 Morning traders. Welcome to the traders lab. I'm your host Tom B. Thanks for stopping by today. Can I please get a stream? Check in you tube and the book map this car trader lab Terrific. Thank you so much as a reminder. I am in Costa Rica and I do have somewhat of an infrastructure issue especially when the monkeys get frisky so If this stream goes down I have a book map support backing me up and if you're in YouTube especially If there's any issues we will try to reconnect the stream and if we can't There is a link in the bottom of YouTube for the book map discard trade lab chat You'll be able to access the stream there You don't have to be a book map subscriber to be part of the community and take advantage of all the free Education and you will never be solicited by book map. Just want you to know we have a backup plan Now everyone this stream is about integrating book map order flow tools with auction market theory Using the volume profile and this is done in the intraday developing time frame. It is about a top down In other words higher time frame down And then bottom up so integrating day trading if you will Inside higher time frames for rotational trading now the actual quote time frame or rotation You operate in is subject to your individual trade plan and in the trader lab. We have traders with all different In other words who use the trader lab process if you will and understanding of market mechanics how it works how to get an alignment But in the end it's up to each individual to adjust this To what fits your psychology your understanding of the market statistical Metrics that you can derive and also are available to everyone as well as 60 PDFs are in the trader lab of structured trades so you could follow these trades along Anticipate them just like you would if you are actually trading this process part of trading is not predicting it is Anticipating and then since the outcome of any specific individual trade is random the idea then is to look at this as a gaming process Very just like the casinos operate casinos play structured games. They don't make them up They're not emotionally attached to the outcome. They just play the game and for us the games if you will using the Shall we say using the gaming process as a model because it's successful is to use only Anchored inputs an anchored input is playing the game the same way not changing it and not having variable Multiple inputs into the game. So for example in the casino blackjack has just played the same way same number of cards Shuffled the deck and you know off they go. They don't change it the matter What happens our nature because we're human and emotionally wired is to change everything in the constantly tune and tweak because our need psychologically is to run from the saber-tooth tiger and That need to avoid the pain of being bitten by the market or consumed by the saber-tooth tiger Causes us to be motivated to continually tweak and tune and I call that trader groundhog day Are you experiencing trader groundhog day? Follow this stream and see if this doesn't make sense now what I do is just one way To operate in the market Something just went off over there If some alert just went off if it is a problem let me let me know But let's get to business 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 risk disclosure trading futures equities and digital currencies Involve substantial risk of loss and it's not suitable for all investors past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results And please remember this isn't a trade calling room This is for educational purposes only and everything you're going to see here is Available to you in the bookmap discard trader lab chat that includes structured trades processes high-level overview integrating with higher time frame Understanding how the market works and how at times to get an alignment the important key I think is to know that you can anticipate trades before they happen. This is not a sit at the One-arm bandit or the slot machine throwing your dollars in to see what happens I mean if that's what you want to do that's okay But the business of trading is really a different process in my opinion now grab a pen and paper also This stream is available exclusively the bookmap discard trader lab chat Participants for review. What's important today is I'm going to take as we say a little walk on the wild side I'm going to go in a little different direction because I promised the trader lab participants That I'd be starting to change my what I share Because I've been doing this for several years. There is a library of webinars available to all of you in the bookmap discard trader lab and About 26 of them. So if you're going to look for more detailed information with real-time narration I have webinars in there that you can watch for up to four hours long of this process in real-time So if you're interested in real-time narration as it unfolds You can enjoy that so here we go now. I'm going to start today Assuming things don't get out of hand and you know Let's take a look This is a higher time frame chart It's from investor RT and don't let all the mishmash here concern you. This is the Consolidation we recently broke out of that was our trend day up now that date when you have a breakout of something this large and this goes back To December 14th 2023 so a lot of energy in here. There's buy stops up here all these sellers in this Consolidation were wrong. So what happens is? See you later and squeeze a terrier. So this sets up a couple of things when we broke out our target was 5750 and Whatever this is up here. I think it was 81 There so that's our target for this day The next day we took it out and now we are consolidating in here Okay, we have targets above it's and the I gave you these levels yesterday 4906 and You know, it's a little hard to see this but let's just say I think it's 4912 ish And I asked you guys to write that down now We have something else when the market goes up and you're gonna find this very stimulating Sell stops trail under the market Yesterday was a balanced day And I'm gonna show you something in the intraday that was very interesting, but I want to take the top-down approach What is under yesterday's low? Sell stops Where do you think we might underline be headed today take out yesterday's low What was the highest volume in the trend day up? This is like a retail price highest volume is an accepted price That is 6775 ish. I use the term ish because it's horseshoes and hand grenades. So that sets up the following Potential shorts today Take out yesterday's low in other words sell stop So we know there's fuel and then down here and if we break under here we come back Potentially to here and a trend configuration is poorly auction in other words. This is an auction overlap and These days will become combined. This creates something called a micro Composite all it is is a combination of putting days together to see where the volume is like down here was the high volume For all these days in here. So we put them together. So from the top down, this is the top Okay, now we're gonna go down to another level. I hope you're getting something out of this guys. You finding this Kind of useful maybe Okay, let me try this now. I don't usually do this because it can get ugly So just bear with a second while I move these things around I'm on a laptop makes it much more exciting. Let me tell you Oh So give me a moment Okay, now this is the rth only day session and I want to point out how this works This is the auction and you'll wonder where levels might come from I always wonder myself But the market talks and what I do I don't use any indicators now I'm going to share some indicators with you that might be used But for me, I found indicators create conflict And it's very much how the casinos operate. They don't use indicators. They have anchored inputs Our nature as retail traders is to load indicators on because our need And it's not even a conscious need is to avoid pain and to squeeze out risk. We want to be right I get it. Don't you the problem with that is they're not anchored They're random. Sometimes it's a little of this. Sometimes it's this time frame and the other ones Sometimes we move an envelope over here. We change them moving it, you know, whatever it is pick one, right? It's all the same now. Let's look at yesterday's. This is today's rth. Let's look at yesterday's rth So I'm gonna we're gonna look at this and we're gonna go look at yesterday. What happened yesterday. So let's go take a