 Morning traders. Can I get a sound and screen check in YouTube and in the discord trader lab chat? Okay, great. Thanks, Sandy. Thanks, RJ. How we doing in YouTube? Great. Thanks, Sanjay. Thanks, Paul I mean just get things a little straightened out over here. Hey, Joe. Good morning. All right. Thanks everybody. Thanks for visiting the trader lab. I'm your host Tom B. Streaming live Monday through Friday 1130 to one piece of standard time. Interesting day, don't you think? And also yesterday's trend day. I hope you guys participated subject to a vetted trade plan. I also hope you understand that in a trend configuration fading is maybe not such a good idea. The differential between rotational trading and trend trading really is trend is a non-rotational process. It is a directional process and you can recognize this. We'll talk about this a little bit. When the counter rotations are basically shallow versus the the directions of the trend because if let's just say yesterday of sellers and shorts as we know are in the market any time and if they're trapped when you think about it advancing army and retreating army. Counter rotations are counter attacks. All they do is basically sacrifice the counter attackers and then continue with the advance. It's simplistic, but it's a way to think about it. Just a thought. Grab your pen and piece of paper. I'll give you a couple of notes. You know, and then we will kind of go from there. And by the way, this stream is about structured trades that are available in the book map discord trader lab chat for everyone. And the idea in the stream is that you can follow these structured trades and also understand the business side of trading and also the emotional aspects of trading the things that impact us. But the business of trading is really based on statistics. It's a statistical business. It's not a video game and it's you don't make it up as you go. If you're doing that, there's a high probability and failure rate is over 90% for retail traders who do this and do not trade as a business but more as a game. That you will not stay in the business and I'll say of course your mileage may vary that might not apply to you but I think our nature is to think we are the exceptions. Just a thought. So what we do here is besides the structured trades, we are integrating book map order flow tools with auction market theory is the absolute fundamental process of how the market operates. And we use a tool called the volume profile in the intraday developing time frame. It's all volume profile. It's not a mystery. It is if you haven't seen it before but it's simple. It's price and volume. It's not vertical. It's horizontal because it's the price as it trades how much it goes off at price and then what doesn't go off at price. And if there's that differential in volume gives us an idea of outside edges of rotations in all fractals and time frames and also where high volume takes place. High volume is important because in fractals are multiple time frames subject to how you think about it and I don't use time because participant behavior other than the exchange open close and certain different times during the day when the volume changes overall it's not based on the clock. Anyway we'll get into that. We'll talk about it. Grab a pen and a piece of paper. Thanks for visiting the Trader Lab. General disclosure of book map limited materials information and presentations are for educational purposes only and should not be considered specific investment advice or recommendations. Live trading is in simulation demo paper trading mode and strictly for educational purposes. Live trading executed in simulation cannot accurately represent realistic trading performance. Risk disclosure trading futures equities and digital currencies involves substantial risk of loss and is not suitable for all investors. An investor could potentially lose all the more than the initial investment. Risk caps is money that can be lost without jeopardizing one's financial security or lifestyle. Only risk capital should be used for trading and only those with sufficient risk capital should consider trading. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results and please remember this is not a trade calling room if we do get into real time then we'll talk. But the purpose of this stream is to track vetted structures that you may draw statistics from or structured trades that are available to everyone in the Bookmap Discard Trader Lab chat as well as a library of webinars that gives you a narrative of these structured trades so you can actually build out a plan that might align with you your time frame your psychology etc. This is pretty much what the Trader Lab is about and if you're interested in it I invite you all to come you don't have to be a Bookmap subscriber and you won't be solicited and there's a lot of additional free education and as we always do let's start at the beginning grab a pen and a piece of paper guys now I have statistics but I always want to remind you guys the statistics I quote have to be vetted and they are what is the statistic it's only a probability and it's random the other part of this statistics that I quote don't take into consideration the current context of the market which means we're following a trend day but I'm going to suggest very quickly that in your take this write this down we had hold on right Tuesday let's assume we had a breakout from a consolidation trend day down now what happens after trend days here's often write this down the word and I can't give you a statistic for it because I haven't been able to crunch a number to differentiate between one day and a trend day mathematically doing let's just say crunching it out of software look at a thousand days that kind of stuff can't do it so but often when we get extreme moves in the market what tends to happen is we test the previous days extreme so statistically and I can't say statistically let's say probably after a trend day we're going to get buyers potentially now we don't know we could get sellers first taking a profit that's called responsive selling right they respond or so if we got the selling first we could then get the buying to take out the early sellers in other words the shorts the faders and then take out the high and go on to the next target we have 77 by the way is a target sitting up there we'll talk about that the other part of it is once we take out this high then the possibility is to come back inside and either take out the weak longs and still continue higher eventually or chop in