now, rotation, auction, new retail price, break away from it. That says this is too high. Now we come down. Where do we come? Here, price check, aisle three, like in your supermarket. What do we do? Now here it could either come back up, check. So too low, question mark, or too high. Sorry, guys. See that? The spam hunters are after me. So too high, check here, break down, check here, too low, watch, check back up, too high. Now these are areas. Remember, they're not, you know, it's not like you draw a line on a chart and somehow the market cares. It's what it represents. And it's an area. Okay. So come up too expensive. Watch, break down below this retail price, reject this whole area, watch, come down, come down, big trend day down, everybody out the window. So they take the stops under here and here. So that's fuel. So whenever you're thinking about, in my opinion, at least higher time frames, you want to always be thinking about where, because this is higher time frame participants. These are RTH candles, right? So wouldn't you think if there are longs in here, they might be trailing stops here, here, here, here, here, here, right? Break out all that fuel, pull back, can't get back. Where's the fuel under here and under here? See the acceleration that sellers and sell stops. Who are sellers? And then back here, right there. Notice the target, right to the tick. Again, that's a coincidence. And then down here. Now once we're here, and this looks like it's going to break down to the next location, 3875. It doesn't do it. It takes a shot, takes out the stops under here, doesn't get there. Now at this point, I have no idea except we were short, short. And those of you follow the stream, you know, about all these locations that we talk about. Then we come up, we come above here. And where do we go back? 4140-ish was the target, RTH. We come up, get the 3775. Remember, horseshoes, hand grenades, it's a price check. So this retail price was too high. So then what? Back 87. And then we had this, which we talked about previously, a micro composite high volume note. So you know why this exists like this? Let me explain it. That's an auction, too low, too high, too low, too high, right? Once you get below there, what's the last auction? Down in here. Too high, too low, too high, too low. And I think this was 47 area. So you see, we got there yesterday and closed above it. Okay. So that kind of puts it in perspective. Now when you have a sell day like this and everybody's headed for the exit, you can anticipate a couple of things. First of all, there are shorts in the market, right? And the other part of it is there's potentially those who didn't get short who are wanting to get out. So we can anticipate based on the open of this to yesterday's RTH. We opened in yesterday's range. So that means now you would think if the market was going to break out and go south of the border, it wouldn't really give you a chance, right? But if you open in the range often and grab a pen and a piece of paper, take a couple notes, often you need, in my opinion, to be considering the possibility of a two-sided trade. Two-sided because you're going to get sellers. And then the other side of it is there are shorts who might cover. And that creates a two-sided potential scenario. Now, and that is called also there's terms for this. Write this down. Balance, which means two-side. And that's all the consolidation is, by the way, is balance. So I'm going to show you, if you're interested, I'm going to take you back to the open and kind of show you how this manifests itself and how you might interact with it. And remember, this is for educational purposes only none of these are trade recommendations or anything more than opportunities for you to get some ideas. So let's take a look here. So I'm going to show you some opportunities that presented themselves. And this is built upon context. Remember, context. So let's go back to the context. Where do we open? Let me just get this back here so I can see it. I think it was right here around 6350-64-ish. Let me just get this. And now I'm going to show you the behavior potentially. And if you are part of the Trader Lab, this is not a mystery to you because we discussed this all the time. So we open. Now, let me explain the opening. Where are we opening? This is the first hint of the kind of day that we're going to have. So I got to find the open here. So hold on, guys. I'm looking at multiple charts. You have to forgive me because I'm a slow multitasker. 64. Okay. So we open in range. So what that tells you when you open in range, it is suggesting that there hasn't been a material change in the participant perception of price. So right away and write this down, when you open in the previous day's range and also in something called value, but let's just talk about range at the moment. When that happens, if there hasn't been a material change in the perception of value, then the market has a potential to trade on both sides because that means nothing is substantially changed. So both participants are going to now auction this market to try to find a fair price. So now that's the first thing. So the next thing is what can we anticipate? Two things. Market opens up two-sided trade. See this? Two-sided trade. Now, this is going to be the first indication of a potential opportunity and I'm going to show you to that. I'm going to go into microstructure. By the way, if you have questions, throw them in there, I'll do my best to get to them. Are you guys with me so far? Just want to make sure. Ask a question. If this is not clear, ask a question before I move on because if you guys can internalize this process, it's thinking, how does the market operate? So it's kind of important. I think you get a handle on what might happen. And again, nobody knows what will happen. I'm still working on that one. But here's the thing. What do we anticipate? Market opens. Some short covering. Now we're looking for what's considered short squeeze or two-sided trade. So what happens? Early sellers come back up here. Notice the two sides. You see? So up, down. Now where are the stops from the early sellers? Right above here. So let's look. Right here. Pick. Now it sets up a short. Here's the short. Here's how it goes. This is microstructure now. So we anticipate this right here. Break. So here, let me start again. RTH open. This is where the volume starts trading right here, right in here. The volume point of control, this yellow line, is where the highest volume is taking place. And all it does is track volume. So you'll notice as the market trades, there's more volume up here than there is down here. We move lower. The volume now, there's more volume here, right? So this is your retail price. Now when the market opens, and this is really important with the volume profile, as the day develops early in the day, this is very sensitive because the volume is moving around, right? So it's going to move around. But let's look at the story. This is how, at least for me, I narrate the market because the way, one of the ways I think to stay aligned with the market is to narrate. It keeps you in the moment. So my narration works something like, if this, then that. If not, then what? Write that down if you haven't heard this before. If this, then that. If not, then what? So if the volume point of control is here, and then it moves higher, this is showing the volume is migrating. We come up right here, and we make a lower high. Now I'm still suspicious. Now I don't know, right? Break down, lower low. Okay. So we have shorts in here, lower low, and now where's the stops? Right here. This liquidity is sitting in the book. So watch what happens here. This shifts down. This is saying now, and it shifts right here. This shows you where it shifts. There's more volume down here than there is up here. So I don't know when it comes up here. Remember, I don't know. I haven't figured that out yet, but it breaks here, tests, it sets up my first short here. Get a scale. All wonderful. Comes back here. Now, this is where the trade fails above here. So short, short, stop above here. Let's watch. Target is the overnight low, wherever that is, somewhere down here. So I'm just going to show you these and we'll get them out of the way. Okay. Okay. This is the target. Okay. Because this is a statistic with over 90% probability, either the overnight high or the overnight low will get taken out. So we are assuming, all right, I'm assuming, what's called mean reversion trading, which since it's two-sided, it's outside in trade. With a statistic because the market is, the day is just developing, right? So this is what I'm going for. So we go outside. This is not get to target. Very exciting. We come back. This breaks down. I'm looking for a short. Sorry. Guys, I got to take this. I'll be right back. Sorry for the intrusion. Sorry for the interruption. That was something I had to take a call. So let's get back here. So anyway, down, miss, out, outside, squeeze. Now, what you're seeing here is two-sided trade, right? This is contextual and what it represents is something called balance. In other words, by balance, I mean two-sided, too