 Good morning traders. Welcome to the traders lab. I'm Tom B streaming live Monday through Friday 11 30 A.m. To one piece and standard time This stream is about integrating book map order flow tools with auction market theory and volume profile in the Intraday developing time frame. It's not a trade calling room. It is specifically for educational purposes only and how you might integrate a understanding of how the market works why it tends to do some of the things it does and how you might get better aligned with it in executing your trade plan or developing your current trade plan General disclosure all book map limited materials information and presentations are for educational purposes only and should not be considered specific investment advice or recommendations Live trading is in simulation demo paper trading moded strictly for educational purposes live trading executed in simulation cannot accurately represent realistic trading performance risk disclosure Trading futures equities and digital currencies involves substantial risk of loss and it's not suitable for all investors An investor potential is 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 Let's keep an eye right here at the test of the initial balance law. These are not trade recommendations We are here to observe market behavior This is the first hour low It is an area of low volume the market has the potential to come up in this area and check it and then potentially continue This is our target down below and again. These are not trade recommendations. We are just here to observe market behavior Stops are typically sitting over the initial balance So this area in here, which is poorly traded has the potential to get taken So we want to observe and again, these are not trade recommendations Let's think about retail trade or behavior. Their stops are right above the I be high low So let's just see how they how this behaves. So we are looking for a potential continuation lower Stops are sitting right at this level Right above the I be This would be the target down below and these are not trade recommendations What you'll see is we had stops go off right here, but there are still stops sitting in here So this area is potentially vulnerable for Stop pick our squeeze and then we have to observe so You know subject to your trade plan this may be an opportunity to observe a short Not a recommendation So no audio on YouTube is that correct is YouTube good? Okay, sorry guys. All right Amazing sorry about that youtubers. I had a smack the side of the computer. You know how that works, right? everybody ever have a So this is a Observation that we discussed in the trader lab and that's called an I be continuation. Sorry. You guys missed that move up into the low volume area stops exhaustion Chop chop high volume area. This becomes you're over under for this So we wanted to stay below this which is an auction here if it comes out above then that would be a reason to Have a cocktail Otherwise 70 is the potential target below not a trade recommendation We're just observing behavior and as we know every outcome of every trade is random We're above that high volume node that suggests that this trade is going to go south of the border And we just have to kind of see how it behaves. There's 30 stops going off But this trade looks like it's on its way to the happy hunting ground So let's see Key a location right here. These are not trade recommendations. We're observing market behavior So this rotation we just put in here. We don't want to take it out If we do then we're gonna squeeze further that look like a stop pick So the high volume sitting up here now is still your reference. We're still out this at this outside edge We do not want it up in here again Come back up It is time to go for lunch not me, but you know what I mean quite often what happens is The trade gets put on and if you look at this Our high was here all we did was come up One ticket. So if we can't get anywhere from here, then that was just a stop grab Break pullback Stop would be above here Then your job is to get a scale and hold for 70 If that's part of your plan not a trade recommendation So we'll see how this thing does so stop pick potential short Scale stop goes above here. If that is your trade plan The worst that can happen and this is scratch 70 is the target we come back above here, then you know that one is done That's about it So we'll observe it. So if it comes up above here, it's done. So chop chop Stop pick Break trigger pull back to the high volume, which is this so any short under here Stop is above here then the distance from entry at least this is something we discussed in the trader lab So it's a two-lock configuration Not a recommendation. Of course, you have to vet any ideas stop would be above here. It's funded That's a job of the first contract And then 70 is the target So there's no risk if I'm if you're following that plan and that's something we discuss in the trader lab And again past performance is not necessarily a dick of future results because you know the outcome of any trade is random And who knows? so basically You take your trade if that is your trade part of your trade plan You hope to get risk neutral and then see if the and try to give the trade to room to work If you're all in all out, you may find that Emotionally you're going to be jumping in and out and be triggered by your emotional states Which is why we use a two-lock configuration in the trader lab. So you can calm yourself And try to dampen down Your emotional volatility. So the trade fails the trade fails. That's life in the fast line Any questions? Are you guys still able to hear me? Okay, so you guys are we have something called the IB continuation trade is that correct to you guys tracking? Okay, any questions now YouTube by the way you guys you're in a 15-second delay So You know just be conscious of that if you have any questions post them. I'll do my best answer in a timely fashion lower the day 75 quarter currently 69 70 ish is the target on this trade when we evaluate these trades Obviously, there's a couple elements first one is Getting risk neutral so you can basically fund your stop on the second contract and then attempting to stay in the trade As long as it doesn't Violate the structure then this is the target In here 69 so 70 leave some for the sweeper and again not a trade recommendation. We're just observing the behavior Is everybody with me? Where did they add the liquidity 3695 that's pretty far up there. I don't think that's the immediate influence right now I mean, we've got this sitting over here At the low of the day And they've added down here. So they want to trade here and this is a strike also So depending on you know your plan I Look at strike prices only because I anticipate potential hedging behavior in there, but It is just a matter of the number of contracts you trade, you know And in the trader lab we primarily discuss a two-lot Because the function the goal of the trader lab is to help traders develop trading plans In a stable consistent approach a disciplined approach to trading This morning was really choppy and difficult. It was hard for me. I was up down up down up down and currently I'm trying to recover Because I just dug myself down a bit after you know go up go down go up go down because I wasn't getting the Follow-through so I was long early then I got short then I got long that you know because the market was kind of doing this And at first if you guys who use the profile we got into yesterday's value area which put the 70 Was the target early on trying to remember what if I was longer short early? Can't remember even I think it was long and then got short So because we traded outside of yesterday's value then when we came back in it puts this You know on the target, but then we were ripping around and it just got really ugly And sometimes that's just the nature of trading. You know if it was choppy And I was trying to trade distributions, which is another conversation. These are distributions basically this kind of thing You know what this is is consolidation So if you look over here chop chop chop That's your consolidation when you break out of it And if you guys follow the stream, you know that I look at these a consolidation is an auction in a microstructure And what it is is too low too high too low too high break So what that says is the high volume in here, which is like a retail price was too high We had the same scenario here Chop chop chop. This is like your convenience store Saturday night the pint of ice cream. There's not a lot of There's buyers and sellers and there's retail, but it's not your supermarket. It is like the corner store They do less volume and there's less buying and selling but it's still an auction and that's what this tells you too high Then we come back in to this Hold on one second We come back into this area pick the stops This is called the IB continuation trade if you guys are interested in this There's a about 60 PDFs. You can download in the trader lab And also a video that I did that kind of shows a lot of this the behaviors and you'll find in the market There are certain behaviors and I think some of us call them setups, but I won't call them that That tend to have some kind of statistical probability of one thing happening over the other these are called structured trades So you're kind of it's like a bus you wait at the bus stop You wait for the Location area remember it's not mechanical. It is behavioral and then you want to see certain things to trigger And then the trade goes on With a target based on structure And then your goal is to get risk neutral, right? So this was your short area Scale so risk neutral stop goes above this Especially because they took the cheap shot and one tick this this console I think it was this one one of these and Once the cheap shots over that gives it more potential to go lower Just a little tidbit and again past performance not indicative of future results so You can see the liquidity here. Let me try to open this up so you can kind of see this a little bit So this is showing me 313 came in the book here now So you understand some of what happens with this? Some of this is to cause a reaction so they can get short and the way you can tell this is we behave off it Now they pulled okay There's another target achieved Next target is down at 69 70 ish This is a structured trade guys, can you understand why this is a structured trade any questions on why This in this Area here might be your target Or ash I look at the liquidity that's added closer to the market in the polls and In the thing with liquidity you really don't know the purpose of it so if I see liquidity pushing here and I want to see these guys pulling that opens the door if they and you'll Can see a little front running in here though remember what liquidity is it's the limit order book So these are all limit buys right in here now whether they really want to buy don't know you know That's that's always the the real question. So for me my next target and these are not recommendations It's right ahead of here You know in the words this is the actual target, but you know So There's another target not a recommendation so that's another area to observe Now our next target is down in here and these are not trade recommendations, you know But if you're interested in finding out more about these structured ideas I invite you all to come to the trader lab. You can go to book map calm And you'll see join the discord chat and then come to the trader lab. There's 60 PDFs. You can download Plus video on all these on market mechanics in other words auction market theory how the market works why it tends to do what it does You know what it will do is always as we say mystery because it's random And in trading it's really just about trying to exploit Probabilities of one thing happening over the other and we don't know what that distribution of outcomes will be You know so I mean for me. I've been short today. I've been long today I've been standing on my head today and I'm just trying to stay in alignment and there are times and today is one of those days where I feel like I'm turning a Tanker around, you know because for me when the context changes it, you know, takes me, you know, then I have to kind of reconfigure I mean I change my trade plan a little bit to try to get in alignment so You know and that's just the nature of trading, you know, it's just a matter of not one trade it's a sequence of trades over, you know a sample size and One of the things we talk about in the trader lab is the trade plan. So there's the target Right here. Are you guys tracking? Okay, so this is called the IB continuation If you guys are interested in finding out more about these things Why remember auction market theory? Why do you know why if you don't know why I invite you to come to the trader lab because while every trade is random if you Don't have an understanding of why then I think you might you know be at you might be at a disadvantage Why is the market here? You see Why are we checking this price? Why might we actually bounce off it? Just think about that if you can't answer why then you have I think the opportunity to improve your skill set Because while we don't know if we can understand why That's the purpose of the trader lab to help you expand your understanding of market mechanics Why it does what it does and then how you might get in alignment with it when you can recognize This behavior and then it's a matter of indicators, you know, you know, I don't use any indicators Because to me it's the auction The purpose of the market is try to find a fair price. I mean that isn't that it auction, you know What's too high? What's too low and the thing about this now? This is an artifact that was left behind From yesterday It was the retail price So now of course we can continue lower But it doesn't mean we won't react off of this location So let's see what the market does and remember not trade recommendations, so let's look so let's come back here Let's look at this behavior 75 now here's with how this works This is a consolidation, right chop chop chop in other words this chop chop chop chop Consolidation and think of it like an auction too high too low shopper. Oh, it's on sale. I like this I'm not paying man. That's too high. Well. Yeah, but this is pretty good Yeah, and it's a sh and in this chop and we're all familiar with Consolidations is a retail price in other words here. Let me show you This is kind of how market structure and again now here you see this chop chop chop This is like your little store pint of ice cream Saturday night too high Wham we break away from it that is saying this auction in this Microstructure where this volume is was too high and when you get this rip away from it It is like a rejection. Okay come down. That's lovely come back This is the last location and you could see it right here this node. This is like too high It's the volume. This is what volume profile is showing you too low too high too low Retail in other words highest volume is retail you go shopping you pay retail right sellers happy buyers are happy You guys interact if the price goes up and it's too high you go I'm not paying that when the price comes down and it's on sale. You may say hey This is a good deal relative to retail which is right there. You see That's auction market theory it creates and it is an auction. So if it's too high Then we can auction in a different location Understanding that this is where the last auction was that was too high. So all of this in here When we started chopping and picking which is one of the requirements for this trade is to try to get a pick Or close to it, but you can't run your stop right on top of everybody else You have to give it a little room to the outside. You don't know right? So if you got risk neutral, you know You'd be okay with that If you got taken out you could put it right back on again. I mean that's just the way to cookie crumbles, you know Because this is what you're going for So of course now potential to go lower right So let's see But I want you to understand now So this was our short Right, this was an obstacle rip through it pull back to it potential continuation and continue lower That's the trade Now for me since I use structured trades this for me is my target, right now it can do anything now Here's the other part of this Right in here We have another consolidation. Here's a high volume node This would that would then be our Rotation so let's observe it. This is our high volume. That's the meat on the bone inside this Consolidation it is saying too high Potentially so if we come back up here, we're going to observe it and it's not a trade recommendation What you're seeing happen in the auction is the markets remember the market's job. Where's too high? Where's too low? Well, if we fall out of the distribution it is saying this is too high. So now We're now auctioning in here See too high too low so and the too high too low Thing is an auction and the high volume is there retail too high Potential continuation so it can stare step down Because the market is trying to find and remember in all of these these are called I call them fractals. All we're doing is if this is the developing daily time frame Trying to get in alignment with what these Participants are trying to do and there the participants operated all time frames. That's why Using book map is is helpful because we can look inside the fractals Inside of this behavior. So we can zero in and that's one of the things I like about book map not to mention all the other, you know Chachis This is our stop in iceberg detector It helps me see retail exhaustion and I really and that's my primary use for it is if I see a Consolidation if I see higher prices What I'm trying to look for is stop picks at locations and that's kind of what we were looking at over here You see like here 318 stops went off over here. That's a lot. Those are our buy stops retail We come up here and there's only 28 coming up We come up here watch And this is how I use it and I find a very important tool for me watch It aggregates so for me to get more minutiae I have to open things up and when I come to a location is what I'm Opening it up because I want to see the shortest term Consolidation for triggers and this is a triggering structure. See there's no buyers up here There's nothing going on really nothing going on no buyers So this is potential exhaustion right here. You see this high volume, right? We break that's a trigger now. We pull back to this volume and that's your potential short And then whatever whatever right that's like, you know Off you go. So and then you scale and then you have another opportunity here Pull back now again, you wouldn't have the same, you know location But you could be here your stop would have to be above here still You know look at what we're talking about 84 to 6 and a half two and a half point Maybe three point and in the trader lab. We talk about three point stops or less and That's about as I think about as narrow as you can slice and dice it Given the harmonic or the typical rotation in the ES Which I think is about five or six points at this point. So if I can get in for half a harmonic, I'm really slicing it So let's watch So now we want to be looking at the 71 ish area or so not trade recommendations So if this was the fairest price yesterday, we have the potential and these are not a recommendation We just want to observe to come back and check it from below remember retail price If we do it in all fractals, we can do it in this one Which is the next higher time frame. So this is an area to observe Let's watch and I'm going to take this off of here Actually, it's all right. So right here. This is a potential short not a recommendation So let's see See what what we do. We come to the outside edge We come and check Yesterday's retail price and it's just in the like in the convenience store except this is a supermarket Was this price too high? Well, if we break below it And we come back and check it and this is where the auction Understanding of how the market tends to work at times underlined Why do you understand why we came back here? I'm asking because if you don't I think you can get you can gain a lot by having an understanding of how the market works Because it's the market doesn't work based on what your indicator does that has nothing to do with market mechanics An indicator is only looking in the rear view mirror Following price the auction was created by the value Of the participant behavior that they perceived was a fair price and it's represented by volume Just like your supermarket if the can of tune is a dollar and most volume takes place Which is where this was yesterday and now today. We're below that price. It is saying in yesterday's auction. This was too high So and again, nobody knows what it'll do, but do you think it's here's the question for you Is it a coincidence? Or do you see behavior? If you can see behavior and again, nobody knows what the market will do, you know, that's that's We're still waiting for the magic eight ball to come back for the manufacturer with the special add-on but If you can understand What it means you might be able to have opportunity to exploit the behavior Because the behavior is why the market exists To find a fair price and if you can't find it, it will keep looking. It's called an auction So what's too high? What's too low? At the ib which was where that short was it was too high for the continuation south This was the next target retail from above Because we could check now the odds are we were going to go lower, but that's besides the point these are structured We break below it We check it is that You see what i'm saying too high now what we got to find