other words go into rotational trading or fall out the bottom I know you're going well this is brilliant you know it's not brilliant what it is the possibilities anticipation and then using structure to help identify the current condition of the market which is what we do in the trader lab and attempt to get in alignment now remember nobody can predict the high and the low or the inside out of anything that in my opinion is a fallacy if you're trying to predict the high eventually you'll be correct in the meantime you might you know be out of business because how high is high it doesn't matter in the sense of where that is what matters is that you in my opinion you have structured trades that have a vetted edge and you stick to those our job is not to pick the high not to pick the low though many traders think that's what trading is in my opinion it's not a way to stay in the business just an opinion okay let's go look at a couple things write this down to take out the first hour high or low there's a 98 now remember these stats are not based on the condition of the market coming in today they're really based on where we are relative to yesterday's rth session which you know was a runaway freight train and I want to also point out make a note of this yesterday's range is poorly auctioned in other words the market didn't find what it's worth the market finds out what it's worth by rotating and finding a retail price and then it's either too high too low or whatever it is right and when we go back to other high volume areas like the 77 up above us that was a too high location previously so what our behavior might be up there is what what happens is it too high and we bounce off it and come back down and then but we have the stat which we can't forget the first hour high or low rth 98 percent so we're going to potentially take one of them out that's door number one the previous high 85 probability we take it out and of course in a trend configuration higher probability to get more buyers in the market squeeze more shorts and then if we exhaust at some point don't know when not my job come back inside the range and then blow out the logs basically remember write this down the market goes up to go down and it goes down to go up and the reason I'm saying that is the fuel for these moves is the traders on the other side in other words we go up it's buy stops and that's what creates these outsized moves it's like a remember buy stops become market order and plus there's new logs coming in now these new logs that came in today yesterday they now are going to be potentially on the hook at some point could be today could be whenever not our not our job to figure that part out more traders go broke trying to pick highs than you'll ever imagine so the key becomes let them be the ones or if you have a vetted edge then you be the one doesn't matter but if you're a gambler that doesn't necessarily create longevity so this is our rth open this is the overnight mid let me just give you a statistic on that one there's about an 83 probability we'll check the overnight mid 83 percent we'll get to the overnight volume point of control so let's just see what happens and we're not open yet so let's just go take a look this all resets at rth open i'm just trying to get some minutiae here so we can i want to zoom in i spend time on the open because it's one of the most important things that you can gauge uh who it's like kind of who takes the control early is it going to be the responsive sellers and we want to get long after they're done or do we get buying right away which puts potentially the longs on the hook at some point again and remember yesterday's high so when you come in you'd already be looking at yesterday's high you'd be looking at the overnight high statistically and then 77 so we've got that's our price ladder going up is everybody with me so far call us the preamble to the trading day how we doing in youtube nq has been a bit of a drag here but we're in balance in nq we do have to clear a higher level in nq and i think that's kind of the drag on this thing but let's just uh go with it the story uh what i have found is least early on when i was trading i thought i knew what it was going to do like it was my job to figure out what it would do i found at least for me and this is just me not a recommendation that i want somebody else to pick the bottom and sell the top you know what i want to do is try to get an alignment and then use statistics to try to sort out and create edge the more information i have about probabilities which is all trading is maybe i can cobble together something a little better so this is our th open this is the overnight mid okay we had a high probability of testing this and then of course who knows right glad you know i don't so let's look at the progression now when the market opens and this is very sensitive i mean i'm in here this is not even a second so you know you can't see this in the real world but let's look at what it says the key element for me is this why let me come back overnight mid 83 percent so i know statistically when the market opens here our th open that we test down get some responses remember sellers i'm thinking okay and we don't know how far but i know what my statistic is so i'm looking at this and then i want to see what happens because unlike some of you i have no idea i can't predict i have to observe and what i'm looking for to see is who takes control well appears maybe based on this now that and it's two seconds in the buyers are taking control now i still don't have something actionable but this right here let's mark this and this is what i do every day i call this a variable high volume node and all i'm doing is tracking the development of the volume and how it relates the price because what it's telling me and this is basically shopping you know ever go shopping go to the store this is your dollar can of tuna and you're buying tuna it's this is where the micro high volume structure as you see that little node sticking out that's the volume what it's saying is at the moment this was too low and this is retail if the sellers won't sell it to you and you want tuna and they raise the price here then the question becomes is are you willing to pay a dollar quarter for now retail tuna and will this if you don't buy it by the way the sellers will have to lower the price to attract you and they might come back here this is kind of the concept of auction so let's watch the behavior and see what we get now you'll notice the volume point of control is shifting