low, too high. So it's mean reversion. What mean reversion means is where is the fair price retail and the market is looking for outside, back in, outside, back in. And of course, nobody knows except where we opened suggested two sides. Now, let's think about it. If you were short, this is the other way you need to think. Write this down. Think like a retail trader. Don't act like one. So if you are short, which is fine, where's your stop going to be? Well, worst case is it's going to be over the high of the day. So once those guys get taken out, now what we're looking for is potential mean reversion. That is out because it's two-sided trade. Now, nobody knows at the time are we going to keep going. What's going to go on? I don't know. But I know the condition, the context. And unless it changes, my job is mean reversion. That is outside it. So I don't know where the outside is. That part I don't know. But let's look. So we take the stops. Now, we already hit the overnight statistic, over 90% probability on the downside. So I know that statistic is done. I'm sorry, did we hit? No, we missed it. I'm sorry, brain gone. We missed it. So I'm still thinking at the time that I have to keep trading towards the low-side statistic because I have two of these. I have the overnight high at 39.79 half and I got the overnight low at 42.5. So at the time, now it can do either one. But I'm anticipating, remember, two-sided trade and a squeeze. Well, here's our squeeze. 547 stops coming out. Now, one more up here. I have no clue. I'm aware of the following things. Liquidity being added up here at 39.80. That stands out, doesn't it? 400. This is the limit order book. And this is where the heat map is really valuable. And we have something called the liquidity marker that shows me the ads, the ads in the polls. Like here, you see the minus, it's pulling. So that can be useful just to see what's going on in the book. And I use it for that. Now, if things get real busy over here in the sense of if it covers anything up, and I'm trying to show you more data than I might use when I'm actually interacting, I'll turn this off. So let's look. So we come up here. And again, I can't pick the high of the day. That's the skill I'm working on. That's humor. And now I'm still looking to get short because the reason is two-sided trade context. So until the context changes, I only have one job and that is to get short from somewhere. Okay? So let me show you the next opportunity as I perceived it at the time. So since we're in a two-sided trade and a mean reversion, my job is to be trading outside in, not to be getting long, not yet. And for today so far, I haven't had any, but that's besides the point. It's not that you can't. Actually, there was one. I'm going to go over it. So here is the opportunity. Let's look. Market comes up, takes out the stops, chop, chop, break. This right here, now this is going to be confusing for a lot of you. So don't worry about it. This only comes from experience. This is an auction, too low, too high in this micro structure. So I'm looking for a place for a short. The book, you can see the liquidity starts coming down. And if you see this over here, these guys are pulling. That shows the book flipping over and I take a short here. Now my goal is back to the volume point of control, which is down here. Now this right here is a problem. Let me show it to you. This is the retail price, right? Remember the volume point of control. So I have a short on here and I'm going for this. However, right here, see the shift in the volume. What this is suggesting is possibly, and again the word possibly, and I got to mark this. This is retail, right? And if that price, if we shift and move away from it, that is suggesting potentially it is too low. So we come down, everything is wonderful. You know, get the VWAP, lovely. And then what happens? This shifts. So that is suggesting this is too low. So now I have to monitor this very carefully. Watch what happens. See what happens? Up we go. So now right here, this trade is over. They can get to my target. I still have the overnight low and I have the overnight high, but I'm still thinking low. Let's watch again. This right here is a consolidation. I'm going to open this up so you can see it. Now I know if you haven't seen this before, it's just going to look like a mush, but let me get this a little darker so you can see it. Right here, this is a consolidation. Right here. Chop, chop, break high, break low, pull back. I want to open this up so you can just see the structure right here. Now remember, outside in. So I'm outside. This is my target and then down, right? I'm still doing the same trade from different locations. And this is my primary target because it's called mean reversion. And this is the mean. So I'm looking for this. So now here's the trigger. Now guys, if you're interested in this, take screenshots or think about it. Think about the auction. Now let's go back to the original concept of the auction. What is the auction? Buyers and sellers interacting, and they do in all fractals and timeframes. That means whether the consolidation is this or the consolidation is the whole day. It's all the same process. It's just how do you slice and dice it? So right here, we come to an outside edge. We are under, I'm going to show you something else. Now remember guys, this is fractal. That means we're, it's kind of like those Russian dolls. We're trading inside of higher timeframe structure. Up in here was an auction. In other words, too low, too high. High volume node retail, too expensive, break away from it. So I know potentially if I'm under here that I can come back here because we traded in this and the market rejected it. So that's an indication that this is too high. So where is the potential? Well, if this is too high in the microstructure, might we come back and check the fairest price in the developing daily timeframe? Maybe. So here's the structure. When I open it up, I want to show you what it looks like. Well, hold on guys, and I'm going to turn off those markers just so you can get a little clearer view of it. I know this is minutia, but you know all trades in my opinion start out in minutia. It's really location, context, location, what is going on in the structure and then trigger. So this is a triggering structure. I want to show it to you right here. You see the market going up and you see volume. Here is this high volume that is being built in here. So let's watch right here. We're pulling up and checking this volume. You notice there's no buyers sitting up here, potential exhaustion. Watch. Now the high volume is in here, which is represented by this consolidation. It acts like resistance at times, not a trade recommendation, of course, or past performance, not indicative future results. The trade fails here. The short comes in over here. The target is here. Let's see. This shifts up. Problem. Watching. It is a problem. And now we get to a target. Watch. Watch. Pullback. This is still an over under. Where do we pull here? Two stops go off. Exhaustion. Short. And I'm showing you just a way to use the tool. Very choppy. Again, short. This is an obstacle. This is a target. In other words, is this too high? Is this too low? So these are targets still going for the overnight low. Out. So getting scales, getting taken out. And that's two sided trade. Now there's more. 70 was important. I want to show you why. Any questions as we're moving along? I'm going to, let me just go back and show you something here. Here we went to 70, took it out, pulled back. That is a short. If you're using order flow and you're combining it with a market understanding mean reversion. Notice it comes back into the book. That is important. That means these guys potentially might defend their position. So let's go back. Let's look. Where was the volume we came out of? Up here. Right? Where'd we test? Up here. Break. Where do we pull back? Remember to 70. 