look now So we gap yesterday This is called I'm gonna make sure I got the right level here Yes, yesterday's value air. I'm sorry day before yesterday's value area high Value areas where 70 percent of the volume takes place So this is considered fair that 67 i'm referring to is the highest volume price think retail Trading is shopping And I know when you went into trading you didn't think you're just taking the shopping cart and pushing it around in the market But that's really what we do because the job of the market is to figure out what's too high. What's too low. What's retail and The day before yesterday, this was the highest volume price and remember when you shop in the store when you buy an S&P in the store high volume is where the price is accepted now the thing about this is We can move away From a retail price and it says too low Now i'm going to take you down in fractal. By the way, I cannot see the chats at the moment because I'm just going to say I can't so remember if I drop out of the stream Uh, if you're in youtube click the link on the bottom if I don't come back up with the internet comes back and go to the book I have to discard chat. Hope you guys are getting this out some out of this Please reserve your questions until I get this thing off my screen and then I'll be able to get the chats back up So and I'm in a high time frame here just to conserve real estate on the screen But these are renco bars now. Here's what I want to show you The market opens in a gap We get our buyer Let's watch Now this is a consolidation now, it's not material But this is why I use renco bars and this is nothing more than a way to organize between I don't trade off of this chart Okay, but it kind of helps me organize structure Uh, I don't need to look at it. I book map but long before I got hold of book map, which was 2015 When it first came out in the public space, uh, this is how I traded a shorter time frame That's basically our shorter rencos. These are renco bars. So Chop chop is a consolidation You break low. I'm just going to show you how this might work You pull back and test this This is where I developed the the concept of micro high volume and I say I developed it I don't know who developed it. I came up with it with you know for myself. What do I know? So break Pull back and you see me do this in the stream in micro structure This is consolidation inside a consolidation is volume if it's too expensive I can break away from it and come back and check it if it's still too high I'm going to leave the store and off I go, but here's what's important I'm just giving you a little sense of the market mechanics In this chop here this thing The highest volume was right there. You can see it in the profile. It's called a variable high volume node I mean, I've had to make a name up when I came up with this stuff. I don't know. So I called them Well, it's variable because the volume point of control where the highest volume is for the day Started moving away that created two things. This is called the distribution. All right In other words, what is a distribution and I'm kind of giving you a mini lesson in Market mechanics. I thought you might find this interesting But a distribution is basically where's the outside edge of consolidation? So where's the outside here? Where's the outside down here? And where's the meat on the bone retail? Is that I can't I'm going to ask you does it make sense, but I can't see your response So doesn't make sense So if this is the case and this is retail and then I fall out of a consolidation It is saying potentially too high and we leave The store or the consolidation Now I pull back and I test the bottom edge of this consolidation and you guys know Lots of times when you have a consolidation and you get a breakout we come back and check The breakout and we can pull back inside Somewhere or just come to the outside edge. That's called A low volume node and it's kind of covered up for different reasons. This is current for today But anyway, so low volume note I put these on my chart and you're going to see them because they're important What happened in yesterday's rth? We potentially underlined found a price that was too high And we rejected it. So write this down on your sheet 93 75 HV and high volume node too high Write this down 89 low volume node outside edge Now there's one more piece Let's move over This dark area is where is the outside edge of where 70 percent of the volume Cooked place yesterday. It's called value area high. So value Based on auction or market profile edges I like to think of it and I learned it from the guy who invented it that created at peter stottelmeyer in the mid 1980s And I couldn't do anything with it. By the way, so don't worry about that So this is the outside edge And it's an alignment with the low volume node. Just remember these things Value area high. Now, let's go to the other side This is the volume point of control from yesterday retail. Remember This the overnight volume point of control is the eth retail price. So let's think of it mentally Retail yesterday and in the eth retail nothing had changed. So if we're accepting this price Theoretically and I like to use because it there's nothing You know, nothing is for sure in this business. Just like when the in the casino, we don't know the outcome of anything Right, it's all random. Write that down. It's random You need to accept randomness. So you don't feel psychologically attached to the outcome even though we are emotionally triggered value area high Retail price yesterday, which means the highest volume. Remember you go shopping You want to buy your can of tuna? It's a dollar in the store. Seller will sell it for a dollar You buy it for a dollar high volume takes place at that price. Everybody's happy retail eth retail now, let's go to the other side There's more but I'm going to keep this simple eth low eth low Where's that value area low? So we were trading inside of a fair area to me. It is not a coincidence eth retail Our th from yesterday retail are an alignment eth low in alignment stops under yesterday's low And remember our target? And I'm going back to the higher time frame and yesterday the day before is our th 67 75 not a recommendation So this is the map Now I'm going to try to get Hold on Get everything sorted out and I apologize for this but I thought you know It's important to see where levels come from and to not And I don't use any indicators. What is my indication by the way now? Let me switch something up here. I'm going to show you something try. I'm trying forgive me if I blow things up Now I'm going to show you eth. I want to show you the pieces I know I'm taking a lot of time But I I want to do something because I haven't done this because I don't have time anymore in the stream I'm kind of limited So I thought we should get this in for those of you haven't seen this before This is in the to a certain extent in the webinars that are available to all of you in the trader lab You know the trader lab is a free online community of Really like-minded traders and looking and we're all looking to leverage our collective experience and our senior trader has 54 years I've got going on 44 years of trading Both professionally and now as a retail trader either here or there Notice where we are yesterday's low to low. So we're kind of heading south of the border and that's a trade plan for today Now let's come back and look at this I'm going to show you the eth. I want you to see how this might work so This was that low volume node that separated these value areas. Okay This is now the eth high who knows this was that level that was too high from Yesterday so oh i'm not paying that and we left this is the fair price What do we do in today's so this is where we test in the eth and the eth low overnight low was right there okay, so So let's look so that just gives you the lay of the land. Here's another piece Now this is today's our th let's just take it one step further we open What do we test value area high? What do we test low volume node? Is there symmetry here? Is there symmetry here? This is our th too high Now i'm going to take in the book map to show you the actual trades But this is all before the market opens So we have a couple statistics and i'm only going to give you a couple of them We have a approximately Impass performance not indicative future results. I still can't see your questions And it'll be just in a minute that we take out It's about a 90 call it over 90 probability and you have to bet these