higher the volume and price are moving together and i always do this and i'm always thinking well you guys really want to see this but i find at least for me i narrate the market and i do something like this if this then that well if we don't get the response of selling so if this does then keep down then that well if not then what and that uh-oh okay long maybe too low that's like a support to me it was rejected this now is the retail price more volume more volume more volume volume and price now right here watch right here the volume point of control volume point of control this is subtle just watch it's a narrative volume point of control shifts down too high now this is micro structure not actionable what i see here is it breaks pulls to the mid and the v-wap pulls back here two possibilities if this is too low then lift off or if we can't get above here deeper rotation let's see again no clue you know so pull back to the mid pull back to the v-wap too low this is kind of how you put it together now the other piece let me show you the other piece if you don't get involved here then there's another possibility right here was too high i'm gonna mark it and i'm not saying this is right i have no idea anymore i'm just saying it's a way to narrate you know this this is really about participant behavior not indicators i don't use any indicators all i'm trying to do is observe the behavior this was too high and this pulled back mid v-wap now we have a structured trade in the uh book map discord trader lab it's called v-wap to v pox so you know it's this to this now there's no range to take that trade obviously but what there is is the mid and here we hit the mid and only one stop goes off this is the stop and iceberg detector by the way and what it's showing me is this you know one well there's not big selling here well if there's no selling therefore buying so watch so this is a potential long if you're thinking let's go back overnight high stat yesterday's high stat see how you put the pieces back together and 77 up north of the border a high volume one of these basically that was left behind what is the price what does the market tend to do check prices now this here is too low so this is your volume this is your support for here watch the behavior too low this is called v pox migration what it's showing us is is prices advancing volume and moving with it you don't want exhaustion you want acceptance of a price but let's watch this is too low remember this is the mid watch the v pox is above us in the trader lab remember i said there was a v-wap v pox well how about this one v-wap mid and this is your under so let's watch it this would be your scale and now you got your helmet on watch pull back to here this is too low v-wap scale stop vhvn label it i'm just walking you through the early trades that are structured in the book map discord trader lab and you can all get copies of these things if you're interested the thing about structured trades is there's nothing more than maybe too low too high let's watch this too high watch the behavior notice the behavior pull back it didn't get here this is a structured trade in the book map discord trader lab chat so if you're in this and you scale here this is where you have to develop a trade plan your stop would be under here because of statistics or if you're not comfortable with that and i think 53 let me just look no 55 so we have 53 55 overnight high let me just take you back these are our targets where's yesterday's high yesterday's high and 77 just want you see they're all labeled in here okay so that's the roadmap for the longster today they're all on there in advance now what happens that's not my job because i've figured out i don't know my job is to put the trades on that have an edge yet risk neutral for me protect the account as job number one there's loads of trades and then manage the trade subject to a vetted plan or again i'm just going to say manage the trade and work towards targets and unless structure falls apart at least for me i just keep going that way you know so let's take a look so we got continuation buying right so we're on the long side here let's just watch the behavior too low we thought this might be too high too low it might be no clue doesn't matter remember it doesn't matter you need to be emotionally detached from the outcome of any trade other than we cheer i'm a cheerleader for my trades but i have no control over what might happen so i'm just saying so this is a target this is a target right watch this was too low back here watch now the way this works is this is a long this is your obstacle long obstacle so here when i was working this this morning notice the alignment now i don't know where it's going to go so that's not my job my job is and this is really subject to a function of time frame in other words i could if i chose be managing this here here here and be taken out of the trade and then subject to the fractal you operate and put it back on here scale here what's your fractal now in the trader lab i don't you know i don't know what the right thing is for you i know my statistics i know the overnight high or low had over 98 probability i think i'm okay with that okay are you guys tracking so this you see how this behaves once we came down here you see the reaction to it here this is kind of how auction market theory in the volume profile can help you bang why did that happen because it was too high but let's step back what's the quote trend well if we're looking for yesterday's high right then why would we be short unless you're a short term you know you're doing this to me i think the opportunity might be a little better going this way and again it's subject to your plan but i uh you know to me fading is a low probability experience unless i'm in the right configuration then i trade both sides it's just different so the idea in the trader lab is to have something called trade plan where you can anticipate and that's all we have in trading anticipate potential behavior operating in a random environment did i know did anybody know we're going to come here at this at this time no i didn't what i do know is we had a report coming out at 842 which was that comes out at 842 that's slated for 845 but i already forgot what it is is it reasonable that you will get profit taking ahead of the report very reasonable to me so we get the profit taking 184 stops come out now here's another little piece i'm going to just give you a piece let me show you microstructure i'm just doing this i'm this is called a sidebar this