too low Off we go Any questions on the auction and what it is sharing? David I uh actually the last two days I drew a little profile over it to see if I could read any structure Um And I thought again, we would squeeze And we aren't able to get over that 37 40 Which is pretty amazing to me and again, I don't know, you know, that's why I was on the long side earlier um Because it just seemed to go lower the market needs to go higher That words take out weak hands and then it can you know, which is kind of what I've been playing towards the last couple days And the longs Haven't been doing a job So it's if this then that if not then what if and I could you know when these things are happening There's no way to know You know that's trading so but now you know If 70 or 69 ish is too high then it suggests south of the border Not a trade recommendation. Let's see how it behaves. So what do you do with this? This is the location outside edge low volume node, right? So too high to now. We don't know where too high is it can Right, this is trading right, but this was an important reference point. That's why this is a short Now I'm going to take this off. Let's see if we can read structure or triggering structure for you guys And you should be taking if this is of any interest to you guys You should be taking screenshots notes Coming back no matter what software you're using coming back and looking at these structures So where do we come here? Where's this here? This has been sitting here since yesterday's rth close not a coincidence gang I offer that to you and if you don't understand what's going on I then I suggest you come to the trader lab Because participants in the trader lab Know what this is And potentially subject to their individual trade plans how to take advantage of it when it shows up And of course past performance is not indicative of future results, right? so up break Pull back chop chop Break so this would be a short You know Stop here Helmet that's about it Scale so you're getting risk neutral stop goes above here By the way notice this iceberg that's chasing price now. That's pretty amazing now. He may or may not want to Oh, he did trade sold 750 Bosses asking me about how do I know the difference between chop And trend I I don't know I don't In other words, I keep taking the trades because I'm looking for it to break out of chop um And today was hard to trade for me You know, I mean once once I can get in alignment, but trying to get in alignment is where you kind of you know buy your ticket to ride And and for me since I try to get scaled Most of the time or let's just say a lot of the times Uh, I'm getting scale and a scratch, but I'm also getting so I'm not getting much for my risk Maybe a couple burgers, you know So I do do build up a couple burgers, but then I'll also take some stops so I can slide in the hole There's no way not to do that In the real world of trading and if anyone tells you that doesn't happen to them then they're Might not they might be uh disingenuous So for me, uh, this is where I want to be trading is in range this kind of stuff Um, when we get into the chop, I'm I'm in there with everybody else And I'm just paying the price to try to get an alignment for uh, you know the swings because I want to trade Uh, so I'm using these small structures because I can keep my risk down to a couple of points to try to get Edges, you know for uh continuation in direction of what I think the context is You know, and it was pretty messy earlier So Seems like a long way from there, doesn't it? So if you have a runner, you know, this would have been your next target So two ways to play this So break below pull back short if you were flat or You have more on not more on but more on and then you're going for this, you know and wherever I'm gonna move stuff around over here on my other Screens Lovely, uh 36 50 Yeah, there was uh, let's see what this guy did at 36 50 Yeah, there was these guys interacted So And this is a nice, you know, I have no problem getting out of dodge, you know And then putting the trade back on subject to locations that are vetted in uh in the trade plan or The other part of it is could be done It just doesn't matter So let's watch. So look where we came. Let's just look at the behavior 70 stops 16 stops. This is exhaustion. This is a Potential triggering structure. It's in isolation. So it is not a trade recommendation. None of these are I want you to see the structure of an auction With exhaustion High volume so break here break So this is a short And it might just be a scalp. I don't know what it is. I'm not suggesting this is a trade What I'm suggesting is that you learned to understand what this is This is a triggering structure And it is a way to get in the thing about it is Um, it has to be in alignment with a location subject to your trade plan You can grab a screenshot of this behavior if you're interested in it And here's what it looks like in the micro structure right here So this is again subject to time frame. This is a short Is everybody tracking this use, uh I'm not chewing gum. Does it sound like it? Maybe it's just my teeth chattering cell So if that's distracting, sorry about that Well, it might be you know, because I you know, I'm talking for a while and things get dry Yeah, so So what happened today if you want to look at it? We were in balance And it was a messy auction up there. I mean, I'm telling you I it was annoying You know, I mean that's just part of trade trading But my job is to just do my thing, you know That's my job Now in a trend now in the trader lab, we talk about trade plans, you know And there's different trade plans for different contexts This morning was a two-sided trade So It's a rotational trade and it was pretty maddening because it Couldn't figure out what was going on. I certainly had a hard time with it because it kept flipping around So, uh, it was hard, you know, and uh, I just wasn't sure not that I ever am That the day would actually amount to anything So but yes, it is amounting to something. So now we're in a trend configuration What that is the way, uh In the trader lab that we discuss trend configuration is it's outside in trading. So if the trend is down, there's no longs At least if you want to be in alignment if you're a counter trend trader You in my opinion should be already profitable when In alignment with the trend If you want to step up and join the retreating army, you know, that's uh, you know, each individual's trade plan For me, I have no no way to get long Unless things substantially change and based on everything that we know at the trend in the location where we are now There's no reason to get long, right? So The only way to operate now is outside in so that's called mean reversion outside in and so what mean reversion Means is you're trying to get it outside to come back in But you can see what we're doing here. We are just trending. So there's there's really at the moment There's nothing to do So let's observe So let's watch Let's watch the behavior now Let's get back here Time of day got to be conscious of this So this market at the moment is shorts only not a recommendation what we want to be looking for is Rotations with exhaustion. This is your high volume area. You can see it right there potential check back here Not a trade recommendation. Let's just watch. Okay, let's see what it does Okay, we got to watch this liquidity right here And see what happens. They actually traded it looks like now. Let's see what happens We get under here. We can continue And we are in a trending configuration. So let's watch They're staying in so we want to see their behavior We're watching 39 40 area We can get below there then we can continue if not counter rotate Watch the behavior. It's algorithmic. You see it now they flipped Let's see a little battle right here. You see it See the change in the behavior Watch the book See how the bids are coming up So let's see what happens on as we come up here to 45 Iceberg just went off Coming up to that high volume area So this is the area we're looking to see behavior So not a trade recommendation. It can easily take the stops out that are above here So we just want to observe it So that high volume area which is sitting right up around 45 and three quarter is the area to observe So we don't want it back up and you see how this works This was your exhaustion. This was your high volume. This was your retracement This is now your exhaustion. It needs to stay under here if we get back above there, then it squeezes more It's not more complicated than that So let's watch it So we're watching to see the behavior here, which is where the high volume was on this side So basically it's this versus this versus this so This is where it's going to decide Whether we're going to continue up and squeeze or Down and no idea. So that's kind of what trading is, isn't it? So let's see the behavior. These are not trade recommendations. We're just watching how the auction plays So we're just tourist Remember market can do anything and we're coming into lunchtime tends to thin out and does squeeze. So that's a possibility and when you Do your metrics the time of day is important See we are squeezing Okay, we're going to watch 50 so let's watch up in here. These are not trade recommendations trading of 50 We want to watch 95 So let's watch in here Not a trade recommendation So nothing going on Okay, it's thin area up here So we've got to keep an eye Now pick stops Watch So now there's stops sitting under here So now the question is going to become can we get lower from here and rotate down to 40 Down to here So that counter rotation appeared to be just a squeeze Just part of trading, right? So now we got to see if we can get continuation Down and again no way to know Algos are pulling you can see them. Uh that little algal pulling moving up And they're coming up from underneath so that's like putting pressure to the upside So we held that high on a test So far So This is the structure And of course if we take it out then you know Done so You know, this is rotational trend is down So what it is is attempting to get in alignment for an outside in Um And then you know potentially this and maybe lower don't know Time of day though is chop So nothing to do here except if you're in a if you're in a position It fails over here. I should say here So that's all there is these are not trade recommendations. We're trying to observe the auction And how it works the thing with a If the trend is down at least for me and these are not recommendations. It's only short So it's trying to find outside edges. Remember, where is it too high? And where's it too low Where's retail? This is retail. So the the potential is if you get outside, this is the area Where you have to be scaling against this high volume So you can see what happened is we came back and checked it came back and checked the high volume And now we're rotating off it which might be saying this is too low So, you know, no, so we'll see So that's kind of a fractal aspect of this whole thing, you know So nothing to do. So the way sequentially to think about this is too high too low Retail So when we come outside It's to check Retail, which is what this rotation was all about So then it's outside in this is called mean reversion and then potentially since the trend is down To continue lower or not So what are we doing here? If that's too low, we can come back outside and then we're going to try to find what's too high So that's basically what's going on in the auction over here. But if you can kind of think of it in a fractal This is your store This is the current auction Inside a higher time frame Auction So if we're thinking that there might be more downside and again, we don't know, right? It would be outside in unless things substantially change. So we have yesterday's low Do we get back in the range or do we just test it? So let's go take a look higher up See what the strength is See what the structure is So we can come up into this Take stops up here Right when you think there would be some potential retail stops up in here But the thing is when you get outside This is kind of what we're looking for and it can be with mean reversion. It's it's tricky because where's the real outside, right? So that's Wow, we're having a audio problem here. Okay. Sorry guys um This is an outside in I don't know how much you lost The scale was here And the next target is here not a trade recommendation This these are what we are attempting to do is get it aligned with the trend These are rotations are Consolidations and stops are on the outside edges of these. Okay when we come up here This is a potential short stop is here scale was here not recommendations next target is here and who knows, right? So that's that's it. Does that make sense? How long was the audio out guys? Nothing like we Yeah, it's mean reversion I was talking about context and for me it's only outside in so I have to try to find outside edges and So here's what happens often and again, we don't know Where's the outside and this is the tough part of mean reversion? I'm not gonna I'm not telling you because why not here Right. Well, you put this on Here you're gonna take a stop right That's what did they say the agony and the ecstasy. I think that's part of the agony agony come out Here we're still looking for the outside edge. This is what mean reversion is and I will tell you for me I just have to live with this Because with mean reversion, we don't know where outside is and we're because they all look kind of the same, you know Where's this outside edge? Well, remember I can't get long I mean I can't I'm just following a trade plan. So I can only sell Unless something dramatically changes which uh at the moment Perhaps not but I don't know so my job is to get risk neutral and then hang out See what develops manage the trade. Are we going to take this low out? Or are we going to rotate all the way back up and squeeze the shorts first? Isn't that the question? Don't know the answer so job Hang out Right now 50 Is roughly the high volume node in here. You can see it there. So this is retail So we can come back up if we keep coming up then perhaps we're going to come all the way back Right and the trade would be over. So let's see what happens So this is our kind of our retail location, right price check Let's see And this is what we're referencing. So we have the volume in here Which you can see right there Too high at the time If this pulls it's going to open the door if it stays in here Then maybe not. So this is where this fails This little node up here. This was an auction this chop chop chop And in this store, this was too high. This is where this trade fails We come back to this so you see that node that is it now we're in balance This is retail so we can do this This is where the trade was put on remember you'd be risk neutral You'd have your helmet on and you'd be like the rest of us in here. It's maybe Maybe we come down here before we come up here. That's it It's not more complicated than that Because everything else is random I hope that makes sense and I hope you're getting something out of this So it's top down outside in Which is mean reversion if you're interested in understanding mean reversion and I underlined the mean We have downloads in the trader lab. You can you know kind of take a look at what this behavior is And potentially gain a better understanding of why the market does some of this stuff You know, why is it doing this? Why are we rotating in here now? The market is basically checking. Is this fair? Is this too low? Maybe and if this is unfair if we spend time We can release and move up higher. That's basically what it's saying Over lunchtime, which is where we are, you know, this is uh central standard time This is when we can get counter rotations So there's nothing left to do and when in the trader lab we talk about a two-lock configuration To allow us to attempt underline to get risk neutral, which is what this is So if this comes all the way back and takes this out, the worst that happens is scratch I think that's reasonable So now we got to see what it does here Right So we'll hang out and watch this one By the way, you guys in youtube, I invite you to come to the trader lab If you haven't and take advantage of 60 PDFs, you can download of A number of different behaviors that you can potentially get familiar with and maybe integrate into your trade plan Or develop one if you don't have one In the trader lab, it's really about having a plan And attempting underline to get in alignment with what the market is trying to do Because the function of the market is try to figure out what's too high. What's too low and the rest of it, you know And we don't know Now it looks like this is going to get taken out up at the 52, you know But there's nothing you can do about it, you know, other than be risk neutral and see what happens Does it get to your next target below or does it get to your stop first? If your risk neutral, it certainly changes what's going on in your stomach lining right now, right? Uh, because if you're all in all out Your emotions are being tweaked in a big way. In other words, you had all this open trade equity Then it comes back here and you're ready to jump out a window. Then it comes down here You're feeling better when you this guy pulled. So this opens the door So potential move higher here now not a recommendation So let's see what it does. We want to see The pressing To get the market to come down and you do see some algorithmic behavior But the mate it looks like it can move higher now. So watch we got to see the selling just hit it Those are algos And you don't know their intent They could just push it down to get long Or they're supporting a position From 52 And they're trying to push the market down into their liquidity around 45 Then if depending on what happens right here, you're going to see watch the book watch the 45 And you want to see what this guy does at 45 are you guys tracking? Okay, so let's watch now the guy pulls at 51. He may only be getting long down here. We don't know. Remember algos nonsense And the other part of algorithmic behavior is to get you off sides. So for me, they're not buying cell signals. They are Kind of uh, you know, they can be good. They can be bad, you know, it's all maybe So let's watch this guy at 51. He pulls he opens the door. Let's see. You see he's starting to lighten up a little bit He might not be real Let's watch He's pulling you see how he pulls So this Was not real See how he pulled. So now this is gone. We can open up For potential move higher here and I I'm not saying it's a move higher. I'm saying potential squeeze So we got a watch right here. But what was here before is no longer here So that opens things up potentially and again, this is where this all fails up in here So let's see. But do you see the way the book behaved now? What do you do about that? well Couple things what's your trade plan if you're familiar with order flow and I recommend you attend bruce's webinars monday tuesday and friday morning 9a central 10a Eastern standard see the return To get a better understanding of order flow At least how you might interpret what's going on with it And that's available to any you know any of you if you're interested in the trader lab or any of the education that bookbap does There's tons of free education Stocks, you know, if you do that cues crypto options you know futures of course A lot of a great education from other, you know professional traders Kind of share their ideas and kind of what they do and you might get something out of that And I always you know, I kind of think free is good So this this here is potentially vulnerable now Because there's what's you know, see how the book is no longer supporting the downside This was kind of the last Push and remember the function of some of these guys is really just to get Us off sides and take the other side of the trade You'll never you will never know they're taking the other side of the trade because they can shoot off one lots In nanosecond sequences, so we can't detect them But we can see some of their behavior So that's kind of what the order flows about now look where we came This is our outside edge Not a trade recommendation. Remember retail Retail now I'm not I'm in park at the moment Was not in park previously So so let's look at the auction Potential here All this is setting up as counter rotations at the moment. So we're in balance What that is saying is we're on these outside edges and this is your obstacle remember retail so So if you now you have to have a plan That allows you to operate back to here So where's the range? So if you're in here Right you got down here all nice Now you come back in you still need to be looking at this And this is rotation. So this is what's called mean reversion what you're doing is you're attempting to get outside in Outside in that's how this works Okay Is everybody uh, kind of following me on mean reversion underlining the mean Well, thanks business beyond thank you We just had a v park migration. This is saying on the day. This is where the highest volume is So this is kind of bearish Right outside Pull back check to the high volume potential pressure lower Not a recommendation Let's see This is how you can use this auction This Is that high volume Right retail too high pullback This was your scale right or whatever Chop chop Against here potential short And it continues you see it's sequential And it is if you understand why this is creative remember this is an auction right here And that you'll notice it's a consolidation And what I think a lot of us, you know, we think of volume profile and all you know It looks probably pretty mysterious and confusing all it's doing and it's really not complicated