70. Chop. Break. Pull back. This is a short. Back to the V-Pock. Same trade. Outside in. This is called mean reversion. Very choppy. You know, really annoying. But that's what it is. Okay. Scale. Out. Back to 70. This is another short. It's a very active morning for me and I would say annoying because it's a lot of trades and a lot of scratches. Here, let's see where we are. See? So scale scratches. Scale scratches. Where do we go? Watch. Remember 70 was important. These guys come in here looking again for the short. Against what? Outside edges. Break. Chop. Chop. Break. Pull back. Short. Watch. And I'm just showing you stuff, you know, how you might use this. Now this is active. Not my favorite thing. I'm more of a put it on and get in a rocking chair and watch it, you know, because I want the larger rotations. Remember the overnight low is our target. And then I'm going to show you another opportunity here and then we'll let it go at that. Overnight low, trade is over. So far, nasty, mean reversion outside in a day in the jungle. Any questions on what is going on with this? I'm just reading the chats trying to see what's going on in here. So what you have today is not what we had yesterday. Does your plan adjust to the different configurations in the market? Isn't that important? Because if you know what today is potentially, at least for the trader lab and what we discussed in the trader lab is having a separate plan for this. Because this is not yesterday's game, you know. So this was the primary target. And then, you know, no idea after that. But here's something that happens. And I want you guys to write this down. Now, this is something we discussed in the trader lab. And I call it the IB failure. And it is contextual and it is not generic. In other words, none of what we're doing here is mechanical. Though the structures are repetitive, the primary element in all of this, besides understanding how the market works and how the participants interact is understanding and trying to recognize the context of the market, which is rotational today. And that is the different trade plan. And that is something we work on and discuss in the trader lab. And if you haven't visited the trader lab in the bookmap discord channel, I suggest you might want to think about it. Because it's understanding the market, the market mechanics, which may give you a better opportunity to participate when you can recognize it. And like everything else, the best you have in trading is maybe. But you might maybe have a better opportunity if you can understand the different phases and behaviors of the market. And maybe you can get better aligned if you develop an understanding and a trade plan that reflects the different behaviors. And there aren't that many behaviors. So you know, it's either a bullet train or rotational. Yesterday was a bullet, right? And then what did it do? If you're in the stream yesterday, all we were doing is taking shorts on the outside edges when we went into a large rotation, right? So that's contextual. Getting aligned. And yesterday was a one side only trade, least for me. And that was shorts only. So it was counter rotations to get the short on. Today is different. Because now both sides are participating and the market is kind of exhausted. So it's trading both sides. Doesn't mean it can't change and continue lower, right? Market can do anything. But in the present mode, it is outside. So let me talk to you about the next opportunity. This 930 central time, which is the end of the first hour RTH, this is called the initial balance low. The first hour RTH, and I'm in central time, is called the initial balance. And it's a term that evolved out of the original market profile back in the 1980s. And all it was was because most of the business got done in the first hour and the volume would fall off, right? And we kind of still see that behavior today. A lot of business goes through and then it kind of settles down subject to what's going on. So that's kind of, that's where this came from. So after the first hour, if the market can move outside of the first hour's range, it gives us some insight because it takes momentum or behavior or pressure to get the market outside. So this is an important level to observe. And there's over 90% probability, just like there is for the overnight higher low, that one of these will get taken out there in the RTH session. Make a note of that. And past performance is not indicative of future results. You have to vet any statistics for yourself so you're comfortable. So this was a target. This is a target. And they both been achieved. So here's the next element. And this is something that we discussed in a trader lab and it has specific connotation, qualifications, I should say, and it's called the IB failure. It is a mean reversion trade. Now, remember, I've been talking about mean reversion, that's outside in, not inside out. And that's what's really important to understand the difference. Inside out trading might be appropriate in a trend configuration for retracement. If it comes back inside to the mid or, you know, VWOP in a trend, it's one animal. If we're two sided and it comes back to the mid or the VWOP, we can easily rotate over it to outside edges. That's the condition today. So things like mid VWOP, all that are not part of the plan today. But we do understand retail trader behavior and that the traders, which is most of them, who don't understand the difference between mean reversion or rotation and trend are going to just be trading at the same way as they did yesterday. And then they're going to wonder why, what, if they did manage to get involved with the yesterday and maybe had some success, why the same approach is not going to work today. And they may give back their gains from yesterday subject to their trade plan. So their trade plan is not in alignment potentially. And if we can understand the differences, we may have an advantage over most retail traders who don't know, who are just looking at an indicator, a plug and play solution, which an indicator, as you know, does not context sensitive. So this is our next potential setup, not a trade recommendation. It's called the IB failure. And all it means, I call it the failure, but it's not a failure in essence. But normally, or let's just say under certain contexts, when we break out of the first hour, it becomes a short, you see. But in this context, because we're inside of yesterday's range, right? I mean, we tested it here. But what happens if you can't go any further? And we come back in, all the shorts that are sitting in here are going to cover. This is the failure. So now this becomes a long and it becomes a long because we, I believe this is yesterday's low 38. Let me just make sure. Yeah, 38 half. We tested it. If you're short, you take out yesterday's low and you're in your pop in a champagne cork, and it comes back in. Then what? You and the rest of everybody else short are potentially going to cover. And that is mean reversion. So the sellers become the buyers. So let's watch the behavior. So this is a long and what's the target back to retail, which is VPOC watch. And we narrate this in the trade a lot. So where's that VPOC here? So VWOP, VPOC. And then there's one more target above. It's an extent. Let me give it to you. It's called the developing value area high, which is up here. That's it for this trade because it's a mean reversion, which means too low back here to the retail, right? So too low back to retail and then back up here. So let's see what happens. And I think it did it. Where'd we go? Sorry, guys. Let me get back. Well, you know, I forget how late I start. So long to here to here and that trade is over. So this is a nice long and you might think of it as counter trend, right? But we know the higher timeframe trend is down. But what else do we know? Let's go back. We opened in yesterday's range, which means nothing had changed overnight. We anticipated two sided trade. That's what we got. It was outside in to come back and mean revert. That was what all I was doing today. Shorts, shorts, all short, going for this thing. Once that's done, and then I don't know, we come under yesterday's low, come back in the IB, it's a long. The reason it's qualified is we are in a two sided trade. We are in yesterday's range. We're in yesterday's value. And all this was was a, you know, pop, reverse, okay, shorts are going to cover. This is what you're seeing. See the stops going off? 1300 stops, 2000 stops, 866, 681. Now this trade's over when it gets here. So now, what are we still doing? Mean reversion. It's the same trade. But I'm not going to keep going into this. I think you can kind of see what's it doing outside in. You see outside in. So this is the context. Let me see if I can show you something up here. Yes, I want to show you the 80. Okay, this, let me just go a little bit further. So here we have this in the book. So we had this in the book. Remember 70, right? Potential short, right? Up here. This is out in the book where we're looking to see it comes back in. Watch. See if there's something here. Yeah, here it is. This is the 80. It thickens up. It trades. Watch. I got to open this up for you guys. What is important and you can get a better idea about order flow. If you attend the book map Monday, Tuesday, Friday morning order flow webinars, live webinars with Bruce, you can ask him about these behaviors and what it might mean. So the market comes up. You notice how the book thickens up? They're front running this. We trade through it and break under it. The book starts pressing down. This sets up a potential short. And it's still mean reversion. So let's see what it does. Now, if these aren't part of your trade plan, it doesn't need to be. This is just these are things and behaviors that you can pick up and learn. It's an integration of behavior. But the most important element in all of this is the context. Because if you're thinking, you know, it's going through the roof, which it may or may not. This is the opportunity, the behavior, the pop, these guys were on the other side of it, the rejection potential short, potential short to here. So you have a couple opportunities. These little chops that you see here. That's a consolidation. That's a consolidation. So I don't look at these in a vacuum. I want to see some alignment. Okay. Now, I know if