is your mid coming down in front of this report 140 stops watch this is how i use the stop and iceberg one way i use it so too high okay where's the stops mid where's my next location well i want to see the behavior at the v-wap but i know retail trader behavior write this down think like a retail trader don't act like one if i know their stops are in this area i know two things we can take the stops out i also know that we can get buyers mechanical retail buyers and i know this is my obstacle because it's retail so if this is retail in other words the high volume at the moment which means it's a dollar a can tuna in this fractal then what's the sale price is it here is it here or is it not at all so if i see the exhaustion and here it is watch right here i see the selling i see the stops i see more selling here but i don't see the stops come back pull back no sellers target now it's either too high and we fail or we continue on to the statistics overnight high and this and then they remember we're going for that first hour high and you know wherever that thing is at the moment and other targets 77 so this trade is long long long long long and i don't know where are we by the way you know i haven't so this was the next target and then 77 so all these this so this was the next target this is that first hour high it's called the initial balance that has over 98 probability that the first hour higher low so it's only long for me now i don't know where we're going here i have no idea i don't even know where we are we're on i don't know anyway i now now let's go look at it let me get back here i'm only in 15 minutes in my narrative but those are the targets that's how you might use statistics that give you a sense understanding the current condition so let's move on so this is a long that's your scale stop is under here you put your helmet on this shifts higher saying this is potentially too low let's watch pull back here potential add in here up to you if it doesn't fit you don't do it let me show you the change in the market condition you're going to get crazy over this please forgive me watch i'm now i do this in a review because i want you to see it me sitting here clicking this or showing you and if i get the real time we'll do it but if you can understand this then i think uh you know the condition of the market how can you get in alignment so i want to show you these so here let's come back here so this is what we have so far we're in 15 minutes we are progressing higher with the retail price we just check the mid and we have our statistics this is the next this is the next this is uh where's the high i don't know i don't remember and uh that's above us and all that so you know we have all these targets up here here watch now right here i'm going to show you something trying not to make you crazy and i know i make some of you nutty because you come here and if you don't know what this is about you think it's ridiculous and that's okay if you have a vetted trade plan and you have an edge and you're a profitable trader come to the trade lab and help us get better you know we're all doing the same thing here this is what's called balance area in a in the profile world and all it is is the volume that's created by the rotation so the price that is the highest volume is this what and that's retail okay so this is fair in this if we leave it behind potentially underlined this now is too low and we leave it and now we start the auction the consolidation right in a different location this is your high volume now here that is saying too low so we're gonna mark it okay variable high volume node so the way to think of this i think is the market auctions remember what's too low what's too high what's retail and then if the shoppers or the sellers decide that maybe that they can raise the price if the buyers want it it's just like in the store you want a dollar can of tuna they raise it to a dollar 15 yeah all right i'll buy it see then they raise it to a dollar 20 but the other stores aren't selling it anymore at a dollar they're raising their price so you can't go back there and shop there's nothing available so when we leave this and we start a new distribution or consolidation it has its own retail price right here and by the way this volume was created by this iceberg 2400 that's so when I was looking at this I was going okay this volume was created by iceberg and the fact you see selling icebergs that doesn't mean anything to me it might mean something to you it is not a standalone oh it's a sell signal they're selling might they be taking profits on the way up what do you think huh so anyway this was a target this was a target so all this was targeting okay so let's keep going so now retail now let me explain I'm starting trying to explain something I have to give you all the back story so you know what's going on this now what can the market do can it rotate around the retail price right if it can then where's the outside edge this is where it out in here now there's two pieces in a consolidation or rotational trade there stops on these outside edges wherever now we don't know right lovely love trading who knows if we come outside and we pick off the weak hands at an outside edge of a consolidation and we exhaust just so you know the mechanics the potential underlined is that we come back to retail so in other words oh it's 75 cents seller and there's some you know it's on sale you're a great shopper and you buy them but the seller says oh there's demand here I'm not selling them they raise the price to retail then they think the seller how high can I raise the price before the buyers won't pay and then we rotate and then if it turns out this is too low they're not going to sell you anything here and then they're going to move this you're going to leave the store and go elsewhere is this logical watch so we're looking for this outside it now preferably it would just do this check and continue to the next targets what do we do let's look trader lab structured trade is here now if you can't operate in this because of the triggering structure that you vetted it's not your trade what I want to show you is how the market rotates takes out the stops right there 83 thanks for playing where were their stops under here they're out now we have another structured trade in the trader lab and I'm showing you this is what I do here I'm showing you structured trades you don't need anything more than that if you vet them and know where your edge shows up vwap to vpok so this is along this is your obstacle but the