Um is trying to find What's fair, you know and the other part of it is These are called distributions, but what they really are I mean there's different language to describe things, but in the most simplest terms It's just a consolidation So if we're in this time frame, which is kind of what we're trying to align with which is the This higher developing daily time frame in the fractals This is the same behavior, but it's only this range So if you can understand what's going on Um in here You can understand why the market might come back and check it You see Grab a screenshot if this makes now it might not make sense But if you stop and think about What it creates a price In the behavior if we it's like if you shop at a store and the price is too high And you come back in that store and you say i'm going to go shop elsewhere That's kind of what this behavior is about Now Of course We're now you know back taking the stops out. So when we think about and we're And this is the fair price the next trades wherever they might be are to come back here So let's go see where that location might be and these are not trade recommendations. We are as they say tourists So let's go take a look. So we're looking at our profile. This is our retail price And if you go to trader lab, you will find more information about mean reversion mean Which means outside and we don't know where outside is There's the challenge, but we know where the inside is it's here So this unless things change dramatically at some point Is where we want to be aiming for now Our goal would be to find outside And this is where it gets I think the term I like to use is tricky So let's watch right here. Watch right here Watch this we're just watching now So we're looking for mean reversion. Nothing has changed outside in back to the v-punk And then potentially lower the day no clue, right? So micro high volume Pull back if we can stay under here Then we can get here if we can't then we you know blast just the way it works No way to know let's observe and these are now trade recommendations. This is all behavior Takes it out. We move higher. It's that simple So let's watch this behavior Chop outside edge Stops are going to be over yesterday's low. So we want to try to watch this behavior Right in here. So just sit back Be a tourist You notice how it's fighting right here This is an outside edge. This is yesterday's low stops are up in this area So it's a it's a testy spot. You might say Book is thickening up above us So let's watch the behavior Trying to mean revert over here Trying to get back to the volume point of control below us here outside edge They can get into yesterday's range yet So this is the potential on this one It's the same idea that tried to do mean reversion and these are not trade recommendations. Let's see what it does very choppy it's lunchtime So we'll see if we can get back Because this is mean reversion And I always do stress the mean aspect of it The book is getting a little dark. You notice So it's easy for the uh algos to push it around Let's see what happens I do suggest that in your trade metrics that you look at time of day And you see what your expectancy is based on the time and you will be surprised most likely What uh, the re you know, what insight you get there are going to be times of the day and even days of the week Where your uh, be you know, your outcome goes down So this is our next target okay So this would be this is the primary objective To get so depending on how you operate if you got short Uh, you'd either just use a fixed price scale to cover your risk on your runner on your runner Or this would be right ahead of this is your next target So you could have you know, and again subject to the metrics you generate. This is the primary now It's either think about the price check in the aisle. This is the daily aisle This if this is too low, then we're going to come up take out the shorts if it's not And it's the fair price and what we're trying to do is find where is it too expensive, right? Then we can continue. So that's the trade not a recommendation. Let's watch the behavior Are you guys tracking? So our next area is this Not a recommendation So if you put this kind of trade on If you want to think about it and if you could get in in this structure And here's your structure You got the book pressing you got a pullback. You got your high volume now. Sure tricky But you're trying to get here Then Here And these are not recommendations. Can you see the logic in a consistent process? If you're getting something out of this guys, how about giving me a thumb up? Throw a thumb, you know Trader lab participants, uh, how are you guys doing? I'm getting a lot of thumbs up Anybody throwing anything? I always look for a shoe to come over the dashboard or something, you know So 40 is the next layer down Not a recommendation Two thumbs. Well, thank you two is good And by the way guys, if you're getting anything out of this, uh, I invite you to come to the bookmap discord trader lab Uh, plus take advantage of, uh, education on stocks options futures crypto If you go that way, uh, see various traders, uh, kind of show their stuff You don't have to be a bookmap subscriber. You won't be solicited And the trader lab is a great, you know, a place for, uh, traders to leverage their collective experience You know, we all go down the rabbit hole, right? Looking For the quote answer And I can tell you I've been down so many rabbit holes. I've grown for So, um, that's humor, by the way. Yeah, David, um It's, um Yeah, David, just go to, um, there is a live broadcast on discord But you if it's full and it does get full, uh, you can watch it here on youtube. It's it's got a 15 second delay It's kind of our backup thing because, uh We get kind of filled up You know, the trader lab has a rather robust community and it's a neat group I'll tell you they get frisky now and then but pretty much, you know, next target is 40 By the way, right Let's see if I can get my, uh, fill over here and then, uh, There we go. Okay So that was that We always say horseshoes and hand grenades, right So I in theory, um, I would be done with this And it's not that it can't go lower. It has the potential to go substantially lower What I do and every and it's not that what I do should be what anybody does, you know Because you have to kind of find your groove You know, kind of what's your thing? I trade locations to targets And I do use the order book, but we don't know what this guy really is going to do You know, is he going to pull? Don't forget this is all computerized It could get within one tick and they can cancel all this we can't do that By the time I want to cancel something I'm still moving the mouse, right And uh, so they're all, you know, co-located They see the quotes even before we do if you want to think about it They are getting they the reason they co-locate And it's all computer operated is because, uh, they're watching this in nanoseconds And the co-location means they get the quotes before we do I mean if something's transmitted from the exchange It has to go to your data provider server and then it comes to you and then there's latency, you know, all that, right That's just the real world So I think you need to be aware of that, uh pj strong, um Make my own channel. Well, this is you know, this is the You know, I do this for bookmap Um, and and the reason it happens so you know is, um, I used to type this In the uh futures room in the bookmap discord channel and because I try to put I mean imagine trying to type this stuff So it was kind of by popular demand. It wasn't intentional. I'm not a vendor, you know, I just do this because Um of what I went through trying to figure out some things and I want you to tell you it was a nightmare Uh, because what I started out I started in 1980 um when indicators and Desktop computers were kind of a new thing, you know apple one my first computer was an apple 2e So, uh, and I started with classical bar charting. We didn't have candles at least not in the us at that time So, uh, and we didn't have real time. We had you know, it was just really uh primitive No internet it was done by paper you call up the floor place your order time stamp write it out out a piece of paper I mean, this is kind of where I started so Um along the way I went down, you know besides classical stuff, you know that we all learned then it was system design and um You know trading systems and a lot of that I was a swing trader and trend follower Traded many many different markets uh got introduced uh To market profile by peter stottelbauer. I think it was in 80 1985 or 86 and when I first looked at it It seemed really interesting and I couldn't do anything with it. I mean Because I came from a place of precision And thinking precision and I didn't really get the idea of slop and I didn't get the idea of retail trader behavior Um, and back in the day We didn't have tons of day traders. It it was more Um, you know positioning You know, I used to trade the big SMPs $250 a point So that was fun sometimes Yeah Anyway a little back that's just a little background on me and then I was a money manager You guys I think you all know that if you look at my bio. I don't know I don't it's that's not really important, you know, because the day the world today of trading is completely different than it was when I started And it'll be completely different again So it's a constant thing of changing. So we're never quote done You know, it's it's uh, and if you come to the trader lab, you can see my video that I did the advanced webinar kind of talks about That you're never done with this. It's not like you go. Okay. I got it. No, you don't got it You get some of it and then it's always changing So, you know, it's the technology evolves and you have to also realize who you're trading against You're trading against the best in the world and I don't mean retail traders I mean shops, you know HFT shops, uh, you know hedge funds banks, you know But you know professional trade desks You do need to understand where you are in the financial food chain If you can think of it that way not only is it humbling, but you need to understand that um With our cost structure and everything I do think you need the range To justify the risk and in the trader lab. These are things we talk about It's not about, you know, trying to catch this little pullback for this rotation You know, which might be wonderful. But the point is um If you're if we're in a mean reversion configuration think about this you need to be outside To come back here now if you try to trade inside out It may not you may end up just getting to an outside edge and then coming back up and again, we don't know that right but Where's the better trade for me? It's out here It's not here This is a target because of the nature of the market to come back To the mean that's what mean reversion is underlining the mean, of course This is potentially an outside edge and again, I don't know. That's why it was my target, right And then we come back to the mean so either This is still too high and we're going to break away from it and continue south of the border or Revert back So that's why for me it's outside to outside And then after that punt, uh, I got to take this call guys Get a glass of water get your pizza delivered. I'll be right with you All right. I'm back. Sorry about that It's getting cold here. Well not cold but in the 50s in chicago And you know, this is where you turn your boiler on and I live in a victorian So, um, I think when they put heat in here, you know, it was back when there was gas lamps and you know, all that kind of stuff notice where we came, uh, the behavior here say Outside this is this mean reversion So if you understand the context or the under if you develop an understanding of why I think you Can build around it now again, it's just a personal opinion, but it's based on a lot of experience I don't use any indicators because I found, uh, I need simple And you may go is this simple? Yeah, it actually is But it takes a little time to get your head wrapped around it Especially if you've been because in my opinion and again, everybody's entitled to an opinion Um, it's not plug and play. It's not plug in the right indicator or the right mix and all of a sudden you have a trading business Um, you know, this is about creating potentially a career in trading and you really got to do what the rest of the crew Out there the retail trade is not Doing if you are acting or thinking or using the same tools And we know statistically retail traders don't have a good outcome If you're doing that it might not be reasonable and this is subject to your trade plan and your reality If it's not working Then it's not about The right mix the right time frames the right moving average the the right tweak Of anything, you know justing the envelope or this or that it's not about that Because indicators are following price They're not contextual. They they're not context sensitive an indicator doesn't know that it's only short today Probably and mean reversion. Where's the mean? Which one of these right indicator can't differentiate? Well, we can see behavior in the auction that can help us Identify because we understand the behavior that creates this. This is all behavioral and that's auction based We can understand that we need to wait for an outside edge and it's mean reversion, which means outside in only, right? I don't know if your indicators solve that for you if they do it's great If you have a positive expectancy and you're a profitable trader, believe me, don't change it. Don't touch it, right? But if you're not And you think the answer is in taking the screwdriver and adjusting the carburetor remember when you could do that by the way It's not in my opinion And I invite you to come to the trader lab and just kind of find out what other traders are doing and also Talk to them about what this process has done for them Now, you know Past performance is not it, you know necessarily indicative of future results because everybody is different And managing the emotional states is really important And part of that is risk management. How do you manage your trade? Can you get risk neutral? It changes your brain in the sense of the chemicals that are released into it You know fight or flight. Let me add it here. I mean think about if you're sitting here All in all out or even if you're running a one lot. I mean whatever it is, right? And you get this You're popping the champagne cork. You're now experiencing this or this What are you feeling emotionally? What might you do? You're going to be saying I should have got out over here Right if it comes all the way back up, you're going to jump out a window because it's emotional Do we only come back here price check and then continue lower? You know, that's a possibility because that's what's been happening. Where are the stops? Here Here here lunchtime Algo city So I have no answer for you as far as what it will do But I certainly know what it might do So my job as a trader is to take my experience and my understanding of what might underline Happened and then try to fit my trade Subject to it having enough range to justify the risk. So this was a short To hear To hear trades done Then what do I do if it continues lower without me? I sit here and I don't have regrets If it comes back up here because I think it has that possibility to squeeze then I'm going to be looking To get short again unless something dramatically changes and these aren't trade recommendations This is what we do in the trader lab, you know Uh T bone. I'm not sure what you're asking me Mean reversion trades fail t bone a fair number of them But in the trader lab, it's really about Uh taking intelligent risk accepting the randomness You know a failing trade to me is part of trading. It's overhead. It's cost of production I think in other words, it's it's not right or wrong in trading It's about following your trade plan Which has been vetted and mean reversion is difficult because we're trying to find an outside edge and for me I'm a believer in structure auction so if Uh, I see a setup. Uh, I should say a location. I'm aligned with the context My job is to put the trade on try to get outside in I can't do anything with it here because this is retail And I know this could still be too high and we can break away from here. I understand that but that's okay Because there'll be loads of opportunity for me in this configuration And if there isn't if it just runs down 100 points from here, and I'm not in it as much as emotionally I might say I wish I was if I don't have a trade. I don't have a trade. I just Wait for the next bus. That's my job, you know My job isn't to make something out of nothing and my job is not to impulse it My job is to follow a trade plan and get risk neutral, which is my trade plan when I and try to get in alignment Um losses are cost of production if you're in the business of trading And this is just for everybody You got to separate yourself from being right or wrong and I understand it's hard to do But it's part of the discipline of being a trader And not looking for approval It's about understanding Probabilities and knowing that you're looking to take advantage of a probabilistic Outcome that is random. So it's over a sequence. It's not over today or you know, whatever Um, it's just about what might happen and then can you identify a location that gives you an edge So I can't at the moment. I cannot get involved over here even though we can break under this low and keep going So, um, I need the outside edge now under certain conditions. I would operate here This is not the condition and you see what it's doing That's mean reversion from the other side. I can't get long Right, I mean we are basically at a bounce and we're headed for uh, Fort Worth, Texas. So at the moment 3600 ish Might be our target Somewhere along, you know the hip parade not necessarily today not now not ever never have no idea But we've broken out. So You know, I have to wait So anyway losses. Yeah, I take them every day And I'm glad I do Not that I'm glad I take a loss I'm glad I manage my risk so that I have opportunity and I can keep executing because I get out of alignment Because I don't know if the context is changing. So, you know, is I'll be on the long side And I'll get run over and I'll go, you know, and I may still try another one Because it's not, you know, because I'm doing mean reversion to the long side You see and then it can take out that edge then come back in again I take it again and if it fails, then I'm going, oh, that's interesting and then it's like wait Is the context changing? There's no way for me to know ahead of time That the context is changing and then I feel like I'm an oil tanker and I got to turn everything around You know, I I don't turn around fast because I can't tell until I have hindsight I mean, that's just the way it is. So I trade the context that I perceive and if it changes while I'm zinging I pay cost of production So that's just what happens. That's trading. So losses are just part of the business, you know Following the trade plan is what the deal is and that's kind of what you need to do in my opinion If you don't have a trade plan or you don't recognize the difference in behaviors Then I think it might be advantageous that you visit the trader lab and maybe add another piece To your understanding of how the market works And by the way that I'm not speaking to you specifically. I'm just saying, you know In general, you know So t-bone, uh, I don't um, I I'll trade the trend, but um What it is is I only want to be aligned with what I perceive is the advancing side And then to get aligned with the trend I have to get outside Uh, I I don't want to trade inside I can But it's much more aggressive and look what what do I have for range? You see So this is has much more risk for me to try to get in here because I can't get in here, you know, I'm You know, this could be a short right here. Where am I going? I can't trade this Because I need this as a target from the outside edge. So I I just that's not my trade. So Not mine could be somebody else's and I'm not saying I don't do this I'm saying is the smart trade Statistically is the outside trade the inside trade has much more risk to it So it's just the way it is trend is down. So it's only short for me this More risk than that. I mean they all have risk But because what could happen here is we could get outside come back and reject this and go up See so when we come out from here We can come back here rotate down and then come back up, right? Which is what you're seeing So it's mean reversion, but since the trend is down, it's only short I hope that's logical and again, I don't know what it's going to do If anyone tells you they know I would suggest you Think about what that means Are you guys aligned um With me Well, danny if you find it interesting Um, I would suggest you go to book map.com. You'll see a link join the book map discord chat Um, come to the trader lab. You'll see it after you kind of Say they say hello to you you introduce yourself and then come to trader lab There's 60 PDFs of this behavior That you can download of different behaviors. This is just one of them Um that you can you know take a look at and study Um And then there's a introductory video on auction market theory Volume profile and the integration of these behaviors locations, you know And then it's up to you, of course how you implement it once you understand how this works Um, it's a piece, you know, but I don't think a trader And again, it's just my own personal experience, you know having been in the business for over 40 years Really can get the maximum opportunity of wanting to be a career trader without understanding how the market works