we come up that this is has potential the overnight. Okay. And again, it's not a high probability. It's in the 20% tile that the overnight low and overnight high could taken out. But I know it can happen. And I know there's typically stops in, you know, on both edges of the market outside edges. And it doesn't have to do anything. You know, it could keep going, right? Isn't this the market in trading? But I'm outside. And what this is now guys, what was the long? Wasn't it the return back inside from the initial balance low for mean reversion? If I come outside and I break underneath it, might that set up a short same trade opposite side? Why context balance? So let's look if this is where the high volume took place up in here, let's see, it comes right back to it. Let's look to the left here, here, to here, watch. See, this is about consolidations, right? This is the auction too high, too low, too high, too low break. All right. So if you weren't able to get on against this, which might not be in your plan, you're looking at this volume. This volume in here is your over under break, break, pull back to the volume area to short here, chop, chop, consolidation, break, let's look, pull back to the volume short. So these are all shorts back to here. So all these are mean reversion trades, but you have to have the discipline to wait. And often what happens is when you get these consolidations like this, and the market breaks away from it, it's going to come back and return and check it, which is what you've got going on right here. And then the trade fails over this consolidation. So 70-ish, let's just say, to 73, 74, 3.5, 4 points, whatever, if that fits, great. If not, it's not your trade because this is your target and then down. So let's see what it does. You might find this very difficult. I understand it's chop to most of you. For me, it is very contextual and very tradable. It does require discipline and patience, but it's all about the context number one. Then this is the chassis. The volume tells us what's going on in here. When we get out to an edge, you notice how the volume dries up? That means too high. Down below, too low. So what's the market going to do? If the buyers perceive right auction, think this is too high, it's going to potentially come back to retail, which is this yellow line, fair price, most volume. Then where might it go? Opposite side, where's too low? The job at the market, remember, is to find out what's too high, what's too low. In today's configuration, this is called a neutral day. That's a profile term. Neutral means two sides, nobody's in control at the moment. It can change, right? So we don't know. So until it changes, it hasn't. So it's outside in, outside in. Both sides get abused unless you understand the context. Then your job is to try to identify an outside edge. And I'm going to say, like everything else in trading, sometimes you think this might be the outside edge and you take your stop. But most, well, not most of the time, but often what happens is wherever these edges are, it comes back. It comes back. It comes back. See the behavior? Outside edge. Outside edge. Outside edge. And then of course it goes, but this is the mean. So this is where your scale would be. Outside edge returns. Outside edge returns. Outside edge returns. This is now balance. So what's happening is the market is now compressing its range and it's saying, oh, we like this. So this is now fair price. So what do you do now? How about this? Nothing. You're either short with a scale and you're holding for this, for the rotate in here, or you're going to be flat if we come back up. That's the trade, if that's your trade plan. It can still come down here. But what I often observe is when we start compressing the range and you see the algos and all coming in here that now we're going to get into a tight range. So for me, if I'm not at an outside edge, I have nothing to do. I'm either there's two possibilities in this. Remember the first objective is this, right? So risk neutral. So the possibilities are we come up, take these stops out, take these guys out, which would mean scratch, or you just let it chop and you're looking for it to resolve and come back outside again, back down to here, or not, or out here. Not exciting, just the way it is. And this happens to be what trading is. Any questions on mean reversion and what this process is and why it's, and why, why it's mean reversion? What told us starting out today, go back and think about the higher timeframe, think about where we opened. When you open in range, it means remember, write this down, no change. So if there's no change, then what might we have both sides? If there's going to be both sides, you're looking for outside edges, and see if somebody takes control, or if we start opening, it's called an open auction. In other words, go up, go down, go up, go down, go up, go down, overlapping, creates a consolidation. That's two-sided. And then when you break away from the high volume, it kind of gives you a hint, you know, which way are we going to lean. So given that the higher timeframe trend is short, for me, after the shorts get squeezed, it's short, short, short, short, and other than that one long, which here, short, both sides. Any questions on mean reversion and why? Geo, you're asking me about the mid. In a balanced configuration, the mid doesn't exist for trading. For me, it exists for stops, because of retail trader behavior. Like, right now, if you look at the market, we're coming down to the mid. What's under the mid stops? They're pretty dependable, in my opinion. Past performance, not indicative of future results. I can't buy the mid today. And the reason is, two sides are active. So the mid means nothing, except retail traders are going to put their stops under there. Retail traders are going to buy the mid. We might get the rotation off of that behavior. And then their stops become fuel for a continuation, potentially down to an outside edge. Maybe 49, maybe not. Again, it's just maybe. Remember, maybe. In trading, the best we got is maybe. So maybe. So let's go take a look here. So it's outside in, outside in, outside in. And let's go take a look at where the stops are. But I think what's, this red here, that's where the mid is. It's right under there. So right in here. So we're looking for, now you know, it's how we got the mid coming down here. Buyers, mid buyers, mean reversions. So for me, I can't buy the mid. I want to use the mid. Now again, I have no idea. You know, I mean, it doesn't mean that we come to the mid and we take all the shorts out, right? We know that. So the job in mean reversion is I view it and it's just one person's opinion is return to the mean is the primary objective, right? Mean reversion coming back outside in. So remember, what is, this is a consolidation guys, right? So in the fractals, this is a consolidation. This whole day is a consolidation. So this is the fractal aspect of this. In other words, trading those Russian dolls, you know, higher timeframe, shorter timeframe inside for triggering, going for logical targets, understanding retail trader behavior because stops are under here. Will it take it out? I have no idea. Stops are also under VWAP, right? We just came up and checked this retail price too high, too high. Watch here. Is it logical? So the mid means nothing from a trading perspective for me, because the context is too side of trade. So for me, all I can do is try to get an outside edge to come back in. You say, that's all I can do on a day like today. I can't do anything else. In other words, it doesn't. Now, the market can stop here and go up and make new highs, right? There's no way to know about that. But until things change, I only have one way to approach this and that's outside edges, wherever they are. If they're down here, if they're up there, you know, because the higher timeframe trend is down and we already went up and couldn't squeeze beyond that overnight high, I just think we're going to be in range bound at the moment. So let's just watch. So the mid is an area. We didn't get there, did we? Oh, we did. Where did we go? So there's stops under here. So we'll see what it does. So this is our retail price. We broke below it. We came back at the moment too high. If we stay below here, you know, then potential down here. If not, then we can rotate up. This is remember consolidation too high. Where's too low? Is this too low? Then back here mean reversion. In mean reversion, you know, you just have to be the focus of the mean reversion is thus this is the mean, you know. So what happens? Well, outside mean revert and I don't know where outside is. So just remember that. So you need a trade management plan for this. So let's watch and see what happens up here. Now, by the way, stops are sitting up here, right swings. So let's watch. We can come up here, take this out. And if we exhaust, let's just look up a little up the ladder here and see what happens. So this is vulnerable. Now we're going to watch and see where the outside edge might be 70 is something to keep an eye on. We'll see what happens. Any questions while we're waiting for