for yourself that will take out either the eth high or low Don't know which one We have about a 95 ish also 90 plus probability We'll take out either the first hours high or low And we have many more statistics all of which you need to vet for yourself We have over an 80 probability. We will take out the overnight volume point of control Past performance not indicative future results and there's more and we have about a 70 Whoops this one 70 probability will get to this and there's more. That's enough. Okay is now give me a couple of Seconds now to try to get all this cleaned up and get these off so I can get back to the chats I am on a laptop and I will tell you if you want to abuse yourself try doing this from a laptop in Costa Rica Gotta move stuff around here so I can see the chats I should be able to Do that in a bit hold on guys And you could let me know in the chat was this worth the time we took and if not I You know, I won't do it again. But you know, I'm trying trying to give you guys as much value as I can For what we are trying to accomplish Okay, I've now got the chats back Um, how we doing in youtube are we still going in youtube or has youtube, uh, I can't tell Okay, how you guys you guys doing okay? Hey, give me a thumb up in youtube Let me know that you got some value from my review Also, this stream is available for review if you're interested In looking at higher time frame integration Because and make a note of this guys context Is the chassis that trading runs on in my opinion I'm only giving you my opinion in my experience and it's not you know it's just one way to slice and dice the banana, but If you don't know where you're at, how can you formulate a trade plan? And then we don't know still don't know what's going to happen. I mean, that's part of the joy But what if you have a map of potential levels? And this is what we talk about in the trader lab. You can anticipate behavior. You cannot predict it And we have a process of conditional Statements it's called narration and it goes like this if this then that If not then what so if something happens You it's like when I built trading systems They were built on conditional statements So I kind of took the concept of system design and I because it would take you down a branch You know if you want to skim make a schematic of trading, you know And that's what trade plans are about But when a conditional statement is triggered an alignment with the context Which is the most important piece know what's what's going on here. Where's the levels now if you can get an alignment now? You have qualified structured trades and there's 60 PDFs of those you can download and you know Study and anticipate what happens here in the stream um in the trader lab We're not jumping in you know like What do they call it the I don't know What is that a frog getting boiled nothing against frogs they got some wild frogs down here in Costa Rica I gotta tell you You don't want to mess with them either So this is that previous low volume node and this is the value area high. There's the eth high I'm showing you now. I've transferred the price map. This is the naked volume point of control. It's a potential target This is yesterday's high volume and we have one down below over here. That's a 67 So you could see now where all my levels come from Overnight volume point of control in alignment with yesterday's volume point of control So balance two-sided trade anticipated outside edge outside edge outside edge there Mouthful big mouthful, but here we go. So now rth open watch so nobody knows Let me get some of this stuff off the screen. This is a correlation tractor of the nq. We don't need to see that I don't trade from it. But if the nq is going down, you know, it's not a terrible thing to know and that's available It's part of book map So and this down here is the market pulse If I have time, I'll refer to it. I don't use it in my trading. I don't need it but In the you know, how I feel about indicators Our nature is to gravitate to a red light green light That's not trading in my opinion But if you understand market mechanics, you can Integrate indicators most retail traders start out with indicators And they're not around long enough to get to understand how the market works Because they think the market's a function of time frames and multiple indicators and random inputs And if you remember the top of the stream casinos don't work that way Why are they successful? Because they're not doing what we do with randomness They accept the random environment, but their games are structured and anchored And I have a primer webinar if you're interested in understanding these concepts You can go and Watch the primer webinar. It's free to everybody in the book map discord trade lab chat You don't have to be a book map subscriber to access all this information And you'll never be solicited. So let's look at this This yellow line is developing volume point of control. It's resets the zero at rth open So we're starting at zero volume. So it's very sensitive and what it's telling me is What's a retail price now? I know, what do I know? I know so that's the rth open. Okay. I know I am in balance So it's possible and again, I don't yeah, what do I know? Possible that we're going to have two-sided trade and I have to wait and see who takes control Now remember my outside edge is up at the value area high And also that low volume area here So this is a target And a potential area to consider a short or not remember. I don't know and This is like a magnet. It's retail From the eth the last auction and I have stops under the low from yesterday, which are hanging out all the longs. Remember the longs are sitting what stops under yesterday's low week longs and You know, that's kind of what we're looking at. So let's see First trades and none of these are trade recommendations. You have to vet this for yourself This is trader lab. Remember trader lab is a community and what's so neat about trader lab I think is you kind of get your groove, you know, what's your groove? I like to trade for the bigger swings. It's called risk reward If I risk two and a half three points and that's kind of my risk on a trade, you know per contract You know 8 10 12 points is my objective Uh, I don't trade this You know, I don't want to trade in this unless I have a reason but my context is balanced So I'm anticipating rotations initially So it's patience and if you're really wired up and you got to get in that's fomo One way to think about this, I think at least and this just comes from you know, doing all the things we've all done You know, nobody's unique here. We all do the same stuff We all are nutty because we are we have and you gotta understand what creates your behaviors Subliminal, you know ancient wiring run from the saber to tired It's great for the species to survive but not great in trading where you actually run into the fire Versus away from it. You're running towards the danger not away from it. So you're wiring you're pushing against Wiring so that also creates fomo At the same time So these emotional states are things you're gonna you're gonna learn things about yourself that you never had to learn before But if you only think on a surface level, you're not going to recognize the behavior. It takes a lot of introspection So let's take a look market opens. I see my seller This is too high That's a variable high volume node and it's covered up by this. Don't worry about it Mark this shifts lower that is saying potentially This micro volume you could see it here. Now. This is not actionable for me. I'm just going. Uh, what's going on? Right? You ever do that? Too high Rotate down Now this is too high. Let's watch This rotates lower. So I have too low Too high. So let's watch Retail watch the behavior. This is suggesting a downside rotation now I cannot do anything here at the moment because I've got levels above And I got levels below. So I'm kind of going. Well, okay. I want to be on the short side. What am I going to do here? Now this is a trader lab short. I did not participate in this. I narrated it Too high. I'm going to show it to you now if it's part of your plan You could take this trade and let me tell you where your target is it would be here But to me I'm thinking well tough. So let's watch. So I didn't do I did not get involved We get our buyers watch now So this this is a structured trade I could not take it because of context The thing that's very hard and by the way, I could have taken it and taken a stop It is what it