Um, I think the you know the software vendors, you know, put 50 100 indicators in a software package And that's what everybody buys But if you think about what the statistical outcome is for retail traders Who use that approach it's not good Um, and you guys might have heard over 90 percent of retail traders Do not succeed Ask yourself why? My opinion and it's only one person's opinion is they kind of get the cart before the horse If the trader doesn't understand how the market works, how can they deploy any tools? Yet we kind of think it's plug and play, you know plug and play we're all used to plug and play Let's be real Is is it real that you can buy a software or lease a software package and then have an ATM in your basement? Because quote, you're a trader. Is that realistic when when prop shops and hedge funds Have phd mathematicians figuring out how to take your dollars and other peoples Or entities dollars away from them Can you compete with the plug and play? Do you think the hedge funds are doing that? I'm gonna say no The high-frequency traders the algos. What is that all about? They are not doing what we are doing So maybe as retail traders we should try not to do what other retail traders do just a thought And if you're not successful, I recommend you come and check out the trader lab And it might just be a stop along your path, right and that's all good But there's a lot of education that book map offers and if you're not taking advantage of it I don't think you have to pay To get educated you've already paid with stops and errors And maybe not having a formulated trade plan or knowing what your expectancy is Of the outcome of any specific setup If you don't know these metrics you cannot develop the confidence You're always going to be curve-fitting looking trying to drive drive formula one by looking in the rear view mirror It's probably not a Let's just say statistically positive process So, you know, those are the things you have to think about and if it's something that you have an interest in I would suggest you you know Come visit the trader lab introduce yourself our senior trader has 54 years experience makes me look like I'm wet behind the years You know Yeah, again, you know a lot of traders don't know about our factors and behavior It it's really statistical Because trades are random And I know we're all emotionally attached including me to being right Dollars not wanting to lose but think about your emotional state with this So so this is our mean reversion. You see now you see why I can't get long. I'm sorry short here I certainly can't get long So what am I going to do if I got short here? I'm hoping to come out to the edge I can't get short here You know by the time I get into this thing. I'm you know I got a couple of points. Well, where am I going? I can't do it And why can't I do it? I got a trade plan and if I do it Uh, the two by four comes out or the cattle prod I keep next to my chair and I give myself a zap Behavior modification by the way. I don't write that's not a recommendation by the way I did here's something for you guys years ago You know those thick rubber bands that you get like uh in the u.s You know when they drop your mail in the slot they put a thick rubber band I put one of those on my wrist And I would snap myself because that's behavior modification I'd do anything to overcome my natural Wired weaknesses, which are emotions You know the fight or flight emotion can't differentiate between intentional You know you're putting a trade on and taking risk or the saber tooth tiger out on the uh, you know on a savannah So, uh, you're being triggered by chemicals those chemicals will swamp your logic Are you familiar with them? Do you understand that mechanism and can you modify your behavior when you experience chemicals? Now remember it's chemicals being released in your brain that scramble intentionality You see do you understand it if you don't come to the trader lab we talk about all this stuff Is this a video game for you or is this a business These are the kind of things we talk about in the trader lab because I think we have a fantasy when we come In the trading about what it is Uh, because nobody really tells us You know and then if you go on the internet, I mean it's appalling to me What's on the internet because you can't differentiate, you know the old thing fake news. Well, there's a lot of fake Because there's a lot of Individuals retail wise who will do anything to be profitable and they chase Illusion in my opinion. So how do you sort it out? I mean, that's the question. So I think the way you sort it out is you have to put your toe in the water and don't rush in Your job is to create a business Not to play a video game and not to be a gambler if you want to gamble I always say go to vegas see the show have a cocktail do the buffet You know If you want to be in the business of trading, I think it's time if you're not profitable to step back Think about what you're doing and think about if what you're doing is just a derivative of what you've always done In other words new indicator new adjustment new mix new time frame new combination of this or that you know new line across the chart Whatever think about it because in life. I don't think we get a lot of opportunity Uh to have the time and the dollars To potentially participate in maybe the best business on the planet But don't think for a moment that it's easy And it's not because it has to be complicated Uh when I started out with system design, I thought complexity would somehow reveal the secret right more indicators more tweaking more interactive You know processes And it was actually the opposite But I kind of thought uh, that's what it took You know But over the years What I kind of figured out that's not what it takes if anything that obscures what's right in front of you So that's why I don't use any indicators. I don't need an indicator because I'm participating in what On the base reason of how the market operates and that's the auction And then I'm using a tool called the volume profile to see the participant behavior price alone is not The thing it's the volume that happens where it happens And based on an understanding of the auction we can then determine Potentially where a price might be too high and this is an example right here, right, which was a short, right? I think that's the one I took Short to hear to hear that's the one I narrated for you. That was I was on that trade And I don't call trades, but I was saying is here it is. I was saying is here's the behavior Because this is not a trade calling room, right? And you can see it if you can see this behavior now, we're not getting above here This is negative for the market. I still cannot get involved over here I just have to sit here and this can Break down from here. So we'll watch it But I don't have a plan to get short for this reason short back here short Here higher low what's going to happen potential still to squeeze I can't do anything and you have to and here's the question if you ask me are you okay with that? I'm going to say yes because that's my trade plan if it breaks below here Do I have a way back in? Yes So what do I do in here? Nothing Now let me give you the next piece if I'm only trading from here To here which is what it was That's okay So it would be short scale Flat and we only talk two lots in the trader lab So you can build a trade plan and potentially have a trading business Once you build a foundation piece and you can because you have to deal with the psychological demons And you're not going to get to experience that until you put a dollar on the line You know so you get into sim you develop metrics so you can develop confidence You take the setups that we discussed in the trader lab you're researching you practice them you do replays You've practiced triggers you build a catalog of trades Depending on the context you turn to your to your catalog of trades and you wait for the bus That comes to your location That's what this is catalog of trades mean reversion trend down if it was trend up We'd be going from the other side. It's that simple and you wait you get wait at the bus stop And you're attempting to get the outside edge. That's how this works Plan and then you execute and then whatever happens happens. It's random But you create the metrics so you can see that since the there's randomness of outcomes And we have no clue You're going to do this trade and let's I'm just making up some numbers you get five winners two losers Other days you get five losers two winners or no winners What's the variable randomness if you have metrics, you'll know over 50 trades With a random distribution whether or not that Situation or that context and that behavior has an edge based on how you interpret it if it has a positive Expectancy you need to be able to refer back to those metrics So you don't get the screwdriver out and re and change everything that's not broke But if you don't have metrics, you'll never know You see That's kind of how it works Yeah, it's true the other only traders understand trading And if you're new to trading you do not understand trading and it's not your fault It's because nobody's really giving you the straight oil from the can You go on the internet and We all want to find the easy easy And you know so anyone can show you some choice You know examples of something haven't we all seen that? Um, this is real time and you got to see it Just the way it is the ib short You got to see that and that was a little bumpy But it did its thing right so it's sequential. This is how I do this. I'm not saying it's the best way I'm just saying it's one way you can make it better And the goal of the trader lab is that we all get better And there's some great work going on in the trader lab As far as creating trade plans traders share their work You know we get and that's the leverage of working in a community You know and not being on your own under a rock someplace trading is a pretty lonely business And you can't really discuss it with anybody because it's all remember the fantasy Plus the versus the reality. Well There's quite a difference, you know So I'm just going to suggest that if you're a little more interested in some reality That you check it out to trader lab And you might find it useful either way We'd love to have your input because we all leverage our collective experience to get better I learn every day from you guys and if you think this is about ego ego got checked out Left off the table a long time ago. There's no ego in this anymore Because it's the most humbling thing you'll ever do So we couldn't get back above here that was kind of telling you know So So I have nothing else to do in here But I was starting to say to you guys if depending on the number of contracts you run what you would be doing is so scale Next target hold. That's what I was kind of I think I got off of that a little bit So then you'd be going so for me or at least let's just say for the trader lab anyway um The trader lab is one two out because I only talk twos Then if you're running threes There's a runner because we're out of balance and the context is down So you'd just be holding The other thing would be if we came back outside again I'd be putting this trade back on or adding you see but for me. I don't add here So just hanging in there with your runners Or not or you're done. This trade is over. There's nothing more to do Remember I did say if it goes down I have other ways back in So, uh, which we don't discuss here, but The fact is you can develop a plan And like everything it's all random and you have to be able to execute as the other issue One of the things that's really hard when you kind of like whatever you're looking at what I do or you know What anybody does is it can't really it's not copy You have to kind of find this rhythm And understanding of the market and then find the pieces that mentally can align with you A lot of us I think, you know, I know, you know, I look at these big moves, you know, and I go, oh, I want that Yeah, but it's random Now today the context suggests, you know lower right, but What's my trade? Well, if I'm running a two, this is my trade. I'm done Right and then I have nothing else to do now if it goes another 20 30 points I'm not in it because I don't have more runners. I accept it and it's all fine. It just doesn't matter. Let's watch this behavior right here Let's watch this Anyway, I hope I'm not, you know Boring you guys with this but I I'm so passionate about it because I've just seen so many So many traders just Let's just say they never had a chance really Um because they just didn't know They couldn't differentiate so Um And they never I look it took me a long time to figure, you know to learn To understand to think of the market as an auction versus an indicator, you know that it's uh this cross this or this did that And it's all math based. Well, it's not It's really what the part the job of the market. Remember, let's go back to the fundamentals The job of the market is to figure out what's this thing worth I mean, what is it worth based on the inputs That are known and may be even unknown by us. What's it worth? Well, the market's going to go as low as it has to go to attract the buyer. Just think about it Um, if if you're a seller of a product and you can't find buyers. What are you going to do? You're going to keep lowering the price right That's why the market's going down. It's looking for buyers And it does it in all time frames and fractals Then where's the energy in the market? Well buy stops create buyers Right and those are squeezes We can anticipate that that's retail trader behavior Let's look at this So that's the job of the market now. We don't know where by the way if you're going to say well, where is that? I'm going to tell you I have no idea because My job is not to know because I can't know my job is to try to recognize behavior And then think about retail trader behavior What do they do? Right by the way now we could do anything here. I have no idea what it's going to do, but We could come back here So right now Even though we're making new lows, right? We make a new longer. You know we do It's still mean reversion And it could fall right out the bottom and we could be at uh, you know wherever but Observe the behavior It's looking for too low Now it does not have to come back here. It does not have to do anything So that part I think we can agree on that it can do anything. So we agree on that, right? So if I'm operating in this I'm have to be conscious of the context So trend down and we're in a mean reversion configuration. Now remember it can fall out of this and keep going Right in other words, it's gonna it may come back here and go. No, we're not paying back. We're out of here bang or This is too low at the moment remember and here So let's observe it now. I'm gonna say again. I can't be a buyer Because the trend is down So what I need to see for me is that to come back out the other side Squeeze and then exhaust and then try to come back in that's mean reversion And if you guys are interested in mean reversion Of course besides coming over to the trader lab where you can get all those PDFs of all tons of great examples of behavior um And you can go to bookmap.com join discord chat after you come in there and wave to everybody come over to the trader lab It's all pinned to the top You can download the PDFs and watch an introductory video and then take advantage of all the other free education book map offers Stock options crypto. I repeat that because I work so hard To get educated when I started out in this business And I was never on the floor I was an off-floor trader and we didn't have many of those when I started uh All my friends were floor traders And uh, they thought I was out of my mind because back then it was fundamentals technical Analysis was like voodoo. You know, I mean it really was looked out upon if you can imagine that um We really didn't have indicators very little I worked with I shared an office with george lane. He created stochastics I mean so I was kind of involved in this early on when we were kind of getting into oscillators and wells wilder You know, all that was kind of when I started 1980 So, you know thought we found the holy ground which unfortunately Not so much but at the time It was pretty, you know groundbreaking to have oscillators Anyway, um This is trading right so And I think I had something else I was going to mention to you which of course I don't remember but um The thing about this is learn To understand how the market works Then you can potentially deploy other Other tools Once you but you have to build it on a foundation in my opinion market under understanding market mechanics Why is the market doing this? What's it trying to accomplish right? Um, and right now going up is not being accomplished too well the thing we know is This might be too high because look we couldn't get back above it We had we did discuss that the other thing about it is we can come back Because it's mean reversion so right, so This is too high. We may never come back. We may break from here and continue or You always like the or are back here That's it So I have nothing to do This Right here is a consolidation Let's look Eight stops five stops potential exhaustion not a trade recommendation. I just I'm showing you a triggering structure here. Okay. Let's watch it And these are not trades. This is just structure. This is an auction right here Chop chop chop, right isn't it? What is a consolidation? an auction what's happening in this structure exhaustion What happens here? This is your trigger This is your pullback to the micro structure that little volume right there. This is a short except. It's not a short I'm just showing you the structure You're going to see this behavior For me it has to be aligned with a location You see but i'm just showing it to you You can grab a screenshot Or if you're in the trader lab, you can watch this Later if you want this is available. By the way, these are available to Participants in the trader lab in the bookmap discord trader lab And you would have access to these if you want to watch them again. I watch them Because if I rewatch this I learn something Not only how I you know Stream and how I try to take concepts Uh and simplify them Uh, but also because it develops muscle memory for me Uh, I'm all and that's what replays are about not only research, but understanding In other words, I need to recognize this quickly so I can be positioned. You see Now the thing I want to show you now, this is not a trade location. What I want to show you about the trigger Is the exhaustion the consolidation The break and the pullback for the entry and you see what you had you had the rotation now the thing about it is This trigger has to be in a different location. It's the that the triggering process is generic so So in the trader lab what we do is At least what I suggest and I think many do is They take screenshots of their trades They take screenshots just of triggers and have a catalog of triggers They do replays of triggering structures So they can start developing muscle memory because we don't have time What happens is this is what deliberate practice is about you see Now this looks like it's going to maybe push through here But this is the triggering structure and we're seeing in the micro time frame Are you guys tracking with me? My poc is at 36 50. That's the volume point of control. This is retail and this is accurate Everything is reset at rth open. So if you're not resetting then You guys see the behavior, right? micro So I use these kind of structures in this behavior for execution Is everybody tracking? Can you see this just isolate this? I wanted to show it to you What's intense? Guys, this is simple Take those indicators. I mean I I don't you know again not a recommendation But if this is confusing you're obscuring what's right in front of you That's what I found with indicators and let me tell you about why I don't use indicators conflict I don't know about you guys, but I'm very Systematic, you know people talk about trading systems This is not a system But it is a process And systems are a process I'm just using the participants to tell me what is going on And even then I don't know but I might know what might happen and in trading maybe he's the best you got This is an auction this is so exhaustion break trigger Pull back short Pull back to the high volume. Let me show it to you in micro so you can kind of see what this is And this is book map is really good for this and this is how I use it. You see this right here Here, let me let me show you This is called the chart volume profile. All it's showing is the volume that's here on the chart here Right here. This is a high volume node and remember this is like going to that Convenience store 10 o'clock Saturday night for that desperate pint of ice cream There's a retail price, but in the convenience store. There's not a huge amount of transactions. I mean, you know, there's a Ice cream for sale. There's going to be a retail price if they raise it up the buyers won't pay for this They get out of here. It's too expensive already if they give you a 50% off on the second pint You might if you're like me you might go for it. So basically buyers and sellers in a limited Convenience store Here's that auction right here. You see this right there 1138 contracts that traded right in there Top of the arrow, which is in here is retail Now I don't know at the time What it's going to do so watch Watch So i'm looking for an outside edge. So 40 stops Three is it here? No 59 10 Bang Now this looks exhaustive and extreme and here's the other key to this Less buy stops. So who are the buyers? Is it buyers getting long or is it just retail traders