this to ferment? Moe, I don't know what that question is mod. You mean mid? It's not on book map. Though I think you can configure it. I'm getting asked if I'm going to order a pizza tonight. The mid is not on, but there's a new tool that I haven't checked out. I think it's called I don't know if it's price levels or I don't know, but there is maybe somebody can post it in the trader lab. There's a new add on that's included that you can create custom levels. But I haven't put it on here yet. I'm kind of slow. So let's watch stops are here, right? So what I think about in mean reversion is if it's two sided trade, stops are going to be coming out on both sides also. So I have to wait for an outside area. 70 is an area to observe. Let's see what it does up here. Just these are not trade recommendations. Do you see this? This is your consolidation. This is showing you an outside edge and then the other outside edges up in here. Let me show it to you. And if you're not used to looking at something like this, I know you're going, what the heck? But this is volume and price. All it's showing is see the taper less and less buying interest. The taper less and less selling interest. So it's rotational. Here's your 70. We're coming to an outside edge. Now we're going to take a look. We got the stops, remember? We cans. Now we want to observe this structure right in here, right here. Not a trade recommendation. This is next potentially. You got to have enough range for this. It's only a couple points, right? But let's observe behavior. See what it does. So 70, structure, micro, watch for this. Not a recommendation. And the reason I'm mentioning this to you, now I have no idea what's going to happen. Just so you know, I have no clue. What I know is potential. That's all I know. So let's see what it does. And it's not a huge risk. You got to remember that too. If you're getting into this thing, you could be in this thing with a point and a half, two point risk if it fit your trade plan. Now part of the trade plan thing that I want to talk about is the distance to here. So this would not have worked, okay? Probably not enough outside. Let's see, 70 is still the area to be looking around. So this is chop. Now the thing you got to say in your trade plan, can you work in this? And part of this is keeping statistics for the context. 70 still. Algos are active in here. It's very difficult. One of the things about mean reversion is where's the real outside? Is it here or is it here? Right? 70 was the area we were looking at, right? So let's see. Algos are still playing in here. You see them? How they push, push. So this suggests unless these guys pull, that there's upside pressure. See it? And if you watch these guys pulling, it opens the door. So this is algorithmic behavior. So there's nothing to do here. I'm going to look at the chats, takes me a little bit. Let's see what's going on. If we are to get in with the breakout, what breakout? Next area to reference above us is the initial balance high and there's going to be stops up here. So we want to watch the behavior up here. This is an outside edge that we broke down from. So we have to look. As it thins out up here, you notice there's less and less volume going up. So this was too high. So now you just have to look. There's stops above here. So you have to be conscious of that. That should be in your trade plan. So if we approach this, well, this is still the target. These stops are pretty close. So you just have to be conscious. So for me, what makes this interesting, and this is not a recommendation, is I want these stops to come out. So let's watch. And then we got to see what happens up here. Because two things. I know you're going to like this. We come out of here and we accelerate and take out the high of the day. That changes the game. If we just come out in here and roll under, then it's still mean reversion back to here and potentially this in the mid down here. So we'll see. Again, nobody knows, right? And again, if you do, you got to you got to send me a DM direct message. By the way, if you're new here, now, this is auction market theory, volume profile. Some days things are murky. Today's mean reversion, it's two sided trade. Mean reversion gets tricky because you're trying to find outside edges. Part of what I do is I think like a retail trader, I don't want to act like one. I know where stops are now, probably over here. So and if I step in front of this, this is vulnerable. So I don't step. I just go, okay, it's not my trade. And we'll take a look at that. Okay. I'm not sure what you're asking me about the scenario. You're asking about a breakout. I don't have any, there's, I don't know what you mean by that. This is mean reversion. So you're asking if it changes. Is that what you're asking me if we have a different context and it changes from balance to though the bullet train, I don't think you're going to have a bullet train today, which it might, but that's a whole different context and a different trade plan than this. This is different. This is like its own kind of day, its own kind of behavior, its own plan. And I suggest I can't explain how to change everything around because we're trading this or not trading it, we're observing it mean reversion takes patience because if you, you know, you get in a little too soon, you can get nicked out just like this. This is a short potentially here, but you can get, remember, but here's the problem, this. So my trade plan, and I'm not saying it's a good one or anything. I'm just saying is for me, I prefer this to get taken because I know there's retail, well, I suspect based on retail trader behavior that there's going to be stops up here. So if we can get back here and then fail back inside that sets up this, we can also just rotate back here from here and you'll see the structure break back to the high volume, which is right there. See it? Short back to here. Now, whether or not you want to take that is up to your trade plan. But this is what mean reversion is. So I can't go into what, because it's a completely different process, at least for me, if I'm in a trending environment. And even then, if you were following the stream yesterday, were you following the stream yesterday? Rakesh, is it last year? I don't know how to say it. So I think it's easier for me to just say Rakesh. Okay, yesterday we were outside in mean reversion. It's the same trade right here. We were trading outside in, once the bullet train was over, when I started the stream, all we were doing shorting, right? And it was just like this. This is the most common behavior in my opinion you will observe in trading mean reversion, in other words, rotation, because most of the time the market's rotating. It's not running. Trend days are a small, relatively smaller percentage. Trend days, I think they're in a 20% tile. So if 80% of the time ish, it's this. This might be where a trader may want to concentrate. Because if a trader can't recognize the context and try to get aligned with it, they're going to be buying the mid or selling the mid and just getting run over. So once we understand context and the context changes in our day, don't think it does, and trading is trading, but you might have a better opportunity to get aligned with it if you understand the condition of the market, which changes, like everything. It's not static. So this can change to directional. We can squeeze the shorts more later on or not. But look what we've done. We took out the first hour high, we took out the first hour low, and what are we doing? This. So this is rotation, right? So the mid and the VWAP don't mean anything in this configuration. They're targets, actually. So now if the context changes, the context changes, it doesn't matter. And usually what happens is when the context goes into transition, we don't know until it does. So what makes the context change? If we come out above here, test it, and then accelerate off it, then, you know, all bets are off, then we're going up to a next level above. In the meantime, it is shorts, not a recommendation, because we're still in mean or aversion. High volume node, microstructure. Don't forget, I can't do anything with this because of this. And it doesn't matter to me if this goes from here to here or all the way down, because this is what having a trade plan is. Guys, if you're making trades up as it goes, oh, I think that's a short, I think it's this, I think it's that. Well, then you don't have a trade plan. For me, I know where the stops are right above here. My trade plan says, wait, get them out, the shorts. And then if there's no buying above their stops, then I have the potential. You can see why I'm not involved here. I have the potential to mean revert unless it changes and we take off like a bullet. Now it's different, right? So Rakesh, I hope that answers your question. At the moment, it hasn't changed. So at the moment, I'm looking for the behavior in here. Now the thing that can really get you smoked is thinking, oh, I've got to get short now. And by the way, it can be. But for me, once again, guys, trade plan here. Is that logical? Does it make sense? And we'll watch how