trend is up and you have statistics you always got to remember what you got so watch where's our next statistic here this is our next target here then here this was no I'm sorry not there 77 wherever that is this so that's our next target and I think at that point I don't know where we are at this point and then we have the first hour high so here's our next target and I'm done let's look first of all do you guys have any questions this is auction market theory and let me tell you what this is the last time we were up here this was the highest retail high volume price they call this uh $2 a can tune okay a dollar can tune it might be down here $2 can tune is up here and if we rejected it last time we auctioned or traded up here it might still question mark be too high so we have the potential and nobody knows so don't I'm gonna tell you if somebody knows they ought to contact me I know it was too high and I know that's why it's a target because I trade the auction I also have some other things but I'm going to show you what this is so if this is too high and it's not a coincidence I'm going to suggest then the possibility exists for a couple things first of all it's a target so you know I'm not the only one and the other part of it is there's your selling so I'm out at this point and then I'm clueless except I have a statistic above me that at 930 which is here covered up I think right let me just say is uh where's the I be high trader lab is it covered up yeah it's there yeah right here is the first hour high okay and at 930 that's the first hour I'm in uh central time zone notice what happens here this is not a strong high this is an exhaustive high and we have low loads of longs in the market so what does that mean well we don't know what it'll do it's all fine okay we can if this is weak and it's at the first hour high I have a 98 probability I'm going to take it out maybe an underlined maybe but I don't know about this because I can't so my job is to I do is I trade with targets and I manage my my my runners and uh like all of you uh I give dollars back but you know what I don't live and die on one trade by the way look at this this is a VWAP trade right here oh that's right took this one I don't remember it this is a long and now let me show you something else the volume is in here right there in more micro structure there there so I look at the I'm going to just kind of give you an idea it's nothing more than that if this was too high let's I'm going to show you micro structure I'm going to go down in fractal and the reason I do it like this is just my thing I don't think anybody should do this uh but this is my first hour high I know there's over 98 probability we're going to take it out or the first hour low hey you know I wish I knew I don't know I know this is not a strong high so I'm looking for my next structured trade and in the and I'm starting it by the way I was going to explain what this is so this here is high volume in micro structure right here this so in other words the chop is a consolidation and bang we broke away this was too high this is your saturday night convenience store not a lot of shoppers but there is an auction too high too low and the volume runs through it okay here let me isolate this better actually I like it well I can't show it exactly the way I want to show but you see this this is this is selling right you guys we all recognize that we see this coming out we see the stops so the volume that's created in this chop is retail in this fractal now I'm going down in time frame if it's too high we break so now this is quote resistance there now let's go further we stop we auction watch we come back we can't get above this volume we auction so and break there's another seller this micro structure is high volume now I'm getting down think Russian dolls you know the big one which says still belong and the little one that's showing me counter rotation with no idea naturally but when I see this and I see the break and I can't and this is the same as this except it's a more micro time frame same chop volume you can see it there where it says hvn break seller see the sellers pull back test if you can't get above it you go south that's how it works chop break too high watch chop break too high that's an idea for trade benefit you gotta vet it now where's our next structured trick let's go I'm just showing you now we're going to use that information coming back to watch vwap now I know in the trader lab we have a trade called vwap the v-pod which is makes no sense in this configuration at the time why the trend is up in the context is up so if this is the average price and vwap is you know the average price between the buyers and the sellers right and the buyers are basically their average prices above here and if we come back and check it it is a structured trade now how do you sort this out well let's go take a look where is our last auction it was here this high volume that we broke from so for me and I'm just telling you me I'm not saying it's any good right or anything I'm just talking about me here's your check here's your volume you can see it in here right there see the volume it's representing the auction break high that's your buy trigger pull back to the volume area no precision horseshoes and hand grenades this is your long your stop goes under there if it's part of your vetted plant now where do you get scaled you got a scale in front of the microstructure here or here so for me I look at the last micro auction that was too high so if I'm getting long here I want to get risk neutral here I had a here actually right ahead and then I put my helmet on now watch if if this is too low and I checked here I'm risk neutral currently my stop stays here I don't do this I don't do any of that I don't sell this I just wait let's watch not smart enough to know anything right back to the 77 now 77 is still a target for me why too high we might not get above it no clue not my job and by the way for me I'm also holding runner you know beyond this so scale target and then you know the Hail Mary pass and then watch pull back here is a structure trade in the trader lab it's a long you're gonna scale here and then again you're going back here going to the the long ball watch this shifts up too low I don't know where we are where are we anyway oh here we are okay guys I don't know and then the IB right that 98% stat which I think we got which was right here right this is trader lab trading guys uh this is what it is I don't make it up in the sense of I don't know what's gonna