getting taken out? To me, it's retail traders getting taken out and i'm looking for an outside edge So let's look in a microstructure. So the volume is here And I don't know remember. I know I don't know you know, I don't know so we don't know break exhaustion Now where do I get involved? Here Maybe let's see. I don't I don't remember Where'd you go? Okay There That's it now. I'm only showing you structure. Okay, uh, but this is very in my opinion again It's just me. I'm a little you know have a little bit of a bias at this point in my trading career This is an auction This is your convenience store. It's too high once you break away It pulls back. It's like checking this price. Was this really too high? You can narrate this Uh, yeah, we're not paying that we're out of here. I'm going to the other store down the street here This is as hard as this is now random. Yes. Do you got to know what's going on? Yes. Do you have to understand context? Yes, do you have to have discipline and have a trading plan? Absolutely. If you don't have those pieces Not so good In my opinion, can you develop them? Absolutely Where are you going to find this information? You can get started in the trader lab Okay, let's watch the behavior right here Right here. We're going to watch behavior Looks like we might rotate up not a recommendation. Let's just see Okay I hope you're getting something out of this and I hope it's worth your time But you can see something business beyond when it comes to discussing trading and I've been doing this you might say for a while Um, if I talk to my wife I don't know all of a sudden her eyeballs roll back in her head and there's drool running down her chin So I think that's a sign You can't discuss this with anybody because they you know the the common thing is you're a gambler Um, I consider anybody opens a business as a gambler So because you're gambling That you're going to not go out of business before you make a net profit Losses or cost of production and overhead. It's not whether or not tom is a smart guy or not Or is a winner or a loser? It's about a business a business plan. You see I recognize the behavior So and this is now this trade is over Right because where are the stops? Think about this right here Where is it going to go probably for the stops? Why wouldn't it if your stops sitting here? Do you think you'd be picked? here here possibly So once this is doing what I see here, I'm not getting involved now. This is done And the reason I think like this Retail trader behavior, where's their stops above these swings above these swings and what happens is You they feed in the words it becomes a cascading event Of course, I don't know how high things are gonna go But you can't you don't see me getting short here and you don't see me getting long What you see me doing is visiting with you I'm trying to give you some ideas and then where's the mean Isn't this it So this is micro time frame Same behavior as this but in a micro structure. This is the developing daily time frame It's like think of those russian dolls, you know, and I never say the name right. So I refuse to Assault it um Madrushka doll who's gonna help me with that. I don't know nobody's gonna help me out Madrushka doll Right. Anyway, you know, it's fractal So what this is here is a fractal inside of a fractal Which is why I can't take it But I wanted to show it to you because this behavior is the same Watch as This behavior except this is not a short for me, right So That's the same. So if you can okay, watch this behavior here Stops are sitting here So when I think about this I cannot step in front of this Now this right here could be a short But it can't be for me Because of the stops sitting up here If you're an algo, what would you be doing? Where would the stops be and how would you as an algo want to use it? Now it doesn't have to get above here And it may push off from here I know that but I cannot execute in the middle So I have to be willing to let this thing Potentially come down take the low out and keep going I have to be okay with that. I can tell you there's some yelping when that happens But it's my trade plan and That it's not about one trade or one rotation, you know in trading. It's a business It's about many many many thousands of trades And if you take that perspective with this And you manage your FOMO and all that attachment to dollars and all you're going to realize that It's a matter of not doing what other traders do What retail traders are they're triggered by stuff like this. Oh, it's going to go down. It's going to do this I can't do anything here. So I just sit my objective isn't for to come back outside and take everybody out who's short And then see what might materialize and what do we call that mean reversion? So it can come out in here I'm not saying it will I have no clue if it doesn't I have to be okay Because in the end it's not Trying to pick any of this it's waiting for others to be taken out What I think about and write this down if you haven't heard about this think like a retail trader don't act like one Where would they do where would their stops be here? Here now up here And above here is this logical Yeah matryoshka, though. Thank you patryoshka babushka Wow Babush bababooey, what's that? Oh babushka my trawush Oh boy They're trying to help me out in the trader lab. You know, I don't try to say this because they make trouble, you know so We'll hang out. Okay guys if you want me to do that or we can kind of turn it off now Are you still interested? Do you want to keep with this? What do you think? Okay, you getting something out of this If you are hit the thumb up on the youtubers I'd appreciate it Matryoshka doll Everybody's trying to help. Thank you Okay All right, let's watch behavior here right here We're still leaning a little bit up Watch the behavior So I have nothing to do right So you have to think well not have to I suggest you think like a retail trader. You don't act like one Where's the stops going to be? Probably up in here, right? So now What's my my situation? Isn't it mean reversion? Isn't it how far out can we come? Where's my fuel? It's here. This was the last auction that was too high that node sitting right over there So I got to watch this and look where it is. So this is not now. I have to tell you if I don't get involved I'm okay with it I'm going to tell you I have feelings about it, but it's not my job. My feelings are not part of trading. They're a they are stimulated by trading They are not part of trading. They have to be left at the door And in my trade plan and in the trader lab if you look at some of uh, what's posted by some of our members Getting your mind oriented To the job is part of your morning preparation. I have to do that. I have a mental note section That I've read that kind of put my head in the right place Otherwise I can kind of be in retail, you know, I mean I could be uh, not mentally in the right space So I have to do that. Uh, watch this over here now Notice the reaction to it Now this is not a reason to get involved in the market, by the way This can very well just be spoofing to get retail short And then they pull and then they come up from underneath. I'm just saying that's why this on its own In a vacuum Is not necessarily anything you want to mess with. Let's let's watch the behavior. This is potentially spoofing algorithmic behavior I'm not that anybody would do anything they shouldn't do of course, but See what's going on right here So there's a lot of volume being done here This is where quote retail is the thing about this is if this is too high Then we come down again. I don't know but I'm not outside. I can't do anything Right, so let's watch this behavior if you got short in here. This is your obstacle Right here. So I have no range. I can't do anything now if this was down here I might be getting short because it's mean reversion, right outside. I'm not outside I can only hang out watch the behavior against here See interesting isn't If you understand the auction, you know, what's going on here too low Potentially too high we can break from here and keep going south, right? But this is the area to check Microstructure and I have no opinions. I know I can't get long so tourist But this is too close So I can't do anything here for me. I need more range So now what can it do from here? Anything so nothing to do I think you'd find it interesting if you haven't come to the trader lab. I think you'd you'd get a lot out of it really Because once you understand what's going on or at least why you know, I think it's not why Two lines cross over each other. That's not trading You need an understanding. I think of why the market's doing what it's doing right now It once you have that understanding, I think you can kind of navigate it potentially differently if you do the work In practice And you kind of you might have to change your beliefs Which I know isn't easy And it's almost like uh when you learn to ride a bike, you know, you have maybe some of you had training wheels Well indicators to me are like training wheels Except they don't teach you how to ride a bike. Of course, this isn't a bike Ultimately, you got to get rid of the training wheels I think of indicators like training wheels that kind of crash keep you crashing your bike Because they're not in alignment if you understand how the market works Think what you might do with an indicator once you can differentiate the behavior of the market the condition of it And then how to operate I think you might do better Well, thanks ward. Thanks for being here Ward, are you part of the uh Bookman discord trader lab? Yeah, moonwalker, uh shorts only At least, you know, not a recommendation Of course Yeah, but uh shorts only this is interesting here Check pull back too high watch the behavior right from here not a trade recommendation This is interesting right here watch So look too low too high This right here is important I mean obviously you could do anything. So that's not the point. What is it suggesting too high too high So potential and again all you got in a trade is potential now look at the range. I can't use a shoehorn So watch the behavior here See what happens Potentially south let's watch see what happens now again. Don't think I know I don't have a clue But I have a hint Let's see what it does now it can do anything. So, you know, think about what creates this if this is retail Too low too high Checked too low Checked too high one side is going to become retail. Is this too high or is this too low? It's like a little fight in high volume Let's see what it does. It's either now remember it's going to squeeze outside edge or fail from here Let's tour together and see and these are not recommendations. We're just trying to observe auction behavior And now the thing with the auction is If I can interpret it I can potentially Know and again potential underline past performance not indicative future result when it's changing and then I can act as they say act accordingly So we'll hang out and we'll see what this does. Okay But you are observing an auction taking place And yes, it's chop But what creates the chop It's the participant behavior Is this still too high Is this too high in the develop see this is fractal short short time frame too high Too high Is that too low? Is this too high and it's going to come out of here and when it comes out It's going to give us that information if the trend is down I would say there's a probability and not a recommendation that it's this but let's observe Are you guys with me? Oh good word I find the stop iceberg Detector and all this is so you see these buy stops sell stops icebergs sell ice right buy ice for me Since I kind of depend on other retail traders It's part of how I navigate because I haven't been or or am a retail trader Um See the behavior guys if you understand the auction, you know, this was I'm going to say Underlined possible Right, can you see why? Is everybody tracking This is going to be this is available to Discord book map trader lab participants. This recording will be available. So if you're part of that Group, uh, you can review this I review them You know Because you know why I review them. I want to do better There's you'll never start stop wanting to do better. You never get to a place of comfort Think about any professional athlete or anybody, you know a competitor Do you not practice? Do you not do films? and watch yourself What does it take to compete against the brightest minds on the planet? We're talking quants. We're talking phds and math and physics That's who you're competing against if you don't know that it's time you do What can you are you and they? exploit retail trader behavior Well, I figured that out and I said, you know, I want to think like a retail trader But I don't want to act like one. I don't want to do what they do maybe because Uh, I did I did what we all do sell the meds put my stop behind the med or the v-wap You know all the usual stuff we all do, you know, right? How else do you figure it out? You don't Except my stops will get taken out at the med and I was kind of mechanical I had no idea what context was. You see there are times when you can trade the mid And a lot of the times you can't Because of the context I had no concept. I just traded. It's the same one size fits all right same as your indicators And uh, at some point I kind of figured out that no, there's something different here And in fact, maybe I shouldn't be selling the mid until they take stops out if it's an alignment with the context If the context is two-sided and we're sloshing back and forth over the mid and the v-wap Then it's two-sided trade. I shouldn't even be trading there But I can trade into there because of retail trader behavior for scales when I'm on the other side Couldn't isn't that interesting and can you guys see what happened here right here is the auction Being demonstrated. I hope you're getting something out of this So could you do anything with this? Here's the thing about the auction. There's a story and it is giving you real-time input Too high too low Too high and what did I say? I'm not that I'm right. I has nothing to do with me being right It's all random. It just as easily could have got up. Don't think I know anything I'm just trying to dance with it. I am reading what the participants are telling me And then again, they can change. I mean it cannot, you know, this is trading. So what are the participants saying? Exhaustion four stops. This is see 150 coming up Rotation only for potential exhaustion. Where's the buyers nada? Break low. This is your trigger now. I don't know It's not one I would you know in the trader lab. We don't discuss this location uh whether you know What I suggest and again, I always have to say and I'm required to say this past performance not indicative of future results Is that you get see the thing is if you have a structured trade plan Your job is to kind of build your business on a structured trade plan As you build your business and this takes time And you're and we're assuming if you can do the job and not everybody can believe me The failure rate is still high No matter what you do and there's a lot of reasons for it Emotional states are very difficult to manage And you guys have been doing this. You know what I'm talking about It's the the great derailer You can have the best trade plan in the planet and if you can't execute it, then what's the point right? You can't well if you find you can't manage or deal with the emotional state and create a process to manage it There's more to it right and modify your behavior and responses to those chemicals You're not going to succeed But you'll never experience it until you put you know dollars on the table because then you're going to be triggered That's why you got to start and sim and create statistics to keep yourself calm Without statistics every trade You're going to be triggered because you're not you're going to have less confidence And it's hard enough, you know What's hard is the emotions and not trading isn't you know Once you can understand what's going on and just make sense now what happens You know, that's your flip of the coin So here this is how I use the stop iceberg into care I see exhaustion and I see this is an auction right here Now i'm sitting above this thing so you know that's a problem right Depending on your trade plan, of course Break is a trigger Then what here Then Is this still too high This right here and now this is a different configuration. I don't really go into this in the trader lab. It's advanced That was your level against this level So this high volume node here is you're over under so around this high volume Your short could be against here nobody gets in there you'd be in over here So your stop would be from let's just say 47 50 The 51 51 half So it would be four points This is really where it fails. So initially you'd be here Stop would be Above this volume once you break your stop is above here You get your scale you'd be risk neutral your stop would be up above here and you'd be hanging out. That's it Advanced not something we talk about in the trader lab And if you are in a hurry you're in trouble you must slow down and create a deliberate trade plan and develop the discipline To manage your emotions with a vetted trade plan and then your job is to show up to work every day Put your plan in play try to get a line with the context Accept the randomness of this and the fact you'll be stopped out trying to get in location That's just the real world and instead of being a loser. You are a it's just statistics And it's overhead cost of production It's important in your trade plan that you remind yourself that all businesses have overhead and cost And like any business person at the end of the day Do you get a net profit or a net loss and you know in business? There's some days you don't make money There's some days you have an expense. You have something an outlier. It's just part of business So you have to take it in a large sample size Not in a micro g. How did I do today? You know, obviously you want to do you want a positive outcome We know that you know that but There are going to be days where you can't get an alignment Because you have a trade plan and the market doesn't care about your plan or my plan But then there's days you can get in alignment with it and that's those are the days And when you ask yourself, well, what's different between this morning and this afternoon? It's the context of the market and that's it So it's not more complicated so It's you know, the thing is you need to cover in your trade plan these different elements psychology preparation You know, look at the eth look at yesterday's rth. What did we do? What didn't we do today? We couldn't squeeze Well, if you can't do something then what? You know and write this down if this then that If not then what? If we have this and we break down We check this If this then that If we can't get back above here and here then what then that Say that's it If this then that if not then what if we don't take these guys out then what then potential back here and then south why out of balance Below the volume point of control Going south of the border and that's your trade So But this is not a trade. You know, this is something a little different. I'm showing it to you And again, these are not trade recommendations I want you to see how you can slice and dice and stay engaged and then potentially get in alignment with the market It's then up to you to determine the range required for the risk you take So if you now this is an obstacle, right? So maybe you can't trade this per your plan But what I do I may not take this trade and whether I do or not is not material what is material is The discipline to not take the trade if that's your plan You don't make them up If you're going I I'm going to do this if it's not your plan. It's not your trade You should uh, you know hit yourself with a two by four your job is not to make trades up Your job is to stalk and wait patiently Wait patiently That's your job If you can't be patient and your emotions and the adrenaline is triggering you that's a problem And you have to fix it And I mean have to because you won't survive it So these are pieces and we discussed these in the trader lab, you know Um, I would encourage you guys if you haven't come over and visit it at least that you do Uh, you know take advantage of some of the tools and the camaraderie in the great work that's being done I'm really proud of these uh trader lab participants They're doing the work They're posting their trades in the sense of screenshots circles arrows same stuff I did with my pdfs that are available to all of you, you know that are pinned at the top of the trader lab And they're taking advantage of the additional education that book map provides for discord participants And you don't have to subscribe, you know to book map or you won't be solicited. I think it's amazing I've never seen anything like that and I'm actually very pleased to be part of it. Um, you know Okay, watch watch the behavior right here Watch this behavior. This is a price check in aisle three. It's not a trade recommendation. Watch the behavior We're just gonna watch right we're tourists, correct Now where's the stops? Let's come back and think like a retail trader but not act like one Where are they? here And up here So let's see Now remember what this can do it can come here check And be repulsed Or even here, but these are not trade. We're just tourists because I'd like you to see how the market behaves And remember we don't know but you need to be thinking like a retail trader. So this is still mean reversion So where's stops here? here Let's see what it does interesting, isn't it? Let's watch I'm looking now. These are not