is. I'm just saying I didn't though and I narrated this in the trader lab But here's my location Right, let's watch And again, I can't predict anything. Don't think I know what's anything. I know nothing I am clueless write that down clueless. What does clueless mean? It means I cannot predict I can only attempt to align with levels. I've already put on the map So I know based on what I showed you at the open of the stream. This is too high now. Where's my possibilities? Here's my possibilities And I don't know here because there's over a 90 probability. I'll get there And here it was too high Yesterday, but I can come back and check it So and this so statistically this I know about that Because it's what we fell out of the upper distribution in yesterday's rth I know the eth high has a possibility and I know this was too high So this is my area for potential short. So let's watch Now again, I'm clueless, right? Remember the term clueless. What does it mean? Open mind No opinions no prediction. I only know levels. I'm going to show you microstructure. Let's look at it together I hope you're getting something out of this. Is this a little too, uh, minutia for you guys? You know Because this is kind of how it all works and this is called fractals What a fractal is is I'm going down in time frame as you I don't use time I use structure. So volume tells me the story now. Let's look at this in micro Here's a little chop chop. This is a consolidation. I break high. That's too low Here chop chop I break high notice where I come back. I'm showing you now in the electron microscope world too low chop break high too low chop Break high just watch Just showing you something That's it's concept guys too low consolidation Chop and there's micro volume in here if I open this up further, which you can do with bookmap You'd actually see micro v pox in here. Remember high volume nodes. It's all the same think russian dolls I'm down at the electron microscope level chop chop Too low break high go in north lewis level level no clue Chop chop, uh, break low Hmm too high question mark chop chop break low Too high too high question mark fire Um By the way, I saw this and I saw this I couldn't do anything with it. Okay, it's a short And here's why now. It's a short. I didn't take I posted that in a trader lab Because I'm asleep. It's a switch. How do I know it's going to do this? How about no way to know? So life in the fast lane Value area high Low volume node is everybody tracking so far. This is a short that I could not take And it's okay. It just shows me now. I'm I got information from the auction and I got an understanding that okay I found an outside edge potentially Are you guys tracking? Okay, remember if you're in youtube and you got something out of this and you're getting something out of it Please give a thumb up need the thumbs It's important So while you're sitting there and if you haven't if your head hasn't hit the keyboard yet, maybe your head will hit the Thumb up thing I'd appreciate it. So this is too high This is micro high volume This is your seller. The only way I can get into this is if it pulls back Otherwise, I have nothing to do. So let's watch this Let's continue Now Right here We're going to label this So variable high volume node. It's actually there, but I can't label it here here I'm sequentially what's happening is let's look at the volume too high Now this who knows value area, right low volume node. So you already know From the higher time frame why we were looking at this level this they cheated they got in ahead of us sweep So Right here. So too high Right here too high label it. This is a progression of volume or retail pricing As the market's trading Where the high volume is and just remember when you shop high volumes of retail price This yellow line and all the volume profile is this price and volume. There's nothing more to it You know, there's a little thing in the bottom of book map that has a thumb If you see that if you could click that For the thumb up on if you're finding this part of the stream useful today And if you missed the top of the stream I'm in the higher time frame and I lay out the price map prior to rth open And I also review the eth would sets everything up for today And if you're visiting the stream for the first time and you're in youtube you'll be able to review this So take the link Copy the link for today's youtube stream and it'll be available to you For 24 hours also kind of a gift from the trader lab. So let's watch this. So the market breaks This is too high Okay, and this little micro structure up here Let's let me just show it to you. So you see how this works Remember too low too low Too high break Suspect test too high Break this is a short except this now it ran away. So now I've got to find another location So too high And we're only in a minute and a half. Okay, so you could kind of see So let's look at this thing Now Market goes down Where's our target down below? You do remember, right? What was retail? This And this so the short which now there is another entry right here. This is a trader lab structure trait So we couldn't get on this But let's look too high Too high variable high volume node right here Pull back here This is the same. This is a fractal So when we break and pull back to the micro volume, which you can see right there It's the same And this is a fractal or higher time frame is pulling back there same same trade different time frame And I don't use the clock, but I'm using the terminology. This is a short no condo This is the same structured trade different locations short here. Here's the test Short there trader lab structure trait target here Is everybody tracking so far? This is a structured trade in the trader lab and you guys can download There's 60 PDFs of these if you have if you're inclined Are you guys tracking by the way if you're in youtube? Uh, if you got questions post them There is a bit of a delay in youtube But uh, I will do my best to answer them as they relate to what i'm attempting to do here in the stream so No bueno up here. Let me show I wanted to show you another piece Notice the liquidity here Let me show you This is a sweep of the book book map. Okay, so they swept the book Uh, let me see if I got this going here Target is here. Don't forget. So when you put this trade that trade on in the trader lab All right, not what I wanted to show you this so this a trader lab short here. Okay, and there's your test So it's either here Or there short in the trader lab. You're going for this That's a structured trade. Okay. This is a price check So but basically what we did in microstructure. It was too high. We rejected it This is now checking retail in the eth and yesterday's rth is that logical Just wanted to know where it comes from So let's watch Now this is Called vpok migration Uh, it's a fractal. What it's telling me is this volume up here is too high. I'm not paying that pricing Has been lowered watch You're gonna go really? Yeah, really watch Where do we come back? Huh? What a coincidence variable high volume node Is everybody tracking I have no indicators. What is my quote indication? Participant behavior and volume This price is too high. We're not gonna pay it Now retail and more volume is here But you being the astute shopper and you are a great shopper. I know you are you're going back to this store Because you like to shop here but Nobody wants to pay this price And you're going nah, that's too high. I'm going back here Short and oh look at that the mid. What a coincidence Are we selling because it's the mid or are we selling because it is the mid and What's the primary input this? Too high Now it can do anything, you know, it could go out further. It could come back. It could do anything I mean, this is part of the joy So since we cannot predict all we can do is align now watch if you sell this It's too high. What might be too low See the symmetry so short from here to here Now let's continue Is everybody seeing the short I'm not paying that Yeah, but And we don't know what's gonna happen here What we know in the trader lab is price check Price check now. Here's what happens Short scale And in the trader lab we discuss a two-lot minimum configuration so you can get risk neutral And you have to vet these for yourself. It's just Think about the psychology if you sold this and nobody gets this, you know, you'd be short here You're going for this So that's your scale your stop can stay here So and the worst that happens assuming you don't take a full