happen now there's a little more going on here once I get into uncharted territory I'm pretty you know I can be done you know a Dario congratulations Howard you know some of this is covered up I wanted to get caught up now I'll look at your questions hope you're getting something out of this guys we're now in real time so let me let's get caught up a little bit and then we can we can talk so if you've been fading this I'm gonna ask you why and if you don't know other than it look like it was a top I'm gonna suggest you visit the trader lab because the thing that's really one of the harder things for us is something called context understanding participant behavior and average retail traders have no idea what's going on because they're using indicators to kind of overlay on participant behavior and market mechanics to kind of give them the red light green light and define it for them but those are looking backwards and the thing about overbought oversold is really I'm gonna say is an illusion what is overbought what's oversold and the reason that it's problematic is in certain conditions you can operate with oscillators that show divergence in other conditions they're gonna have you fading and catching a shallow counter rotation and then get run over if that's your experience it's because most traders are going to say kind of position indicators where they belong not as a primary input but as really tertiary or in my case and I'm not saying this is anything more than what I do and I'm not it's not a recommendation because I don't know but I don't use any indicators then ask yourself how can I narrate this and have structured trades in the trader lab that traders are using and building processes off of for the business side of trading why might it work if and so why do I not need an indicator because the market is not based on indicators it is based on the participant behavior so my objective is when I look at this I know what it is I'm not waiting for a stochastic or a moving average to tell me the market's going up I don't need that I know what the condition of the market is then I know what I see tells me in the price action what's happening right in this structure I also see the liquidity I see 518 buy stops coming out really who's short was it these guys who tried to pick the top I mean what's what is that I don't know and by the way eventually they get it right but often by the time they're going to get it right because it's really random their bankrupt are out of the business they've done severe emotional damage to themselves and some traders insist on being right I'm going to suggest there is no right or prediction what there is is vetted trade plans where you operate with a statistical edge it's just like Las Vegas so anyway what's going on right here let's look I'm going to give you the micro story now here 429 stops okay this is micro high volume here now these are not shorts I mean I can tell you someone sometime maybe today who knows when whatever is going to pick the high of the day I've seen more traders go out of the business trying to be right and being myopic and not being open to what's right in front of them but here's what's in the micro structure this is too high it's not a short it might be a trade management process huh there you go see can you understand why what's happening here think about it what happened here we auctioned we have high volume right at that note this is retail this is Saturday night pint of ice cream 10 o'clock oh my god I'll pay anything but we've hit all of our targets now I have no idea I can't pick the high of anything but I can tell you what I might do with this if I'm still long which I have no reason by the way to be long when I see this break I could be out because this is too high the other possibility is we can rotate back and check it if it's still too high I'll still avista if not we can take it out I look at this like support and resistance now let's go lower high volume was here retail in this structure it's created by this volume we can do the following we can come out here and rotate now I don't try to you know at this point I have no trade I can tell you in my interest now if I'm a scalper and I have a high level of skills I could be a short yes back to here not a recommendation but I find that's not even worth my time or trouble considering where I got long today just me now if you have a plan for this you could be selling back to here because this is called mean reversion but you're on the weak side so this is a more aggressive trade this trade would fail these aren't recommendations I'm just narrating above here would I get short no I would use see there's a couple ways you can think about this obviously you could think about it short if you feel lucky as dirty Harry says or you could think about trade management and just be out or your stop is down here someplace and you're just hanging out you know subject to your fractal the other thing about trading I think because you got to identify the time frame that you want to operate in I'm a day trader you know which I think most of us are so I'm really more interested in this you know here to here you know maybe out over here and not thinking about it I just I'm just telling you and the reason I think like this is I don't live and die on one trade or anything I have no compulsion to make trades happen I want to be in the larger rotations because you'll notice when I put these examples on of structured trades out of the trader lab that my risk my stops are maybe three points or less and that's about what I try to do and if it if it's there and then I need to get risk neutral I've had a question about risk neutral that means run a minimum two-lot configuration so my distance and let me just give you a hypothetical here from selling which I wouldn't be doing to what's risk neutral from where does the structure fail to my entry is my risk that's my stop if I run a two-lot the job of the first contract is to buy the stop on the runner so the worst that happens is I scratch the trade that protects my account that's the most important thing here there's always another bus coming by so let's observe this remember this is not a short okay if it does fail up in here or counter rotate then it's back here so if this and we can't get above then that if not then what north that's it did I answer the question about the risk neutral by the way let me go back if I can look at your questions I apologize I've just been trying to narrate here okay if you guys were on the short side today I'm going to say you