trade recommendations. Let's watch the behavior Pretty interesting, don't you think? So I'm a tourist don't forget I label these I call them variable high volume nodes and all they are is what was considered retail previously So I want to know Where this is Is it still too high? That's this level right here that we checked over here And it was too high Right and there's your selling we come back To the high volume in here now. I have no idea, but I know this was too high So the potential is To come here and rotate and again, I don't know And this is the level that was rejected. That was too high So if getting involved in here, and this is very micro, you know, these are not recommended Of course, they're not recommendations. See the book. This is my over under And there's nothing to do, but I want you to see how it works because For me, I still need Based on what we discussed in the trader lab Outside To come back here. This is Mike. This is the same behavior Using a tweezer. I'm this is why If you can understand the auction You can transpose the micro structure on top of the developing time Frame to get the range So what I try to do Underline try Is to get these outside edges in the developing time frame so I can get range So I what I'm going to do then potentially is use micro structure auction Like that matryoshka doll Apologies if I offend anybody who's who's russian To get outside For this so I want to trade this Because it pays if things work But I'm going to use this structurally to try to get into a micro timeframe for execution. Does that make sense? Two by four Yeah, um Let's see Any questions guys And uh, you know, I know I'm repeating this and I apologize, but I know in youtube You know guys come and go from the stream if depending on how long you've been in today's stream Um, if you there's an open invitation Uh for you guys to come to the trader lab and book map discord chat Uh take advantage of the tools here. Watch this behavior right here. See this Watch this we're just watching right we're observing Algo behavior right here watch Price check watch Don't know what'll happen Right trend down Outside edge it was too high Now there's not a lot of space in this. Do you feel lucky as dirty harry would say? You guys know dirty harry, don't you? So this is I marked This is my outside retail price that was too high when we checked it over here We come up we exhaust Now unfortunately this you know Is an obstacle so let's see what it does Are you guys tracking? Yeah, a thumb up would be nice and if you have any thoughts or comments throwing that in the in there Would be cool. I would appreciate that. I don't get too many. I don't get comments. I don't know, you know So a comment would be nice So would you guys see the logic in this? This is the auction Right here Too high Oh too low too high Where to here Before it gets there why? This is the auction. What did the market tell us the participants remember the participants? Too high Let's check that price louis Let's go and check that. Is that really too high? That's what the market's doing. Is this really too high? Yeah, it is Now what? Down maybe what do you think? And here's the other piece see this That's pressure in the book and watch below So this is algorithmic, but this didn't hurt so if you get a sense of this if I We're talking that matrushka doll thing, right? There's the higher time frame I mean the real higher time frame, you know rth daily Candles column I used to call them bars before candles, but you know, then there's the developing time frame Which is this whole thing the whole day And where all these levels are out here? This is your auction too high too low Then there's microstructure this stuff. It's the same process Except it's in this space Versus this full space Then there's these levels that are created by the participants right So price check Now we take this out. We squeeze we know that and that's what a trade is. It's like maybe But I want you to observe the behavior Here It's not Uh, let's just say it's anticipated. What happens? Clueless So watch this This is algorithmic behavior. He's starting to pull it's going to open the door watch No, I don't know remember. I don't know stops are above here stops are above here So let's observe But it was good to see this don't you think Now I this is again a problem for me, but it could be a short But you're really trying to work with a tweezer in this First structure opportunity I want outside Because I this is where I'm trying to go This is saying in the microstructure too high see but Is this too low? Outside mean reversion. You see what's going on. So I don't know what it'll do. Don't think I know anything I truly have no clue I stay in the I don't know mode because it's not my job to think I know My job is to just try to dance with it. That's all I got and then Bet a price for discovery if that's my my trade So now where's my trade? Not a trade recommendation stops are here Outside edge is going to be up in here yesterday's low. Remember let's watch What you got to watch for is squeezes And then exhaustion and with mean reversion you're looking for outside edges Back to here So let's look I mean you can end up with a lot of trades trying to do this, you know and stops right 158 stops 48 51 10 potential exhaustion Now if this is too high then back here if it's not too high we continue up and I couldn't tell you That's part of the thrill of trading Let's watch so Part of this is also thinking about where's the stops Well, if we have swing highs Aren't stops typically sitting over where the swings are? Paul, thank you. That's a great compliment Paul are you in the trader lab? 20 plus years and I'm glad it's it's it's helped Paul That's music to my ears The thing we have to be thinking about is this Because there's going to be stops here and it's an outside edge now the thing with the mean reversion is there's no way to know That's the hard part He didn't think this was easy It's not complicated. It's random So easy is not the right term simple I mean this is not complicated What is like every trade it's random You know, are we going to get there before we take this swing out? That's like the question Chances are not so much. There's nothing sitting here in the book See the stops. Okay. Let's look. This is our area now that we're going to be Observing I'm going to look to the left. I want to make sure That I know where the swings are Write that down. Where's the stops? So there what else let's go a little further Up here somewhere Okay Gotta get to a little higher time frame over here. This is what I use in other charts for it's like where what's going on here Okay 3669 We are coming over the outside edge of this consolidation. We're into the range Stops are sitting above here and we're going to observe an outside edge For potential mean reversion not a trade recommendation, right guys So we're just going to see it can do anything here Let's watch Whoa 500 stops that's sweet 300 watch in here book. They're pushing from the bottom. We're just watching the behavior 68 We're inside a yesterday's range. This is the squeeze ataria. Let's watch This would be a target coming down if we're going to go south no idea. So let's watch See, this is how mean reversion might might make some sense Watch Now it may not come to fruition, you know, we're inside yesterday's range. So now We got a look. This is short covering We want to look around 36 70. We want to be looking around 67 70 in this range To observe these are not trade recommendation guys. Don't you dare We want to watch up in here You notice what the book is doing. This is algorithmic behavior. They are pushing it into our stops Watch this behavior out in here Okay, this was the retail price from yesterday. That was too expensive. So we're watching this behavior Right here Patience is a virtue right did you guys ever hear that So we're just going to watch that 70 area and just see what might happen up there Not a recommendation. We're just touring right still a lot of stops going off up here So just relax Again, this is not a trade calling room. So we just have to kind of keep our uh, you know behave Remember 70 was kind of important 69 Potentially we have mean reversion that we're just looking at right The volume point of controls below us So maybe Underlined we can return to it Let's see No way to know All you can do is be a tourist, right? It's everybody with me So the idea would be Which would be nice would be for these guys to pull Down here and for this to come down Let's see what it does We don't want you to pull We want you to pull in theory And again, not a trade recommendation. This is the outside area, right? So this outside for the potential To return mean reversion. So we'll see what it does, right? No, I do Algos are pushing it So let's see what goes on here This if this could come this guy will come down these will come down and this pulls it opens the door think of it like a hand Pushing it if these come down and if this pulls it's like opening up the door That's how I think of them But I don't I can't do anything with them. I have to trade my structure So my structure Right mean reversion What is good about this no matter what happens with this thing is that you're seeing it And you're seeing the auction now. What will it do? I'm giving you the I don't know and uh, that's all you get I don't know So let's watch the behavior here. Okay can do anything Are we going to come back under yesterday's low? So let's think about this if you're going to scale on a short that potentially might have happened um, you're gonna Come on Sometimes you want to just slap it um watch this So this area here this outside edge you see Is kind of your outside edge of this distribution. This is the higher time frame So under here Potentially back here and if we get under there, let's go take a look Back here. So this is the target Theoretically not a recommendation And anything can happen right guys You know, I'm not calling trades. I'm just kind of sharing some ideas so yesterday's low potentially right and uh You know what I'm grunting at it because uh, you know mentally I kind of uh narrate these things So I like them to work. I feel better now Okay um So now in theory Since we were looking for outside in mean reversion The trade would fail around 68 ish, right? and The target is the vpok, which is down around 47 half, right? So That becomes the location and now it's uh helmet on And uh, you know, this is the and this is not a trade recommendation This is all structural based on auction market theory and using the volume profile. Anybody have a question Oh, jenny v. Thank you. Genevieve are you part of the trader lab in the uh book map discord chat? Never catch up on a hot dog. Floyd. We don't do that here Uh, jjp grabbed. Let me put the link in the discord chat Um for today's youtube all you guys who are members of the book map discord chat You can watch this again Great watching. I even watch them. Sometimes I throw a shoe at the television, but basically they're okay There you go So that's there grab the link Yeah dirty harry Oh, what are we doing over here? Now the worst that can happen if you took this trade and followed the trade plan is scratch Let me make sure i'm in the right place. Yeah, actually scratching a burger And if it takes you out, that's just one of a bazillion trades in a career. That's all there is to this Nothing more to it. So where do we go here? Came down to this liquidity Okay Now here's the other thing if theoretically if I was short and I get taken out It doesn't change what I do all it means is because it's mean reversion. This is still my target Nothing changes. The thing is in trading the rotations are random So this is my micro high volume structure. It's right there that little node sticking out So if we stay below there, all good if we take it out Then we're going to get these guys out here including moi if I was short and then that's okay I just the next trade So that trade is going to go to the happy hunting ground And that's okay You see so for me I don't you know a lot of guys now we're not done with this by the way There's more out here Not a trade recommendation. Let's observe it Now it's getting a little late in the day. So we'll see but this Up here potentially could set up a Now remember low volume outside it stops are sitting at the v-wap in the mid. Okay, so And we're now we're playing with this too. So we have to be very careful over here See all the stops. Thank you Mine is in there too pretty excited This is when you do you get the rotation and then you get a couple burgers out of it That's just the way it works. So it's still put now, but there stops here So you can't forget what's sitting here if you get short you're still in the location But the stops are here So remember think like a retail trader don't act like one So what that means is if I know retail stops are sitting here. Do I want to run in here? Now this is a location But this is vulnerable So I have to be very cautious here not a trade recommendation. We're just tourists, right? So we want to watch an area And if it never gets there then, you know, it's back here. This is where the trade objective is And then potentially lower So we will see so the mean reversion idea is to pick the stops and then come back here Now, where is that? You know, good luck, right? 600 stops 18 potential exhaustion right here Let's watch. This is a tough area. They can cap. They can get you in here And they can fool you. So this is dangerous What they all are I guess but you know in other words, it's easy to get in a short here and then get squeezed So it's it's got But you know see this outside edge So this is an outside edge. So I have to just sit back Not a recommendation, but I will say subject to what happens This is where I might be going. Remember mean reversion context down The fact we're in yesterday's range not the end of the world What's the end of the world or is this so we have to just be patient here And then you have to have a trade plan for this. What do you do about this? Do you do nothing because of this? Or do you use this location here? See, there's your question Are we outside far enough or are we going to continue squeezing? tough tough question so tourist Watch the behavior You got a selling iceberg right there When he's done executing you got to see what happens These are not trade recommendations. We are tourists The fact there's icebergs there is not a reason to engage If we see him everybody else does Now we don't know what the reaction will be right Watch the algo Coming up underneath he may just want to be pushing it up into that iceberg. You don't know So let's watch Remember where the stops are v-wap mid This is a funky area. I mean this could be the area right here. I cannot Read it in the sense of I have to be conscious of the v-wap I do want to be looking at mean reversion See the thing with this is the 70 is the area But we've got problem with that v-wap. So there might not be anything to do Not saying because I can't call trades, of course, but It's an area to observe. That's kind of how I think of things like this area to observe So I'm just a tourist. Let's watch We still got that iceberg sitting up there I'm gonna see what goes on with this. Are we gonna get up into that berg? Or not I'm just focused guys. So I'm not saying anything I'm focused This is where discipline comes in and also being willing if this thing doesn't get above this 70 to Just deal with it. I'm seeing both sides active in here. So it's uh, it's kind of funky Watch the behavior. You can kind of see the uh, both sides are active It's funky. So anyway for me, I'm just Patiently observing That iceberg is still looking to get filled up above. You see the liquidity sitting up there at 70 70 is important It's the where the volume point of control was retail yesterday So it's meaningful. We broke down. Remember that was a target coming down. We're below it Retail price potential to squeeze. So we're kind of like in a uh, funky area, you know, it's like you're dancing With a fire pit right here, you know, so we just are gonna observe it You never know uh, if you're in the uh Okay, I gotta concentrate now The bookmap discord channel trader lab pinned at the top of where that you can download those 60 pdf You'll see PDF tombi And then there's that video up there. Also, you'll see And some other stuff You should take a look at And then I have on youtube trend a configurations, you know different minute till news event different things That you can look at see we're back up into that iceberg Let's see what happens over here Didn't execute yet So we're watching right? We're watching so this is the this is the behavior that we want to be conscious of this Seconds till news event So watch the behavior Remember if this thing rolls, it's back to vpok 20 seconds till news event Not a trade recommendation. We are just watching right seven six five two one Event has occurred EF anomalous event By the way guys if uh, you want to reach me. I don't I'm not able to uh respond to individual Uh messages S&P cells talk 382 So this is mean reversion Yeah, nick that I really can't hang out but um, you know Here's the thing about the auction What did this mean? You see If you can think of it that way if that's too high Then let's come back and check. That's why this is mean reversion So this is the potential target on this one not a recommendation, right? So we identified the location. We identified the potential squeeze This was a bit uh disconcerting to see this thing over here They're still in here. It's pretty amazing that they didn't cancel it and move it down So that's still my trade But this is the target So nothing to do Unless you're in from that location So let's observe Remember mean reversion, right? This is but what we've been on all day since we got into a trend configuration, right? So let's watch So if you were able to get in here, you'd be risk neutral, right? Remember the two lock configuration and this is your next target If not Then you know, there's nothing to do Let's watch Let's see if this can get back to vpok So Let's watch. So we have this break pullback Break pullback Break pullback Here let's observe Now if it comes up here comes back here if it breaks from here then potential here. It's about that's about as complicated as this is No idea, of course See the behavior This is your high volume area That's your outside edge This is nice to have This is the target not a recommendation. We're just who knows, right? Isn't it just maybe So now there's nothing to do We're just going to tour right and we'll see this through one way or the other and that'll be It for me for the day So if you got something out of this if you got, you know anything from this that was useful I invite you all to come to the book map discord trader lab Where we work on this stuff You know and like everything in trading it's at best. It's maybe right And you can see that it's maybe But at least you're you're seeing a potentially consistent application of a process That's based on um auction behavior market mechanics Um rinse repeat same process. You see so there's it's not about complexity. It's about simplicity It's about understanding why the market does what it does how it tends to do it and what might happen All right might that's all you got is maybe And uh either we're going to squeeze right Take this and maybe even come up here or or before we get there get here. That's it That's it nothing more And the reason we came out is to check this potentially And if this is too high Then we can check that That's kind of how it works So let's see Well, I've only got so much time and um, you know, I'm trying to kind of do my own thing here a little bit if you know what I'm saying so, um And I typically have a hard time multitasking. Um, you know But um, you know Some days you can some days you can't Algos see them Now the algos get active, you know around two this this time of day and especially 230 central time Um, they get more active So, uh, we'll have to see what this behavior is right notice. They're pulling right here They can be opening the door. You still got that, uh iceberg sitting up there They may push them we they may push it up into that iceberg they can do that So, uh, we'll have to watch that behavior So we'll see Here's an iceberg in here executing. Let's get this guy here. Uh, open him up a little bit So this can still go And no idea I mean my preference naturally is this before that But whatever, right So we'll see Let's just watch So I'll stay in here until, uh, either yay or nay as they say What is it like in the roman times thumbs up thumbs down? Don't you feel sometimes it's like that? By the way, uh, let me see. I'm trying to think what day today is on even though. I think it's tuesday Right Why is that your preference? peter i'm not sure what you're asking me About my preference Yeah gladiator So Now the thing is if I was to ask you guys what's gonna happen first Take out 70 or get to the v poc What would you think I mean just ask yourself What's happening first here v poc? This is the the primary target Or this And then squeeze Lower first. Okay, peter Richard are you in the trader lab? 3670 Well, thanks. You're not helping me Lara Yeah drumroll and dice roll It can do anything So for me it doesn't matter other than i'm rooting for the team, right? But I have no control over this my only control Is my location Based on how I interpret the potential And as long as we're below here Which you know can change This is where i'm headed And it's not a trade recommendation because like any trade it's I don't know The thing in trading I think is to to release yourself from needing to be right Because you have no control over the outcome of the trade You only have control over where you