stop and we do Nobody's immune to stop it. It's part of the joy. I consider it and here's the way to change your your feeling Now you're gonna feel it by the way. I mean, we all have an emotional attachment But the business of trading has nothing to do with how you feel about it the casinos play a game Structured games and we're basically playing structured setups same business. They use anchored inputs Most retail traders do not use anchored inputs They use random inputs and they're constantly trying to fix random inputs But they don't understand gamblers are playing randomly also And the house is not using random inputs If the gambler walks out with a suitcase of cash call it a hundred thousand What does the casino do they change the blackjack game? So the next time they win No, they played exactly the same way It's the only way they can use anchored inputs to have an edge If you want to have an edge in trading you accept the random outcome of each individual interaction with the gamblers or each individual hand But over time because you're not doing what the gamblers do Even though you have no control over the cards coming out of the deck Just like we have no control over the other participant behavior And we have they have no control over the gamblers play, you know what they do, you know And if you ever sat at a table blackjack and the guy next to you draws a card or whatever happens happens, you know You know how that can impact you And you and how many of these guys you see draw cards and they shouldn't be doing anything at all comes into the mix You can't control the play. That's what i'm trying to say So how does the casino experience it cost of production and overhead? Not a personal failure. They don't change the game That's in trading in my opinion That's we're in the gaming business So the short part of the game is the short the scale and the risk neutral concept is to let you get taken out here And scratch the broker sent you a gift basket. By the way, have you ever gotten a gift basket from your broker? Now what happens here? Variable high volume node Looks like my levels might be out of whack here. I'm not sure what's going on These i'm not sure about what's what's going on with these things I got to check this out so Okay, let's watch notice where we come variable high volume node So let's come back to the yellow brick road Right short down to here target This drops down Something isn't working right here. I think I have a problem and I can't tell This is like I've fallen and I can't get up um So that was the short there. Okay. I got that This is too high variable high volume node. This drops down Here that's a short to here. Okay. I'm just trying to make sure something isn't out of whack here You guys tell me if I got something wrong here We take this out. So this is too low variable high volume node in alignment with this. So that's okay Watch, okay Variable high volume node microstructure is up here too high break comes back to retail Comes back and checks this microstructure too high Breaks down comes back checks the microstructure here Here too high Something looks wrong over here. Let me just look at this I think these are in the wrong place. I think that's part of the uh thing here Let me just uh Microstructure potential short right There that's a short in the trader lab trying to get these levels right. I think I got something messed up here. Let me just make sure Can't tell yeah, I do iB 30 is up here So this is in the wrong place guys. Sorry about that How does that happen? Yes And this is the uh, this should be the iB 30 down here. Sorry about that It's like how does that happen? And you'll see why this is important. I'm getting uh perturbed here. Hold on. Let me try it this way Uh, where's the iB 30 uh low guys. Can you give me a number and I could just do it a lot quicker that way in trader lab iB 30 low please 81 thank you. Is that correct 81? 80 half. All right. I'll take it. I'll take it Okay, and the iB high 30 was um What was that again 89 quarter 89 quarter. Oh up here. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I wonder how that all happened the mysteries. It was me that pilot error This is what happens when I'm On a laptop with this stuff. Okay Let's look at this now So this is what this says Anyway, we know that's a short. We know this is the target. So you guys know about that This shifts down. So what that sets up is this is a variable high volume node So this is our outside edge. So you could kind of see too low too high Come back and check Too low. I got to label this thing again. And let me just get caught up. Sorry about this guys, you know, uh Because I like to do this in real time. I'm not real. Yeah, all I do which I can't but Unless I can get there, you know before the stream, but I thought today Um, you guys have been following the stream for a couple years. You see me do this all the time So it's really can I add something in to enhance your education and understanding of market mechanics So I kind of thought that I would take a walk on the wild side Watch the liquidity stacking under the book Now we have uh some statistics in the trader lab And uh past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results and uh I'm going to give you just a couple Well one has that just one The gift basket, uh, so we opened, um I think it's higher in range There's an 86 probability ish that we take out either the first 30 minute high or low If we take out the first 30 minute high or low Whichever one we take out which was the low Then there's a possibility Hold on 66 probability ish that we take out the first hour low which is called the i b low which is down here So we take this out Then we have the potential to take that out and then it sets up a couple different trades. Let me move on And there's other statistics. There's a whole boatload of them actually and you're all welcome to download them But you need to vet anything everything for yourself. So too high too high Retail so now And we got this was a primary target coming down which we got on this leg So, you know, we're trading sequentially now. We have more targets below. So let's go take a look at what's going on Too high right here Too high up there watch It's a liquidity selling This is too high Variable high volume node. We break under it potential short Against this and your stop needs to be above here There's the test of the volume up here also a potential entry alignment high volume area If you took this short Here, this is your obstacle This is a structured trade but you have to have enough range. So let's just watch This thing is like, uh, it's like being at the rodeo High volume area break support watch Volume moves higher. This is a choppy balance two-sided day Volume moves higher. So right here it's starting to look like we're going to press higher There's your seller Here's your pullback. So you have volume here here seller This now is too high. That's too high. Let's watch Structured trade in the trader lab here Stop go above there or above here up to you Now we're going for the i b stat. Remember, I just gave you the statistic Which is to take this out and this is your next target Then we're looking for yesterday's low. These are not and I went over this at the top of the stream So these targets are all laid out, you know, how you get there follow the yellow brick road wear a helmet And this is our next target down below not a recommendation I need oxygen does that make sense? Are you guys tracking? Hope you're getting something out of this. I wanted to do something different today now Uh, let me show you a couple other items here. Let me get rid of this for the moment I'm going to try to show you market pulse Uh, if I can Now again, I don't use any indicators Uh, and there's a reason in the trader lab My objective when I when book map asked me to do, you know stream And to help with the education Was to help traders understand how how to trade really? But trading is not an indicator-based business. It's really an understanding of how the market works and If you can understand how the market works The indicator comes after that not before that and it It's just the nature of you know, you buy a toolbox and you have a hundred indicators in there or whatever it is You got to ask yourself. Why are there a hundred? And I'm oh, I always thought that myself. I says, you know And when I first started we didn't have these so you know when I first started trading we didn't have this We didn't have computers You know, there was no internet, which