really should visit the trader lab if you're fading you might be getting triggered emotionally especially if you didn't get the long trades you're going to feel and we don't we're not conscious of this we are controlled by our emotions well I should as soon as you shoulda then you're gonna it's you're gonna try to get it but you're gonna be fading oh it's too high now now I'm not saying it isn't but what is your motivation are you being triggered by emotions I gotta get it I'm I'm gonna short it here it's too high by the way it might be you know I mean this remember is too high here is the test too high and again no short for me and this is not a trade calling room but I want you to see auction behaviors so that's why the return to the test you see not this this area in their areas now this is called mean reversion outside back here and this is a fractal you get below here then here if this then that if this break there's your seller then that potentially and if we get above the north if not then what then here now this just shifted up this is a warning will robinson moment because what it's saying is this price is potentially too low if we get under here we can still come here if we can't get below here after a little rotation then this is on the hook and for me no short but I want to show you the narration because I don't believe you need indicators and if anything and the reason by the way I'm not against anything when I'm what I'm for is you guys having vetted statistical edges that's what I'm for and it doesn't matter how you get it but one of the things that when I was developing trading systems and I was in swing trader there was no day trading when I started you know you had to call the floor and do all that stuff what I found what I found was systems had multiple inputs and you lay more inputs on and for me I'm risk adverse so I would squeeze the risk out but that's a super curve fitting so these things would always break down many traders what they do is they see a big rotation they put an indicator you know a moving average or so whatever mac the tick or you know and that's now trading I'm going to suggest absolutely not it is not trading because how do you measure something with random inputs and if you guys come to trader lab you're going to there's a primer webinar that really discusses these concepts because it's a high prop percentage of retail traders fail I think it's important to ask yourself what are you doing differently if you're doing what they do and the ego suggests you're going to do it different or you're going to find the needle in the haystack you know what I mean something different um I'm going to suggest probably not and that's based on the statistics of traders who fail do you see why this is a warning will rob in some moment you see so now the key now this is for me is a reason to get out if I was short or and here's the or or this is where it fails so we're going to watch these this is the developing daily time frame so this is all the volume for the day is migrating up with price at the moment this was too high previously we are auctioning it we are above it below it and this is the first hour high the fact this is moving up is like pressure the fact this was micro and too high is a micro tissue paper obstacle we want to observe this now I will say in the trader lab and I can't I can't take this trade I'm just talking well let me put it this way yeah I could but I'm not talking about what I might this is a trade in the book map discord trader lab and what it would and it's not you know this has to fit your risk reward parameters if this is a long ahead of here for a scale so this edge out here this edge out here and what it's going to do is test this volume so if you got long here not a recommendation you got a scale ahead of that because that's retail so too high sellers come back and test seller VP to here right not a trade I can't take I'm looking for you know the behavior this moves up too low then it's a long to here ahead of here remember ahead leave some for the sweeper scale helmet stay long trading with the trend not picking the high of the day clueless I hope you're getting something out of this is this good Garrett's I keep short keeping short you're shorting well Garrett come to trader lab this is not a day to get short so far you know this is the thing that the problem Garrett with the the shorting idea is not differentiating the condition of the market from other conditions it's really in in the trader lab we talk about trade plans that are specific to the condition of the market it's almost like you're a general you know you're out in the field you know and you're with your army you don't just do a vanilla one size fits all strategy you need to adjust to the conditions of the market and we actually in the trader lab have different strategies or different plans actually for this so it's only longs today the only short for me is trade management so when I get a short or a sell it's not short it's trade management for the counter rotation but this so you know so like here this is a sell but it's not it's a counter rotation this is the higher time frame fractal remember I trade fractals I'm just saying it's Russian dolls you know higher time frame down the micros the little doll this is a little doll it tells us it's going down okay it tells us right here this might be too high in the short time frame this is the target this shifts up this is too low I don't want to be short instead I really want to be long so I ignored this other than for trade management and this is a structured trade in the trader lab in your obstacle the scale is here and then you just put your helmet on these are available to everybody in the bookmap discord trader lab chat if you you know if you have any interest in them and in also there's a library of webinars so you can kind of observe this you know you sit down over the weekend and you do it and then you find if you can align with this it's different if you haven't seen this before by the way most of us start out with indicators because we think that's what trading is and I know you guys can go out in the web and you're going to see so many things when I started trading we didn't have computers you know um it was a dumb terminal and there was really no uh indicator stuff they first I first got uh I'm trying to remember when I was 81 82 I can't remember but somewhere in there I got something the cqg qq tq 2020 I had all the wells wilder stuff on there went nuts loved it I said all right here we go now I'm gonna know yeah not