this ferments. Well, Laysha, are you in the Trader Lab in the Bookmap Discord Trader Lab? If not, I want to extend all of our YouTube visitors an invitation to become part of that community. There's loads of resources. This is really what we do all day. And, you know, I stream for a bit of time here. And then I continue for the Trader Lab participants. And it's really the idea of the stream was to share how the market works, tends to work, how you might organize or recognize that behavior. Watch the stops now at this initial balance high. And then what you might do to have a trade plan to potentially interact with it and recognizing the difference in the conditions and also recognizing the transitions. See the behavior? Watch. You notice we one ticked it, right? Let's watch this behavior now. So that's our plan. Stop pick only 12 potential short, not a recommendation. We're just going to watch target here and below if the trade, you know, gets some legs. So let's watch it. Now I'm not calling trades. This is not a trade calling room. I'm just attempting to show you behavior. This high volume node right here represents the volume in this consolidation. So it acts potentially as resistance. So let's look here. Okay. Not a recommendation. We're tourists. So let's tour. This is mean reversion outside in. And who knows, right? So we'll see what it does. Is everybody tracking? And again, no clue, right? The green dots are by stops. And I find them really useful because retail traders use stops, right? And this is a way I can spot potential exhaustion. So location, context, maybe, right? Maybe. Potential exhaustion stops are above here. So we want to see the behavior here. And we'll see what happens. Okay. See the book? These guys pull it opens it up. So now how do you manage a trade here? Let's think about it. These guys pull it's going to open and you can see them. It's lightening up. Heatmap is suggesting. Now, depending what happens in here, we can still pop and reverse or not. This is telling me that I'm running out of time. Sorry. So let's watch this. Now this is a algo behavior, this bracketing, it is noise. I don't pay attention to it. But I will say that it does impact because the way it works is if if the algos push this way and pull here, the limit order book, they will pull. Others will pull. And when they pull, it's like taking a lid off the market and reducing resistance. Think of it like a road, a street, a road with a lot of pebbles, rocks and stuff. There's resistance to your tires. If they move those rocks out of the way and you're on smooth asphalt, you're going to move faster and easier. It's the same thing with what this does. So these guys, now this is algo, but if they can, now watch. See, this guy moves up. What is the book? Watch just the price, how it responds. This is kind of how you get a sense. Now I can't trade with this thing because I know this is nonsense. What I'm more interested in is the stable liquidity and then reactions. So now the algo, I want to see these guys pull because then I can get to this target and maybe below and I have no clue. So remember, this is trading, right? And these were not trade recommendations. It's just remember what my trade was. I have to wait for this. Remember, this is what a trade plan is. It's not jumping where. And if you're getting chopped up, it's because you don't have a vetted trade plan and the patience to wait for it, in my opinion. So we'll sit here and see if this ripens, okay? I'm getting, it's like I'm on the clock, you know, and if I go over, I go over. So theoretically, you would have a scale if you took this following a trade plan. In the trader lab, we talk about a two-lot configuration, not a recommendation for you guys, naturally, past performance, non-indicative future results. The idea of the two-lot is if you get short and you have your stop and you know we only had, what, a two-point risk or something on this or whatever it was, then your job is to get risk neutral. In other words, buy the stop on the second contract and then let it ferment, which would be here if you're running a two-lot, you know, subject to your plan. This is the mean in the mean reversion. One of the things I say about mean reversion is I underline mean, because outside, trying to get to the outside edges can be tricky because you'll get a head fake, you know? Suppose you're getting on something like this, you know? So this is the target and we'll hang out and then we'll see what it does if we get here and then what happens. Well, I'll sit with you guys for a while. In the meantime, any questions on why it's outside in, any questions on why mid VWAP are maybe locations to observe, but potentially not in Iraq, based on the context. Any questions about that? By the way, if you're new here, I want to invite you all to the Trader Lab in the Bookmap Discord chat, a lot of free education, stocks, options, crypto, swing trading, positioning, shorter-term trading, how to use order flow tools, bookmap, a lot of good stuff every day. So if you're on TraderVaid, I think they have a contest going on right now that can be pretty interesting. If you're interested in that in the Trader Lab, I have about 60 PDFs that you can download of different configurations, you know, things that we're discussing here in the stream with circles arrows, a lot of minutia, things that might give you some ideas, right? This IBF, as I call it, IB failure, which is mean reversion, and we're on both sides of it today, short and then long from below, short from above, mean reversion, outside in. It's a two-sided situation today, balanced trade, the ideas that we can come back in. And if we don't, what happens? We scratch. Trade fails above here. So this trade is risk-neutral. So I was starting to mention to you guys about the two-lot, because other than understanding context, the patience to wait for a setup or whatever you want to call it, and then your job is to get risk-neutral and then give the trade time, because we don't know what the outcome of any trade will be, right? What we know is the potential. And other than that, the outcome is random. So on a day like today, you may, you know, you're going to take some stops, right? You're going to have some winners. You're going to have some scratches. In other words, you scale, then you get taken out, and that's just the nature of the animal. But what I have found is if you get, if you respond to this kind of stuff and you bail out of your trade and it hasn't failed, you may miss the target. For me, I want the trade to fail. It's the only reason for me to get out of it. Other than that, I kind of put a helmet on and I let the trade do what it needs to do, because they're all random. We come out above here, takes me out, scratch, still have pizza money for tonight, and not worried about it. Then I'm going to look again. If we come out and then fall back in, I'm on it again, because it hasn't changed. It just stops. And remember, stops are at outside edges. So this is vulnerable now. We didn't get here. So that's all there is to this one. We'll see if this one fails, it'll be done. That's no problem. If it doesn't fail, that would be nice. And it looks like, see how they're pulling? So it looks like they're going to bring it up. And I don't know. See, the thing about this is, I don't know, unless you have the crystal ball and a magic APOL with the add-on that gives you insight before the fact, there's no way to know. This is just trading. So risk management, get risk neutral. That's why the two lot, and we talked about that in the trader lab, because if you can buy the stop on your runner, you're not going to be triggered, hopefully, to bail out. Where? Here? You know what? That was our short. So where? Where are you going to get out of this? For me, I want to get taken out on failure. I don't want to get taken out when I mess with the trade. I can't tell you over time how much that has cost me because I get smart. Oh, this is going to fail. I can't tell you how many times, and I have actually a picture of a trade I took, and this is now going over a couple years ago, that I had to record and put it on my desktop. In other words, when I start my trading workstation, it's the first thing I see. And what it was is, I got short a bunch of ES, and I got my first scale. Mark went down, and I'm thinking, oh, this is great. And then I was not conscious. In other words, I was basically the dumb part of the brain, the part that's fight or flight, that part of the brain took over momentarily, and I moved my stop to break even on the other ones, which is nothing. That's not part of my plan. The market comes up, takes me out by one tick, and then goes down to all the targets. So what would have been, let's say, a 40-point trade ended up being a two-point trade. How do you think that makes you feel? So if you guys are interested in more information and insight on how to use these tools, and this is not a plug-and-play, this requires that you actually learn and understand the market. And I think one of the great disservices, and this is just personal opinion, great disservice has done the traders, is they get a software package, and