is probably hard for a lot of you to imagine Uh, my first computer was an apple to e And then went from there when I started writing trading systems, which was in mid 1980s So a lot of this evolved, you know, but I did the same thing you you guys did, you know Um, and when I first learned this stuff, I was learning classical bar charting at the CME and So that's all about prediction, you know measured moves all that stuff So I thought the business of trading when I first uh looked at it and started looking at literature was You're in the business of predicting So, uh, and I think many retail traders think they can predict something I figured out and everything changed for me when I kind of the light bulb went off And I gotta tell you it was a bit dim early on, you know after a few years of Predicting I figured out that this has nothing to do with that This business has nothing to do with our need to know and because that's our wiring It has to do with gaming or randomness Imagine if you play a statistical game And your job is not to know the outcome Does that does that change your emotional response to wins and loses? Or does it at least allow you To let go of your attachment even though you're gonna feel it because you can't change your wiring Does that change how you act on the next trade Versus taking the last traded and letting it influence what you do or don't do on the next trade The casinos don't behave that way And there's a reason Because they they throw their edge out the window retail traders are constantly Throwing their edge even if they ever had one out the window with self-defeating behaviors This is what we work on in it by the way ETH high and low has a high probability It's statistic over 90 percent which I mentioned at the top of the stream past performance not in Dickey of future results So if you're trading the short side, remember Value area low as a target overnight low as a target yesterday's low come on lewis and So that anything I do here is is geared towards the short side and heading for This That and then you have to see so and it doesn't have to do anything now. Remember the thing about trading. It's random Remember how the casinos operate? It's random Can you quote predict that we're going to come here and stop right there? now it is the VWAP But why not come there? I mean, you know, maybe right Let's see V pock migration potential structure trade in the trader lab. Let's observe this micro high volume structure seller Pullback potential short not a trade recommendation. You got to be aware of this right here State in the book. Let's watch it and this is not a trade calling room. This is just um We're just taking a walk on the wild side How are you guys doing? How are you guys doing in youtube? Hope you're getting something from this today By the way as far as enqueue goes uh hyper hydrosis. That's interesting. You have to tell me what that is um It's the same The market mechanics are the same in the enqueue. I traded enqueue for years uh And I mean years just enqueue but it was during the dot-com Blast and I guess that was 2000 or something like that but um Can't remember anymore But uh, and I wasn't using this process. I was still I was using elliott wave fibs all that kind of stuff um So, uh, I was not using this at the time. I don't use any of it anymore It doesn't mean you know and uh The problem I found was I was constantly trying to fix a defective process And the same thing happens in systems. You're doing, uh, you know You're taking a chunk of data Optimizations and walk forward testing you're actually it's kind of like driving formula one looking in the rearview mirror What is yesterday? Yesterday has bearing but what does the last month or two months have to do with what's happening right here? I'm going to suggest not much Because we don't trade in that time frame primarily And even if you're a swing trader every trade starts out in this time frame And then you can expand it. It's like those russian dolls. It's top down Bottom up. So this is the bottom. This is the micro time frame micro structure. So here's what we know Too high I got to label it variable high volume node So what I do with these is I'm tracking the change in perception of value as it's represented by volume So I know this is too high. I know this now is retail and it might be too high This now is retail right here if I don't clear this and I can I can come up here and take the stops If I come out here, I also know I'm looking to sell it back to here If I can't get above here. I know I can Come down to this liquidity and then I got to see what happens over here, you know Either the sellers are going to take on these this resting liquidity and consume it And get through it Or we're going to come down here and rotate off it and then they're going to reload So we don't know the behavior. So this is a trader lab short not a trade recommendation right here And you your goal now, let's go look at what you got to do with this thing We know this is too low So this is micro high volume right here You can see where it is right there. So my scale is going to be right here And then if I get through here, I'm going to my next target if I don't I don't And then I'm going for this. So this is the target on this trade not a recommendation And again, if I get taken out so I have to scale ahead of this structure Which is represented by that which is high volume Let me see if I can show you what it looks like So you see how to use bookman This is the chart volume profile. I can isolate the volume Only what I see here is represented here So I can zero in right here and see the volume Which you can see is there at the top of the arrow This acts the same in a fractal as that So it's the same thing This drops down it's saying that's too high And this was too low in the fractal Right is everybody with me so now We're just working a short here not a trade recommendation I take I have more stops in my career than I can count because I've been doing this Going on 44 years. So it just means I've got more practice And have made donations to the floor traders retirement fund So this is our micro high volume We need to scale In front of that volume because if it's too low We're going to rotate off it So it's a very tight trade if it's in your plan And you anticipate it which you would in the trader lab. You are looking at this too high Test let's go back Too high come down Where's the volume? Too high break Where's the volume? Too high break Where's the volume? Micro structure here Developing the higher time frame volume point of control there. So when you have this seller Theoretically, this is too high This drops down potentially too high Seller now what happens in here if it gets through here Hostel avista, baby catch you later because then we're going to squeeze potentially and all that would do for me Maybe and I use the term maybe because I don't know is look for it to come back outside And potentially rotate. So I know there stops At vwap in mid. So if I put a trade on Then you know, I take a stop. I take a stop. I you know, I take stops every day Why because that's how I protect my account and I go on to the next trade It's almost like waiting for buses. If you don't want to take stops, then you shouldn't be in the trading business It's like do if do casinos not want to lose the only way they can't lose and pay the gamblers is if they don't operate They close their doors. So if you're in the trading business, you really have to look at stops in a different way It's just overhead and cost of production. I'm not saying you won't be emotionally attached and have a disappointment in all that jazz I can assure you the dealer doesn't get bummed out if somebody that usually deal the next hand Can you think like that? It's not it's not in our nature by the way, but it is the business of trading Just want you to be conscious of that. So let's watch the behavior Remember we've got this down here and we have to clear out these uh, this liquidity See the buy icebergs Bell stops. So the buyers were here We came up Deepak migration retail is here. So right now the fair price is in this area This is a potential short not a recommendation. If we squeeze out these guys, we could take the stops out above here You always got to think from both sides if we can't get above here Then we're going to attack this and remember if we get I mean you got yesterday's low here Anybody if you're going to vote does anybody think we're not going to take out yesterday's low and there's no guarantee