interact with the market how you manage your risk, you know That's all you have control over the rest of it. You don't have any control You know 46 uh, I Um I think that's the risk of finding out Um, I'm trying to stay aligned with the trend so If we leave something behind below and we can't get back above an area Which doesn't mean we won't then my assumption is my probability Is more that we get down to that v poc than we get up Above 70 and again, I have no idea. I'm just paying. I paid the price for that discovery That's kind of how I think about it Yeah, peter we are the fleas on the butt of an elephant We absolutely are because we don't move the market really it's uh, you know But it'll be interesting to see if this thing does anything right And they can squeeze their shorts in here, you know, that's just life. It's trading. It's one trade And in it, you know, the thing about everybody wants to be right and you know win and I mean, of course, right? But uh, that doesn't have anything to do with really in trading All trading is really is trying to get aligned with Whoever might be and there are times when nobody's in charge It's rotational and then there's other times where we have rotation But the rotation might be weak hands You know by stops creating these rotations and then the dominant side, which are the sellers at the moment Maybe still don't know That we want to try and maybe align with that higher timeframe, which as you guys know is Short because I want to I mean, it doesn't mean we can't get squeezed out. I mean, that's just the nature but and I think uh 46 I think I I hope I'm answering your question. It's an alignment of Timeframes so this is my chassis that I run my trade on location wise This is my micro structure for triggering behavior This fooled me So I did not get short here. I had to get in someplace else And uh, I did and I'm still on the same trade I'm just in at a different location And I have to manage it and deal with it differently. This is still my target If I was in the trade, I mean Again, not a recommendation because I'm clueless, but this is based on the auction the potential And it can blow up squeeze everybody and then come back down And even if it did that I would still be working the short side And we have a um, I guess I can mention it. Maybe I shouldn't but we do have um, Structures that we use From here back to here in the trader lab You guys in the trader lab, you know what this is, right? That's right This is a quote Observation we have in the trader lab. That's why I was looking So it was two locations There right and then I was saying here. So I had two areas to deal with here for shorts Turned out this was the right one, but I did get kind of uh confused What in other words, this was a problem for me. I was going because they didn't execute I wanted them to execute and then see let them release And then see you see so this was what I was looking for it doesn't mean it's right wrong and different I'm clueless, but that was that was the trade, you know So now we just have to sit and be patient, you know So if you're on this thing You'd have a scale If you're on this thing from a different location, you'd have a scale and you'd be risk neutral And then this is the next target or not This main reversion, right? So we've been talking mean reversion. I think since you guys came on the stream, right? Didn't I start it right? Is that right? It's only been one side So I think that's about it So whatever happens here happens, you know, and that's that So let's see what we do These are not trade recommendations. It's choppy. It's nasty Uh, and we could get this move towards the end of the day. No idea, of course So let's watch the behavior at 65 So you see the 65 And there's some iceberg wants to sell over there and then we got that 920 still sitting up there So we want to watch this behavior See the, uh, algo below at 62 pushing it See what they do if we come back down. They're adding below you see this behavior This skews the book up probably into this guy and maybe even this you don't know Watch the see the book see the Now this guy executes He's going to probably release and you see how the algos are pushing it Watch the behavior Still got to clean and get these guys below to pull Otherwise, they're going to push us up potentially. There's a thousand icebergs going off there Let's see if we can get these guys underneath the pole That will open it up So let's see watch the behavior so These these guys need to get out of the way now and then flip We'll have to watch right So we can see the order flow here in book map. So we can kind of see The uh, the order behavior of the book these guys have to get out of the way and I would like to see Selling all right, so we'll see okay We're a tourist There's our target Clueless Interesting day, don't you think other than beating your head on the desk a few times So let's see if we can get to our target. I'm getting I'm growing moss over here on on the mouse Uh moon walker, what are you talking about adding more at VWAP? How can you add wouldn't you be stopped out? Well, why would you do that? Why would you have us stop that far away? I don't understand your logic, but what do I know? For me if it takes out my location where I originate the trade I am out of the trade. I don't want to be in the trade I want to then dust off and look for another location What happens? I mean, where's your stop? It makes no sense to me. Where's the risk-reward ratio in that? Where's your R factor moon walker? Well, what are you talking about here? How can you survive? Having a stop that far away Well slot is our ring when we come to mental you and I need to have a talk. That's a separate conversation No, he's trying not to lose That's that's that's the what they call the express train out of the business In my opinion not a recommendation if it works for you financially then by all means You know, I I can't do that I mean mentally If if it gets through a level for me, all I want to do then is be out of the trade I don't want to be in the trade Because with what you're doing, I think you're prioritizing being right versus trade management and running a business If that's what's going on quote if in the back your mind is I don't want to lose Wrong in my opinion you want to lose smart Because it's overhead that means keep your cost as low as you can Increasing your cost in business doesn't mean you get a profit I mean is that logical? Think about it and I'm not saying I'm right. I'm not It's what's right for me But then you need a huge account to deal with losses that you probably don't need To take in my opinion But you have to see here's the deal You may have a better plan than me Because it may align with you psychologically, but you're going to need an account that's huge To trade that where let's just say with me I can trade more contracts because I have less risk Which means when the trade works and hopefully getting risk neutral, I get more shots on goal And when the trades hit their locations or targets, I may have a better net maybe Right, so you got to ask yourself. Why would your stop be so far away from a location that would fail? Let's see if we can get this target and I can be done Moonwalker don't think out loud Put a plan together Better yet have those thoughts in a private place Because you're gonna I'm going to engage with you when I hear this or see this kind of stuff and I have to tell you it's I appreciate you posting it because we've all had the thought well if my stop is further away But think about why we would move our stop away from a structural failure. Isn't it to be right? I mean When you say I don't want to be stopped out, which we all don't want to be stopped out What are we saying you got to take it to the therefore Therefore I need to be right Well, I think in trading we need to manage our risk It's not about being right. It's about Managing our risk and limiting it to where it fails the trade And I want to get my target and I want to be done. I'm getting annoyed Not really. I'm just kidding. But you guys understand why this trade might make sense. Do you? Yeah, they are limits Uh, the question was about the icebergs. Yeah, they're sell orders So this is mean reversion Can you guys see the logic? If you understand auction? Then you understand what this is. This is where the high volume is. This is where the participants Currently think is a fair price If we come out too high We're going to run out of buyers and those buyers might be by stops. Remember who they are and then we have the potential to get back here and Continue or not and again everything is maybe in trading, right? So you don't know clueless So let's see what happens Well, yeah medaba. It's a rotational day. So it depends how you define chop Yeah, it's always choppy. I mean this you know is chop But there's structure So How myopic do we get I look at this stuff and yeah, it's Whatever it is. It is but I'm overlaying On this chassis This keeps me kind of grounded in the sense of where are we, you know And then if we understand the auction and what creates these levels Then we know the potential and that's all you got But this yeah, this is whatever but I that I don't You know, I'm looking more At the auction which is outside in and I did not get short here I'm short from another location Which is neither not material to this conversation But the thing about it is I will keep trading towards this until it's broke Because I have confidence in the probabilities of the behavior that creates this That's what the thing about market mechanics comes from auction market theory Understanding the purpose of the market All this Noise that's what it is. So if I what I'm trying to do underline try is Understand what this is all about and you can kind of get that if you come to the trader lab and you Kind of get immersed in a thought process Of understanding the market, which if we're Indicator oriented we never learn We just are trying to find the right mix the right tweak the the right what I don't know Been there done that still haven't figured it out and then But this is the truth Now what it'll do that's the old magic mystery, you know Thing of maybe but Ask yourself if it's logical and if you can think about why The market might come back here Just like a good shopper Think about it Moonwalk here. You're not disruptive, but when I hear a statement that is destructive I'm gonna I'm gonna respond to it and the thing is you have the courage to say that you would sell two more I'm asking you why you would be adding to something you should be out of That's all In my opinion again, this is just me. I'm not saying it's right In fact, I I want you guys to do better. So I'll do better, you know, this is not one sided I'm in the trader lab to get better Let's see if we can get this thing before I get too old to enjoy it Does anybody have any questions? I mean, I'm gonna stay here, you know, probably through the cash close now I just want to get this scale over here and then You know go from there Come on There we go. Okay. Um, so now I have another theoretical Scale mean reversion outside in are you guys tracking? Now I'm holding Not a recommendation. This is just my trade, right? This is trader lab stuff Call it bread and butter call it a little bit of insanity, but that's what it is You guys can learn this now past performance is not necessarily addictive future results. There's You know, this is trading But do you think you might have an advantage if you could think a little bit differently about what this is What's going on in here and the why see the why If you're if you're with indicators, you have no idea what's going on So, you know, that's that's the uh, the whole basis of the trader lab is helping you get an understanding of auction market theory Market mechanics, this is it. Uh creative. It's all Do you have a book map? Yeah, you're right. Moonwalker is saying about the, um Getting the scale Getting risk neutral changes your psychology You see it really is an money management call it risk management and having a process that helps you deal with your psychology And I mean the stimulus fight or flight. I want to jump out the window I mean think about this if you're sitting short, which you know, I was uh in theory, um You're sitting short it does this you're thinking. Hey, here we go and then it does this. What are you doing? My lunch almost comes up on the table, but that's part of trading if you get risk neutral Then you're willing to scratch and then put it. I I'm telling you what I do. I'm not saying anybody should do what I do But what I do is I am always looking at structure because I know what creates it. It's an auction If I come out above I may just pick some stops and then fail and that's fine And that's fine if I come out and keep going. I'm looking at the next location. Nothing has changed It's location. It's like real estate. Well, you know, my stop had to be a little further out You see because I can't get too close to this because I can get picked off I got my target now By the way, I always go a little bit ahead, you know, I don't put my my trade here You know my my limit. It's a little bit above A couple ticks Matter of fact, I got filled on that low tick. Look at that right there is an indication that's probably going to go lower and not a recommendation Hey, phil. How are you phil? Thanks Uh, it's the rth phil. So all these uh levels, uh reset at rth open. So vwap mid The initial balance high and low, which is the first hour high and low. Actually, that's the low Uh, the overnight is from the th these are all statistics that have a probability of being hit during our th session Uh, the initial balance high and low or the overnight high and low has over 90 probability of being taken Um During the rth. So I trade towards those early on when there's nothing else, you know, and I don't have any other You know structure And you can learn about all this in the uh trader lab, you know It's a process, you know, but I don't think I think we Make trading too complicated. I think what you see i'm doing here is kind of simple You guys see it as simple or complicated. Just curious what you think um 930 eastern standard time phil is when rth starts and if you're using book map, basically you just configure it The reset so it starts a new profile here and this is the chart volume profile. This lets me kind of get into the minutia So this is the the whole day Daily developing time frame and while this may look like crazy to you. Um, it isn't I mean it is but it's not because all this little stuff in here are consolidations And this is the bigger consolidation. You see that's the fractal nature of all this And if you can kind of think in those russian dolls inside out So what I have attempt to do is trade the higher time frame And that's like daily rth. So where are we in relation? Now, you know, we broke out I cannot get long I can't there's others who can and maybe you know, and that's great if Because if you're really experienced you'd be surprised what you can do But to get to the point of being really experienced you have to kind of start And then deal With the discipline which is a tough part of it in the patience of waiting Not our nature because we're triggered by fomo and attachment to money. Oh, I'm down for the day I got to get eat, you know, right sound familiar Well, I'm talking about me So, you know, so I found Miraculously that if I didn't do those things I did better. So I went, okay, maybe that's what we'll do We'll do something that we don't do which is patience Except the randomness Understand that I may not get filled or I will I got filled right here, which is really strange and And now I'm just holding And this is what they call the Hail Mary pass, isn't it? I'm going for this And maybe lower Don't know And it doesn't matter to me because the primary job at a trade remember mean reversion the primary job is mean This is the mean And it is mean, but I'm in a downtrend. I'm out of balance out of balance means I broke out So it's a breakout balance is two-sided trade, you know, that's balance And then when you're in a bullet train You're out of balance and that means it doesn't know what it's worth So what the market will tend to do is go, uh, what about here? Nah, I don't like that. No, that's too high Rotate consolidations and it's a sequential stair stepping of an auction That's all this is Notice we're below this Well This is our outside edge. So this in here is our outside edge. We came up Towards this outside. This is called a low volume node and all it is is a separation Between this distribution or let's translate consolidation Then we come back up. We can't get back in here bum Then we're back here Price check in aisle three like in your supermarket Then what if this is too high And this is retail two possibilities And that's too low. Let's come back up and squeeze or continuation So for me Considering the trend Now the primary trade is done. It's this then this is like you, you know, what do you call this one? The hail mary past the long ball the I don't know but the trade is done So now I just sit and I look for the next layer Which is down here And no idea. So let's watch this one. Okay Who puts on a lab coat? Who asked that? Where's that? Okay, it should be me maybe, huh Uh vz. I I just see the behavior at the v park, uh, and there's going to be front running I front run by a couple ticks. I always leave some for the sweeper You know So, you know So for me if it comes back now and takes me out, I'm perfectly okay It doesn't matter. It's the the runner and that's the runner I shift the now and this is different than what we talk about in the trader lab, right? Because the trader lab so you guys know the goal of the trader lab is to get you solid fundamentals and a market understanding and the ability to deal with the psychology and Potentially create a profitable trade plan as a foundational piece. You see And this by itself is no no easy task in the sense of you really got to do the work Uh, it's really quote work. It's your job, right? Then once you have a piece in place and you can execute it and deal with the psychology, which is such a problem For all of us it trust me on this You you think trading is hard You don't tell you what's hard. It's a it's mastering the psychology I mean somebody could give you the perfect trade plan and if you can't execute it because of the emotional triggers You're trying to wrestle with you're still not gonna, you know, it doesn't matter, right? But I was starting to say to you along quite a while back was, you know, how we Jump from I don't know. Uh, we go to seminars. Have you guys ever done that? We buy books We buy the latest trading program the latest, uh, guru You know the guy who took a thousand and turned it into 300. I mean really Um, that's our nature because we all want it We want it so bad and we think looking outside of ourselves. Well, it's really lies within you It's what you're gonna do about it And what can make sense? Nobody can hand you the answer key. You really all I can I can't hand you the answer key I can give you, uh, a way to think And maybe help you understand And then you can take it and put it in pieces Kind of reverse engineer it and then make it your own For me, it's like dancing or reading music at this point, you know, but I will tell you I struggled for a long time And that's because I was indicator based and then system based, you know in other words Which is really compounding indicators. You think about what is a system? It's really indicators of sorts, you know conditions if this then that you know that kind of stuff And part of my process here in the trader lab is kind of built on a system But it's systemic. It is not mechanical. It is Process oriented so it can be learned and uh, I kind of started doing the trader lab because I could transfer this to other traders. I found a way that I can Make it simpler because if it's complex, we can't learn it, you know So I don't think complex. I think complex scares what's right in front of you, but I never thought that I always thought it opposite. I thought complexity that in the complexity would be something nobody else could find That's not like any of you guys So let's watch and see if this thing can get down below All right, and it may not do it to the close or never see that's the whole thing in trading. It's maybe Write that down. Maybe Because that's all you got Maybe so if you can accept maybe Then you're off the hook It's not up to you You know, what's up to you having a vetted trade plan and then when the trade shows up You put the trade on because you've done the work and you're prepared That's up to you this Clueless That's why this is the primary objective So that's all there is to this Now whatever happens happens if this trade comes back and takes me out. I'm perfectly okay with it Because it did its primary job Everybody in the trader lab knows what the primary job is of mean reversion getting back to the mean So this could be short covering could be the end of the day. Look where we are Most traders. I know the pros the guys, you know who do this for a living And I do know a number of Let's just say uh traders who do this They they're answerable to their plan Let's watch the behavior. So this is algorithmic. This is an iceberg. He's trying to get filled He's still here. What's he doing up here? I think he fell asleep Look where he's located See That was not maybe such a good spot to put it We knew about this location Maybe he didn't Or maybe we're gonna come up here and he's gonna get filled and we're gonna come all the way back and squeeze Do you know that's possible? Right? I have nothing else to do So the thing about it is you are all of this is maybe in random What should not be random is your trade plan Your job