they open it up, and they see 50, 100 indicators. And that's kind of like Alice in Wonderland. And then it's, oh, what's the right one, and all this. But traders, I think, have an illusion that there's a plug-and-play solution to being a trader. I will suggest to you that it's not the way it works. The way it might work, and I'm saying maybe because it's up to everybody, is to first of all, understand how the market works. You'll never achieve that with an indicator, because you're always going to look for the indicator to do the heavy lifting. An indicator has no idea about this behavior that we are looking at today. It has no idea that maybe it's outside in mean reversion only at the moment. Your indicator can't differentiate because, you know, just isn't. It's just not shaped that way. So if you are always going back and tuning and tweaking and adjusting your time frame or saying, well, this time I'll use this or that time I'll do that, you're in a curve fit, and there's no way out of it. It's like putting yourself in a trading straight jacket. You cannot change the outcome over time. You can have good days, and then when you do the same thing the next day, if you're getting run over, it's the context. The indicator is just doing what it does, but can we really expect the indicator to understand why the market might come here? And again, past performance, non-indicative future results. Can we understand why the trade might be to get the stops picked? Can we think like that as traders? Or do we just not even have consciousness of retail trader behavior, which is to have their stops above here? Why did we not get short at all, of course, because we don't, you know, call trades until the stops were picked? Then why were we looking for this, which may or may not happen? Why? Context. What is it? Mean reversion. If you're finding this helpful or even confusing, which is probably a bit of both, I invite you to come to the trader lab, go to bookmap.com, join the discord chat, come to the trader lab, hang out, visit. There are a lot of resources available to give you a better understanding of market mechanics, and there's no one way to do this, by the way. But without an understanding of market mechanics, why the market does what it does, how it does it, and how you might recognize the condition of the market, I think you're kind of in the dark. And you certainly don't have any advantage over other traders who are doing the same thing you are doing. Any final questions, guys? I got about eight, 10 minutes to go, and then this stream will continue in the trader lab. Also, this stream is recorded, and it's also available to members of the trader lab in the discord chat. And if you're just joining us or just about to leave, there's, if you are part of that discord bookmap chat, there's loads of free education, stocks options, crypto, how to use different tools, order flow. You don't need to be a bookmap subscriber, you won't be solicited, you just come and hang out. It's a great place to be, and the trader lab is a lot of fun. Our senior trader has 54 years experience, and then all range of experience. But the goal of the trader lab is to build a foundation for you of market understanding. Once you understand how the market works, why it does what it does, think of what you can do when you have that understanding. And think about all the competitors you trade against in the retail space that have no idea what's going on. They're just trying to find the right indicator. And all a mix of indicators does is create random behavior. Any final questions? Other brother, the time is the first hour of our TH. Let me see what's going on over here. Yeah, this is still doable. I don't know. So the thing with this is, you know, trade management, or if you don't have it, you just hang out. You know, what I try to accomplish for our members is give the tools to potentially create a successful trading business. And then when you have an understanding and comfort and belief, because you got to believe something, you know, then you can build it. You can expand it. There are many opportunities to interact with the market. But if you just stick to primary behaviors, I think you can build. And then, of course, we have all the same issues, you know, psychological ones, fear jumping out of a trade when we shouldn't write. In other words, right here, is this going up? I'm going to take out the stop up here that's trailing, or is it going to get here first? I don't know the answer to that. So I can't answer it. Then I just have to follow a trade plan because of randomness. The thing with the market is, it is random in the sense of, and here's what's random about it. Why did it do this? Do this? Not take this out. Why did it come up here? Not get back above the IB. Why did it take it here but not here? Couldn't it just have gone up there? Yes, right? Why didn't it get here? Is this a reversal? We're going to take this out, or is this just rotation, noise, squeeze, 93 stops, and now we're going to go to target? What is it going to do? I will tell you, I have no idea, which is why location, context, scale, I think it was up here, wasn't it? Scale, potential short here, scale whatever your plan is. So risk neutral, target. Comes all the way back here, takes me out, brush yourself off, reload, wait for the next bus, or are you triggered by FOMO and you go, oh my goodness, and you bail out here or here? Where do you get out? I don't know. So for me, in a fundamental sense, and it's just the way we approach this, starting out as a trader, my job is to understand the context. My job is to have the patience to wait for a location and not run in front of it using retail trader behavior as an asset, which means they lose most of the time. So maybe that's something we can use because we don't want to do what they do. At least I don't. Then what? Noise? What do I do? Am I triggered by my emotional state or do I have the discipline to wait for my target? That's it. You respond to this, you see what's going to happen is, here's the thing with this. If you don't have a trade plan, you're going to start doing things like, gee, I should have got out. Or you will get out and maybe you shouldn't have got out. Which is it going to be on this trade? Anybody know? See? That's the idea about the trade plan. Well, the thing about, I'm seeing is, yeah, it's confusing. You know what? It's random. So right on your sheet, the outcome of any one trade is random. So there's no ability to know all there is his ability to recognize behaviors. And then if it aligns with your plan, execute attempt to get risk neutral and then let the thing ferment. And it either works or it's just one of thousands of trades in a career in trading. That's all this is. And it's not about right or wrong or getting it getting. Now this can still come back up here. There's stops here, right? So it can do this. And I know that you know that. So that's life in the fast lane. This is a consolidation. We're coming out the top end of it. We may only pick and then roll back down or accelerate. That's how consolidations work right here. There's your high volume in this consolidation. This is the high volume up above. So if we come out up in here, then we want to see the behavior up in this volume up in here. There's nothing more to this. I would do like to stay on with you guys until either this goes south of the border or we get a target. And it's one or the other, nothing to do. So patience and it doesn't really matter. I mean, it matters because we want it, you know, to be successful. But I find success is measured by following your trade plan, not by the outcome of any one trade. Just me. Otherwise, you're always going to be changing things. And if it's not broken, so you need to keep statistics. And that's why the indicators are a problem. If you have conflict in a or random application, because you can't quantify it. So for me, I've jettisoned all indicators. I don't use any. What I use is the auction because I can keep it simple because I'm doing the same process. I'm the only variable in what I do is the fractal. In other words, getting inside in the microstructure in this for execution. That's the only variable for me. And even then, the reason I talk about fractals is I want to use microstructure because I can enter pretty well. And my stop is close. So if I'm running under three points or around three points stop per contract, I could take a lot of shots on goal, especially if I'm trading a range that justifies the risk you see. So that's kind of how I look at it. Just me. And again, you have to come up with your own plan and your own ideas, right? So let's watch this. Now, if it takes out the trailer, it's it scratches. If it breaks down from here, it's a wonderful event. Either way, it's not material. Remember how you grade yourself in trading? It's following your trade plan. That is the thing that'll keep you in the business. And over time is what gives you, you know, you can see your edge and measure it if you have a consistent process. So there's two. Remember, you take full stops, you get scales, you take scratches, you know, break even, and then you have