we will But does anybody think That's a low probability to take it out or is it a high probability we get the stops under yesterday's low If we get under here We can accelerate And there's our target write that down too. It's 67 is 68 and there's no reason that we can't go further But that's not my immediate Concern, you know So let's follow the yellow brick road Follow the yellow brick road Follow the yellow brick road questions By the way, if you're in youtube, please give a thumb up in there's a little thing at the bottom uh in youtube Below the chat, there's a thumb. Please give a thumb up. It helps others find this information So I would appreciate that uh Let's see what happens here YouTube or you guys tracking So guys, by the way, if you're in youtube, uh, I invite you all to visit the book map discord trade lab chat There's a primer webinar That I did it's only about an hour long. It's got over 27 000 views Um, which is I think considering it hasn't been out there all that long um On a high-level overview of this Uh process because it's a process Uh trading is kind of like process engineering really And when it comes to the structured trades in those pdfs I I share in the trade a lab plus the statistics you first of all you got to vet all these for yourself but, um It's process. So it's conditions context alignment Randomness these are things trade plans price map All that's done, you know, all this stuff's put in place outside of trading hours The the business is put together. It's like having a business plan And then if you're a pilot, you're going to fly a plane. You have a checklist It's all done. You don't learn to fly on you know, you don't jump Pilot doesn't jump in the cockpit. Hey guys fasten your seatbelts. We'll figure it out, you know It doesn't work that way does it if you're just a professional in the sports team What do you do you watch tapes you do reviews you have a coach Um, and you go out and practice and drill that's called replays circles arrows schematics diagrams piece by piece one at a time hours on the court Not in the game Before you come out to play the game, you know your opponent You know what to anticipate You have plays set up or structured trades. That's how a professional behaves. Are you a gambler? Or do you want to be in this business? Now if you're going to be a gambler, I always suggest you go to the casino You can play that slot machine, which is kind of what most retail traders are doing random inputs Throw throw to cash in the machine and they win sometimes, right? But slot machine pays the best for the casinos. They get the highest edge. I think in the slot machines Then um, they're going to give you the cocktails and if you sit there long enough They'll even give you a coupon to the buffet I suggest if you're going to do that in this business It costs you a lot less to sit at the slot machine Then it does to actually put real dollars on the line as a gambler Just a personal opinion and based on some personal experience And anyone else is in the retail business Can tell you if they're no longer in the business, which is the majority of retail traders don't last in this business And it's real simply And you come to trader lab, you'll understand they're gambling. They're not in the business The business is is gaming not gambling and that's that is it sounds similar, but there's a very different Uh outcome based on how you approach this business how you manage it and how you handle yourself and trader lab That's what it's all about. So you're you're uh, welcome to it Uh to come to trader lab. It's a great community of like-minded traders looking to leverage their collective experience We have all walked in your shoes. The thing about it is are you going to keep walking the same path? Or if you keep waking up a trader groundhog day Um, you might want to derive a benefit from it I mean, we all have done the same thing. I what I find is many of us think it's just time frames more indicators and tuning That's called optimization and curve fitting That's really what it is And um, if you've ever built trading systems, you understand that process And uh, if you're waking up trying to get something to fit so you'll catch it the next time, uh, that's you know If the market is random and you throw an indicator over that 20-point rotation thinking you're going to get it the next time Along the way in the meantime, you may put yourself out of business with that process And I got to say it's uh, not a trade recommendation and your mileage may vary but think about it You know, is do you think that's how professional traders trade? Here's a book. I want to recommend for you guys. It's called The best loser wins and it's by tom hogard And I think he's got some stuff on youtube You might want to look him up and he talks about retail trader behavior, you know And why they failed Read the book See if you see yourself in any event And by the way, we all see ourselves in all of that behavior and we're constantly drawn back Because of our emotional wiring. We're constantly operating in a state of fear So this trade here for example short Pull back short right here. So here's the possibilities. You're out here I can handle that Where's the stops view up in mid? Let's look at our locations now outside edge is up here This will be a location to observe not a recommendation. We know we had to scale or remember here High volume in the microstructure. You see what happened here That's what you know if you can operate in this that was your scale. I mean that's that's as deep as this gets After that it's either You're scaled You take a stop, you know, you're flat you scratch if you didn't scale because you're Not following a structured plan into high volume You take a full stop And you don't throw yourself out the window. You just go on to the next trade. That's one or the other So scratch or stop doesn't matter to me My body response my mind response my emotions are triggered. I understand the business I'm in I just have to put it aside Now where's the retail stops they're above this swing and maybe This swing so i'm going to watch the v-wap And i'm going to see how far out we come And this is a low volume area If this is a distribution remember what we did at the top of the stream This is an outside edge This was retail yesterday. It was too high This was a variable high volume node. It it's too high This is my outside area to observe. It's not a trade recommendation. So i'm stalking And stalking means i'm looking for a trigger Out here And then i'll tell you what the trade might be and it's very important. You don't just this is not mechanical It's location based and then I need a trigger So if I come up If I can get these stops out in other words these shorts If I can get those guys out that's good for me because if I get if I squeeze and I get by stops And I run out of buyers and all it is is a squeeze and a stop pick Then if I can get short i'm coming to here for a scale And i'm coming back to here And then potentially on to here all it's done doing is i'm rotational here And i'm looking for an outside edge to continue and the market can do anything does that make sense And again Not my job to predict, you know You know the magic eight ball went out to the factory for the special retrofit hasn't come back yet So since I know I don't know I have to operate like the casinos do in the uh, maybe so maybe We will come what's this let's look at the structure of the profiles do let me just show you this thing This is a consolidation up here, right that created this We fell out of it. We're now operating in this Distribution or consolidation Stops are out at this outside edge above these swings That can to and vwap in mid think retail trader behavior in fact write this down think like a retail trader don't act like one So if I come up here And it could be anywhere It can be here But I think out here is better, but it can do anything, you know And we might only get here and then come back here That i'm not blessed with, uh, you know claire veal Clairvoyance So I prefer Stops to get taken Because this range is tight, but my target is this Do I have enough range to trade this? Well, uh, you know weezer But I can't execute Well in this Because by the time I get a trigger I'm at my scale So for me I'm not interested. I in other words. I don't I'm not compelled to sit here and do something I am compelled to trade Where there's enough range for risk reward now Let's say you're in the trader lab Theoretically and this is a structured trade in