is first of all to vet a trade plan and know you have a statistical edge And basically what you do in trading is you are executing when your edge shows up And that's your job other than that your job is to be a tourist Hang out in the trader lab order pizza and have lunch with me. That's kind of your job But other than that This is what we do. I don't know if this is boring. I don't know what you think of it But this is what trading is And managing the emotions having a risk management plan rinse repeat Mean reversion rinse repeat. How many of these did we have? I don't remember. I've been doing it all day After being long earlier, you know, you have good Okay So let's watch now by the way you guys I'm going to mention to you guys that are hanging out in youtube. First of all, thanks for visiting the trader lab. Appreciate you being here Appreciate a thumbs up if you got something out of this today Also, if you want to leave any comments below if this is helpful, you know That would be nice It's always good to get a little pat on the back if i'm doing something that's constructive for you guys Also, uh, I want to invite you all to the trader lab in the bookmap discord chat If you haven't come over there and visited, uh, I think you might find it helpful to get a better understanding of this process and understanding learning auction market theory and uh, how to use these tools and a it's a mental situation too of understanding the market If you don't understand you got to start with I believe the foundation and I never I didn't start this way because Volume profile market profile specifically was not available until I think 1985 and that's when I learned it when it cbot licensed it and uh, Peter Stottelbauer who created market profile, which was time-based because we didn't have volume at the time That seminar I paid and if you consider What a over a thousand dollars was worth in 1985 or whatever was 80 what somewhere right in there 86 maybe Uh and consider what a thousand dollars buys today. So it was big bucks for me back then And then I couldn't do anything with it for about two years Actually a little longer. You'll find that exciting too So sometimes you just have to let things gel And what really happened for me was It took time and you know also Looking what some others were doing with it and then I kind of went off on my own And started looking at the market a bit differently. I think than others And uh years ago I was in a chat room Yeah, I've been in chat rooms with market profile traders And I started talking about what I was seeing, you know, these microstructures And I got a lot of pushback I mean aggressive pushback And I found it kind of strange Because I thought they'd be interested in kind of seeing, you know, what I was starting to observe and you know Like um, and there's setups that we discuss in the trader lab, which are now kind of, you know, bread and butter I guess you might call them, you know, regular things we discuss that I was told, you know I shouldn't even be thinking about it that I didn't know I was talking about Well, they're not in the business anymore So You just have to kind of prove things for yourself and be willing, I think To go down a path and and I can't tell you I have to tell you there's so many dead ends I've been down that I can't remember them I mean, I mean anything you've probably thought of I've probably done it Not everything of course because I stopped looking a long time ago And I decided I I understand how the market works now. I just have to get better at it, you know Uh, I do replays. I'm gonna watch this stream Uh this afternoon as soon as I'm done Uh, if you're part of the trader lab, uh, this is available to you to do a replay And I think you guys in the lab over there in book map. You should uh Take a look at this Also, if you have book map you can do replays on your own So, um, what I would suggest you do is you do a quick play through this Uh replay this afternoon while it's available to all you guys in the trader lab in uh book map discord and Just note the areas Do screenshots if you you know if you can just go to the areas fast, you know do whatever and this weekend do replay Of uh your Data that you say save and slow it down Look at the triggering structures. Try to look inside the behavior Using the stop iceberg detector. Try to see if you can observe The exhaustion try to see when you have a trigger and it pulls back To the micro high volume. Is that an executable for you? How you see where think about that and then you you make a catalog of triggering structures You'll note the liquidity up here in its behavior You're going to draw boxes and circles and arrows and notations to yourself. That's what I did I have binders and binders and binders. Maybe I'm a slow learner But it's like uh encyclopedia britannica over here And I can't tell you how much stuff I've thrown away. I when I I'm what I'm doing this stuff Trees are falling in the forest because of all the paper Not to mention the uh ink But uh, that's what it takes Until you kind of get and you find pieces that you can relate to mentally and then recognize And then develop the statistics and the courage to interact with the market So this is our guy up here. Maybe he's going to get filled right Anyway, I hope you got something out of this. Uh, I got about seven more minutes If you're interested in the uh coming over to the trader lab and Dropping in there's 60 pdf so you can download in a introductory video that I did on Our stream about an hour an auction market theory volume profile. There's loads of information out on the web Uh, I think you can keep it simple I found that you know our nature because we're probably somewhat analytical as traders is we want the minutia the minutia Is not necessary In my opinion To be a successful trader. It's a trade plan in the discipline to execute it minutia Just gets you down the rabbit hole and it doesn't help you in my opinion been there done that Let's look at this And there's nothing here to do this. This is over, you know But I hope you found it useful if you're interested in uh visiting the trader lab go to bookmap.com join the discord chat Not only can you you know be part of the trader lab, of course, and we'd love to see you there You know introduce yourself. Let us know where you're from You never know you might have a trader in the backyard you can team up with And you both can you know kind of hold each other accountable and do better, you know work together leverage That's what we do in the trader lab Also, you uh, if you're part of the bookmap discord chat, there's loads of free education You know if you're into stocks crypto options, you know, you trade the cues to spies You know, whatever your thing is Um, there's something for you there and you won't be solicited and you don't have to be a bookmap subscriber You know to take advantage of it. So I would suggest that's something you might think about So, uh, go to bookmap.com join the discord chat. I'd love to see you in the trader lab I do continue these streams during the day when i'm not streaming on youtube But today it was the nature of the market was I think we wanted to stay engaged Okay Any final questions or thoughts? Uh, alina the crypto is seven thirty central time Uh, go to the bookmap chat. There's a schedule in there. Uh, you can kind of take a look at the schedule Or just go to crypto. There's a room specifically for crypto and ask them what time it is. I don't do crypto I'd kind of stay in the uh, the es world As long as there's rotations and volatility. Otherwise, I'm in the enqueue And for the stream, I try to stay in the es Because the whole point of the stream is to just help traders get oriented and get a market understanding, you know Look where we went Don't know don't know what it means So let's see Now we're coming into the close and you know, so we got a couple of minutes and you know, it's going to get crazy But let's watch Let's see what it does Samerson, there's no longs Know how not now not ever I won't say never but not today only shorts and here's the key guys. Where did we come? Not a trade of course, but I want you to see The magic of the auction Because if you understand the behavior, I think you are way ahead of the pack And I have to say pack past performance not necessarily the dick of future results. This is short See We never got above here, right? Remember to 70 that's where the trade fails And So it can come back here. It can come down here. It could do nothing too Or come back above here and take care of this guy, right? Don't know Let's watch it. We'll just hang out a little bit more very interesting though, isn't it? So you can go to bookmap.com join the discord chat come over to trader lab download the pdf. So watch the video Also, this recording is available to bookmap discord trader lab Participants I recommend I'm going to put this link back in here In the trader lab for you guys If I can get my hands on it See if this works. So bookmap Trader labbers I would suggest you grab this Link to the youtube recording and you watch it There's a lot in here Notice this this here. You see this. Let me show you this. This is an ignition algo I just noticed it, you know, I'm watching my trading screen. So you have to excuse me. I'm kind of Trying to multitask. It's not one of my best things. See this This behavior is an ignition algo. You see it It's coming down And it's putting pressure in the book Notice the how When this started coming down watch Interesting, huh? What we got going on here, uh amputus my bookmap setup. I'm not sure what you're asking This is very simple. Uh, it's just the session volume profile limit order book This I do manually. I put in levels I have to do that during the day. I put levels over here. This is the, uh, chart volume profile. It only shows me What's on the chart? So if you're trading the auction You'd be bright. This is where you would be Right back here rents repeat outside in right No, I don't typically operate this late in the day, but this is your target Let's see Can you see a consistency of behavior and process? We'll give it a couple more minutes. I'll go to, uh, 315 and then, uh, my voice is kind of gone I'm sorry about that. I hope you got something out of this I thought it was kind of an interesting day Yeah, you're welcome guys labbers Uh, trader lab participants. Uh, thanks for being patient with today Um You know, Mike, thank you. Hey, Mike, Miguel, thank you for posting, uh, all those, uh, your trade plan In the trader lab and showing it showing us how it's done Calibre 39, um, grab the link up there for the youtube. Uh, it is exclusively available to, um, book map Discord trader lab participants Take a look at it. Uh, replay it if you can if you can do it Notice this, uh, this is a condition I'll go watch him Let's go let's go look at him. Okay Let's get him going here at the end of the day my, uh, my This computer this is my former uh trading computer And it, uh, definitely is, uh Having a hard time That's because it's the cash is really full and We've had a lot of volatility. So a lot of ticks. It's processing a lot of stuff, you know See this this is a ignition algo. It's trying to push it down So anyway, we'll see I don't know if we're going to get here or not, you know, but uh, that's a target And and If we get below, in other words, if you can get below here Then we can come out the bottom Or not, you know, and it doesn't matter. See the thing about this is this this would be the target down in here Um The thing about the outcome of any trade is random. Now it's the end of the day, right? I mean But structurally look what we did. See this is the whole point of the auction If you remove all the biases and all the chaos There's a process at work Of the purpose of based on the purpose of and the purpose of the market Which is to find a fair price The auction is about where's too high. Remember? Oh, I'm not paying that to where is fair Here and then it's about Where's it on sale and the participants think it's too low Relative to retail. This is what's going on in all time frames. That's why if you can understand it Not that that means we can Anything more, you know, it's like anything else in trading. It's maybe but if you can kind of understand it now It's not just noise. It's there's a reason Now the market, you know can do whatever it wants to do It doesn't care about the auction really because if something comes out and disrupts it The market has to go to a different area and reprice that part of it too You do remember we had a short up at this up in here quite a while ago, right from 85 Then we've been working from here down to here You see it's all structured Setups or areas to observe can be structured Then it's like waiting for the bus And you have to have the discipline not to jump on any bus or to make a bus up when there's none there You just have to wait for your trade You know, it's your trade because you did the work to vet it And you know what the probabilities are of the market coming from here and getting to here versus going from here And going to there and you know, there's a probability The other probability is what is the probability of getting short and getting risk neutral versus taking the full stop first If you know you have x percent and let's assume it's positive Probability of getting risk neutral, which means the worst that can happen is you scratch Does that help you with your confidence and your patience? Think about it If it does now the worst that can happen is your broker sends you the gift basket at the end of the month But you've protected your account and still had the opportunity To get the potential targets Because your risk neutral has a positive expectancy. So you're buying the next trade You see this is how I think about it And I maybe you might want to think a little bit and that kind of from that angle Of what can you do to stay in the business to pay for the trade? And you're going to take full stops. I mean we all do it's just cost of production And and detach yourself as best you can from needing to be right But more of it needing to just follow your plan Because that's how you measure right Did you do quote the right thing? Which means follow your plan? So you got to have a plan to create a plan you need an understanding of market mechanics. It's that simple You know, so don't make this complicated. It's challenging enough for a lot of reasons, you know Uh, but I don't think complexity reveals that obscures That's my two cents. Anyway Yeah, Bert you're welcome. Thanks for being here Uh, you know, I'm just going to mention for the last time because I don't know, you know come and go in, you know tourists, right? Go to bookmap.com join the discord trade lab Uh discord chat then go to the trader lab Take advantage of the downloads and the videos and all that other stuff that's there for you And join a community of like-minded traders and leverage your collective experience. That's I think the key is the leverage I learned from you guys You guys learned from me This is the the contract we have with each other That's why it's the trader lab. It's not I'm just there, you know But I think I can offer you something that might save you some brain damage And uh or create new brain damage, but the point is it'll help you Maybe step back a little bit because if you can understand why the market's doing what it does How it does it you might have I think a better chance To create a process that you can depend on and potentially execute and stay in the business and become a career trader Not just passing through It's really a lot about understanding retail trader behavior not acting like one Uh And since they are very predictable think about something that has a high probability If we know that over 90 of retail traders fail Is that an asset? Well, I think in statistics and that's one of the most consistent statistics we have Over 90 percent well if over 90 percent are failing then number one, I don't want to do what they do That's the first thing but number two since they're so consistent I want to use that behavior An understanding of that behavior that creates that failure rate as an asset for myself And that's part of what we do also in the trader lab. We think like a retail trader We don't want to act like one Just think about that for a moment So if you're a retail trader and you're not Where you want to be Then maybe you want to start thinking differently and maybe doing something different make it your own It's like that dance partner any of you ever dance some Dance partners you have a dance partner and it's smooth and it's like, you know Dancing on the cloud other dance partners. You need steel steel tip shoes. You know what I mean So this is my dance partner Or music and it can be and it's not hard It's logical You just have to be a shopper Think whether you're going to that convenience store 10 o'clock Saturday night for the pint of ice cream Or you're shopping in the big box store, which is our highest time frame the process and the behavior is the same It's just fractal. So once you get it you got it Um, I don't have much thought on the if we close under the june lows or not. I just don't think like that Um, I mean I can have an opinion, but I really just trade with the participants. I'm being asked what you know, what do I think? So I don't know Yeah, uh creative the introductory video No is all the way at the top if you hit the pin at the top of the discord trader lab It'll take you to the top and you'll see the pdf so you can download that show all these behaviors And setups. I think it might be a term, but I don't like to use that and then um, there's a video pinned up there Which is the kind of a foundation video. It's like an hour Uh, and then of course you can watch this one That is going to be available to you guys in the trader lab and that's just posted a little bit above Mike well, thank you mike for doing that work and sharing it with us showing how you're creating your trading plan That's really cool. It's really wonderful. I'd like to have something like that Mike when you're done with your trading plan send it here. I need one It's nice as yours anyway It's a beautiful thing. We should post that an example of it to the top So, uh, you know, I think we should do that mike. Maybe just that cover sheet you posted yesterday that showed all the content It's it's beautiful. It really is so maybe we should throw it up there If you're up for that it's up to you. It's your thing. Okay So, uh, have a good evening. Uh guys, uh Watch this thing uh today stream if you're interested it'll be available till tomorrow. So you might want to watch it I'm gonna watch it My wife makes me put on headphones because she's saying what are you talking about and she just sees all this stuff, you know So, uh, I I figured that's fair, right? You're all welcome. I appreciate y'all coming here and visiting the trader lab And uh, I will see you guys all tomorrow 1130 central in the meantime, here's our process Take a look at this because this is what we've been doing all day Right here auction market theory. How does the market work? What's the process and it's simple. It's what's too high? What's too low? What's retail? How do we see it the volume profile is volume and price price in a vacuum is not the same unless you understand the volume and that's Pretty much what we're using to see retail trader behavior in all fractals or time frames. You guys call it time I don't why time is not the point in the market We created the clock the market other than open close and sometime of day is not on the clock Context that's the whole key to it trend down Mean reversion outside in if it was two sided trade we'd be trading it from two sides different context We started out two sided trade long side. I got short side long side short side Then we broke into a trend configuration shorts only context The tool book map order flow tool helps us see under the hood Order flow stops icebergs stop sweeps absorption. There's much more Then what I show you here because uh There's many other tools that you can use to help you get kind of get down to that Nanosecond level or as close as you need to get to where the rubber meets the road So you'll notice I use book map, but it's all built on a chassis Of this because without understanding how the market works I'm just going to be you know this by itself for me in my time frame. Remember I want the larger swings to make it pay if I'm going to risk three points. I'm not trading for three I'm certainly not trading for two I'm trading for 10 15 20 when it's available or I don't have a trade. It's that simple That's what I do not saying. It's what you should do But this is how I put the pieces together And it all ends up right here with book map to help me see inside the Structure and then get down to that granular level which helps me execute And helps me manage my risk and get it and get in better when I can And use a tighter stop so I can reduce my risk and also get my scale Easier and closer. So does it pay for me? Well, it pays for me And the only way you can find out is you know come to the trader lab and watch and see what's going on Watch the streams and the videos and can this help you cut your cost Because if it gives you an edge Then it's a matter of cost of production What does it cost me to have book map and does does it net me a positive outcome if yes Yeah, then I need it if it doesn't then no, I don't need it. It's that simple But I have found If I can just knock a couple ticks off per trade Think about it What is that over a month? It's huge. So it's cost effective for me I can't say it will be for you, but I think common sense says maybe that's all we got Thanks for being here. Thanks for visiting the trader lab. I'll see you guys tomorrow