trades to get the scale and go to the target. That's about it. And when you start out in the trader lab, we suggest you, you know, start slow, start and try to stay aligned with the dominant context, not try to get cute and buy and sell, buy and sell, just try to stay in alignment with the context. So this trade is going south of the border. Let's see what it does. Notice how the book they've pulled. So they've opened the door for this. Okay. So let's watch it. Now for me, I am not at all adverse to putting it back out again. It just depends how we behave up in here. The other thing to know, lunchtime, which is what we've got over here, Chicago time, market things out. It's easier for these algos to move it around because there's less volume. So we'll just watch. Okay, we're in the above the initial balance stops, right? Now we want to see the behavior. Watch these guys. Okay, there's nothing in the book here. I be is still important. Watch they're pulling micro structures right there. So let's look. It's still me in reversion. Bums. It's still this. So now, after the wait, nothing to do, not a trade recommendation. This is the same trade guys outside in mean reversion. Same. But for me, I have no entry at the moment. So I have nothing to do, which doesn't matter. This is a stop pick right here. Actually, let me look at this. All this was was a stop pick. So let's watch the mean reversion. And then I'm going to have to go ask your questions if you have them. And if you're interested in the taking advantage of the resources in the bookmap discord trader lab, go to bookmap.com. You'll see join discord chat. And then you can take advantage of a lot of free education, including resources in the trader lab, 60 PDFs of examples of these things. A video that I did a webinar I did last year that'll give you an overview of these mechanics as far as the auction. Examples, you know, that are really documented very tightly, you might say, as far as these kinds of behaviors and microstructure integrated into multiple timeframes. You can download those PDFs in the trader lab. And also there's that introductory video. You can they're all pinned at the top of the lab. And then it's an interactive group where we, you know, discuss the market. It's not a trade calling room, but it is a leveraged environment of various trader experiences. And all we ask is if you have an opinion, you just show how, you know, because that's the goal is that we collectively leverage our experience, maybe save some of us from going down the rabbit hole of something that someone else has already done. I can assure you I've done been in a lot of rabbit holes, years worth for some of them. And, you know, maybe some of my experience can help you, you know, or your experience can help me. And that's the idea. It's a collective. So something to think about. Also, this stream will continue in the trader lab on and off during the day. And this recording is available to participants in the bookmap discard trader lab after hours. I think that's about it, right? Got about nine minutes. And let's see if we can get to here before we get up here. Watch this behavior right here, microstructure, watch it right here. You know, and a lot of things we talk about in the trader lab. So you guys know is exactly this kind of behavior, the context, understanding how to navigate a day like today is really different from yesterday. In fact, it's like a different event altogether, different trade plan. This is a specific trade plan. Do you have a trade plan for this condition? If you do, good for you. Do you know where and what it looks like, what the behavior might be? And how do you get involved? Where do you interact? And where are you trying to go? Why also, you need to know why. So understanding the auction, auction market theory, reading the behavior of the participants using price and volume, combining that with the order book can provide additional insight. And then it's just why. This is the fair price. Now, if the volume stays up in here, this can move. And if this is now becomes too low, and we move up, then the market is saying, you know, that's too low, we're willing to pay more. And then the market can progress higher. So we don't know that. So that part, remember, we don't know. Very choppy, very rotational. This is mean reversion. So if you, so here again, we're in a situation, look at this chop, chop, chop. Do you get out? Do you stay in? How do you handle this mentally? See, for me, I got to put my helmet on, chew on the edge of the desk, because I have an emotional response to it, just like you do, except I know over time, the statistics of this trade, accepting scratches, stops, and everything else. I accept this is still my target. Let's watch it for a minute. And I'm going to be here for another couple of minutes. Any final questions? Guys mean reversion. And here's the thing with the mean. Mean is this, that's mean. But let me, you know, that's mean, but that's trading. Maybe back up, pick, see, pick, same trade. Better shot now to get here. Doesn't have to, no clue, right? But can you see why it's outside in? I think we can kind of see that, right? Now, what's going to happen? Clueless. If rotations are random, here's the random part of this. Down, back up. Why didn't it just go down? Well, there. Why didn't it go here? And it came all the way back here. Random. Why did it break here and then come here and then do this? Random. If we take the noise out and we think in an auction, in other words, the function of the participants, what the participants do, what they're trying to achieve, that's the auction, and then how it's representative, which is the distribution of the volume. Where's the retail price shopper, S&P shopper here, right? Hide volume. Supermarket. This is like a little convenience store. Auction, not a lot of participants. So that's how I think of these, and that's kind of simplistic, but why make it complicated? Why make it complicated? Any final questions? Got four minutes. Target? Any questions? Hope you guys got something out of this today. Again, if you're new and you haven't seen something like this before, it's really about understanding primary market mechanics. That's what this stream is about, helping you understand how the market works without an understanding of what the function of the market and the process is. I think you're at a tremendous disadvantage over other traders who understand these things. Remember, if you're doing what everybody else does, you might be at a disadvantage because of the statistics that are born out as far as retail trader success rate. What I've kind of figured out since I started out like you guys did, I was always an off-screen trader, and when I started, there really weren't any. It was floor traders, and they got a big kick out of what I was doing. Nothing like going to lunch and breakfast with your pals, and they just think you're out of your mind because they were in a different business. They've been replaced by algos and HFTs. What I do is the same, except over the years, having gone through huge search and discarding things, and some of these processes I use for years. It isn't like, oh, this is a week, this is the month. This is a huge investment, and there was no information when I started. The point is, I had to take it slow because I didn't have anybody to ask. There was nobody. Screen traders, I didn't know another screen trader. Then indicators kind of came. Wells Wilder and all that in the early 1980s, late 70s, is when all that indicator stuff started evolving out. I went that because it was like we found the holy grail. The reality is, no, because nobody knew about context, at least to configure a plan within the context. We knew about rotations. We know about directional moves, but they weren't separated. Over time, and it was Peter Stottelmeier, he came up with the market profile, and that's where I learned it from Peter when it first became available through the CBO take. I couldn't do anything with it for a couple years. I don't think that it's like a light bulb goes off. What goes off is, why can't I do this? What don't I understand? I had to kind of make it adopt it and adjust it to my own mental state, and now it's like reading music or dancing. I can relate to it because I understand it. What you see on the chart probably looks like a lot of noise, but remember what I was saying, what would your behavior be when you see this? Would you be bailing out? What would you be doing? Or would you have a trade plan that says, you know what, this is where we're going, maybe, and in the meantime, punt because it's random. Thanks for being here. Thanks for visiting the Trader Lab in YouTube. Give me a thumbs up if you got something out of this today. I appreciate it. I want to invite you guys to the Trader Lab. Go to bookmap.com. Join Discord. Come to Trader Lab. Download the resources. Those of you in the Trader Lab, I will be joining you exclusively to continue this. Also, for Trader Lab participants, this stream video will be available for you to review to your homework. Let's all improve together. Thanks again, everybody. I'll see you tomorrow.