the trader lab, but part of a structure is risk reward, right? So I may look at this And go oh, this is a short. It's not by the way, but let's say it was And it goes here What does that do for me? It reinforces my skill to read because if you go to trader lab and follow A lot of the streams I've left there as part of the education, you know trading and volatility and et cetera in higher time frame integration The behavior from here to here if it was 20 points, guess what? It's exactly the same The range is something we need for risk reward. It has nothing to do with market mechanics Market doesn't care, you know from here to here. We do To make it pay So I cannot take a short here But I can take a short out here In this area if it gets there and squeezes these guys out above here. You see where the stops are Think like a retail trader don't act like one very important Think like a retail trader. Where's their stops? Where's your stop? How do I learn this? My stop would be here with the rest of the retail traders and what would happen to me What happens to you? watch Then what do you want to do? You want to observe This area and this area right here. So we're going to look at this. This is an area And again clueless, right? So let's watch Buy stops. This is the stop and iceberg indicator Or detector. It's really not an indicator. It's just giving me information Let's look. I'm going to try to get market pulse rolling for you here Let me just try to get this thing right. Okay, this is cvd delta We know the market is short So this is showing me the sellers in this leg This is the market pulse This is showing me and here's the buy volume coming in and I don't have any divergence or anything So this is kind of like your oscillators and stuff now the thing about indicators You know, you know, I'm always going to say this because we have different visitors, you know to the trader lab and to the stream How do you use an indicator? How about the indicator is not the primary input? The behavior of the participants is and then if you have alignment And you have alignment And you use a tool to help you with timing What do we need first? We need the behavior of the participants To come to a structure to qualify Contextually to potentially come back here. So this is the trade i'm looking for Not saying it's ever going to happen now ever never so Now let me show you this The market Yeah So, you know, I'm trying to get these swings out right buy stops Buy stops v-wap mid. You notice what's going on. Here's my outside edge There too high maybe I know I can come out here. Where's my low volume area? Outside edges of consolidations have stops on these edges, right? What am I looking for stops? Where in here? What was too high? Here this is my area to observe not to shell to observe and I'm running out of time They make me stop at 12 noon Are you guys getting something out of this? This is auction market theory Using the volume profile the distribution of volume based on participant behavior This is structured trades based on trader lab and you have to vet all these for yourself I got five minutes. So you got questions now. It's a good time to put them in I want to remind you guys that there's 60 pdf So you can download in the book map discord trade lab chat as well as a library of webinars Um soup the nuts that go over this process start with the primer webinar Got about 27 000 views. There must be something there that's worthwhile And you'll get a better understanding of market mechanics how it works Why it does what it does and it's all random anyway But if we can organize it Not the way of the typical retail traders do but by understanding market mechanics It may help you develop an edge and then the business is the business of gaming It's not it's not the business of predicting So Where are we here? What was too high here? What's gonna happen? Clueless, let's watch If we get a sell structure and where's our stops? Let's come back Mid vwap This was the last price that was too high. This is retail. I'm stalking a short To here That's the primary Then it's uh put a helmet on and i'm looking for this eventually today and down to 67 That's the that's the trade plan for today write those down and they're not actionable They're just Curiosities for you to observe This is our outside edge Here's our outside node Developing value area high All this has alignment. So now we're looking potentially for a trigger And by the way, if we don't get a trigger it just keeps going north. There's nothing to do So that's why Levels are areas to observe They're not mechanical It's what created this it was too high Now if this changes and let me take you over here. There's 15 000 almost 16 000 contracts traded here 13 000 are up here if we stay up here and this shifts back up here. It changes it to this is too low If we come back and check this and it's too high Now back to retail. That's it So let's watch You guys know this i'm not gonna spend any more time We now have longs They're the fuel So first we get the the shorts out And we're looking to squeeze the shorts if we run out of buyers in this area We can rotate and if we get our sellers and a cell trigger That's it then south of the border or not So right now we've got buy stops and we got buy iceberg. So let's see what happens here Buy stops sell iceberg. I should say Stops less stops coming up Buy iceberg. So we're watching this area in alignment By the way, if you're in youtube, please give a thumb up on the way out subscribe to the channel Visit the trader lab. There's a link in the bottom if you're interested There's 60 PDFs of structured trades you can download I'll flash that up on the screen on the way out Also a library of webinars that gives you a high level overview of this process It's a gaming process It is not a prediction process and the best you have in trading is maybe Maybe this is too high And this is another level here. So these are areas to observe So we are looking for a short and if we don't get it nothing to think about right here We have four stops coming out So we need buying to continue Or we are starting to potentially exhaust This is how I use the stop and iceberg detector. I'm looking And I got offers coming up in here I'm running out of buyers I'm in alignment And I'm wearing a helmet Not a trade recommendation. We're at a location of potential behavior. Hope you got something out of this today This link if you're in youtube grab the link You can watch this again if you found it interesting at the beginning of the stream I did a high level overview And that kind of gives you where all these levels came from so you could kind of see You know where things are going So let's watch what happens up in this area. This is our area to observe So it's a location. It's not a wall. It's a potential location. So we're looking in here This is our location. I just want to see now if it keeps going then there's nothing to do. I have no trade Let me just flash these for you. So you can see what they look like This is available in the trader lab. Uh, there's a link. It gives you kind of like why Circles arrows. These are the structured trades. You can reverse engineer make them your own But you have to do the work these are actual trades. I've done by the way. I'm not a vendor. There's no course Um, just one of you guys except I've been doing it longer. I started 1980 and maybe you could derive some benefit Uh, since we've all done the same thing. I just did it longer than you Thanks for visiting the trader lab. Uh, this might be our short right here guys Just watch the yellow brick road Not a trade recommendation. Hope you got something from this Thumb up and youtube on the way out. I'd really appreciate it. There's a little thumby thing down there Please click it. Uh, it'll be very helpful See you guys soon trade safe and visit the trader lab If you're interested in if you're not getting the outcome or you're experiencing Trader groundhog day I suggest maybe you visit the trader lab It's a community of like-minded traders and we're looking to leverage our collective experience. You don't have to walk This journey alone and it does help to have others that have been in your shoes Nobody understands this business until they've been in it and even then most retail traders don't last long enough to really understand it Thanks again guys. I look forward to seeing you soon And I will be active in visiting you guys in the trader lab as always Thanks again, and please don't forget in youtube thumb up on the way out appreciate