so much and then I built trading system but the other part of that is I shared novels with George Lane he created stochastic I want you to know I thought the holy grail showed up you know and then of course we had mac d cci and all that now watch so what we did is we went up now watch too low now this high volume x's support we can come out here rotate or this was one retail in here it was too low we can check it from here if we come back under here where there stops by the way we can now come back here I have no short I just don't care you know if you have a plan for fading if you've been fading all day I suspect you're probably not ahead if you are congratulations follow your plan you know so anyway I thought stoke you know stochastics oscillators you know and I built systems around all of this and in the end I had to get rid of it and let me tell you why uh ultimately it comes down to curve fitting you know if you're moving a trend line to make it fit your curve fitting if you're tweaking uh an exponential moving average an envelope pick one it's all the same your curve fitting that doesn't work in my opinion and if you're doing derivatives of a process that doesn't work you should not expect in my opinion a different outcome you know different indicators different combination and here's the reason because you can't measure it so for me and what we do in the trader lab is strip it down to its bare essentials participant behavior what are they going to do I don't know where might they do it I might know and then do I have a structured trade or a vetted trade that fits and do I know based on the participant behavior not the indicator that this is a long and that I know this is my obstacle would I know that I do know it and I know if I get out here wherever it is I don't know where the high of the day is and I come back in and I'm below here my next area is an outside edge and this volume right here is potential support if I take this out then maybe it doesn't matter you know once once once this is happening it just doesn't matter to me maybe it matters to you I've gotten kind of numb because I have to separate myself emotionally from the outcome of any trade write this down the outcome of any trade is random now this location here is often an continuation opportunity in this situation it is not because I'm long out of here this micro high volume structure which is this is support here so we're going to observe it now we can take that out get here get here I know that I don't know what it'll do and I'm going to tell you at this point in life I have no control so all I can do is just manage to trade and see what it does okay so let's see what it does coming down so we have this micro and this if we come under here we're now going into rotational trade the context is changing so let's just observe behavior okay real time and again no idea yeah uh kahoon um the sharp move down did not change the context it was still up that that was just a blowout of the longs weak longs that's all it was now we don't know at the time so for me there was no no way you said you waited for the ibe high you mean this yeah I don't have an ibe high entry this is what's important here this for me you know one thing that I understand about trading guys it's not mechanical it's not one line crosses the over the other or you have a setup here we have a structure trade in the trader lab called the ibe continuation trade but what do I know I've hit all my targets I have no idea where we're headed now nothing clueless not my job to know what I know is getting long up here based on what I'm seeing has more risk it doesn't mean I get short what I know is I'm still favoring the longs but here's the other thing I know what a retail traders do they keep their stops under here so and here's where it would make sense if you put a trade on you need a trigger where's your trigger if this is the micro high volume right let me show you so look this was high volume right there let me move back I'm going to show you I'm not saying this is anything more than a way to narrate so you see this which is this and what you get is the pullback through the micro structure we took out this right so this sets up two possibilities one is back to here okay the other one is if this is too low then back to here so if you put the trade on in here your stop goes either under here or under here under this volume and then you got to get risk neutral you'd be risk neutral now what happens I don't know comes down takes it out you're out if not you're still in see but you'd scratch the worst that would happen to scratch if you've got long here you have to scale ahead of this volume right and either it continues or not so for me I'm trading this because that's my most recent participant behavior this shifting changes things you see so this sets up the long you know back to there that's as that's as complicated as this is is and it's random let's not forget that too so now watch if we get under here then here I already know that I already know subject to how it behaves that I potentially have a long off of here back to here this is structured trading uh if I don't get under here this is my resistance if I got long which I'm not saying these aren't trade recommendations we came back to the micro structure we came back to the next higher time frame fractal structure this right here is too high so I would be and this up here very micro you can see that little try to and guys there's no right way with this I'm going to say to you there's I don't know what's right I'm trying to open this up it's there you go you see this here this is the same thing right up hold on let me clean this up so you can kind of see some of this stuff 479 ice stops this little node here is created by this micro structure now when I see this believe me I have no idea but what I know is in this little structure it was too high that's all I know but let's watch it if it's too high and there's volume here also so too high too high then if I get long off of this structure in fractal I got a scale before this that's what I know so let's watch it okay now this is just the one way to slice and dice it I what I'm going to suggest to you guys is it's not what I do it's an understanding of market mechanics and participant behavior I'm not saying this is good bad and different I don't know it's what I do but I think this information is transferable you can learn this if it interests you and then you know it's up to you this is what I built the trader lab on and I'm not a vendor I have nothing to sell you I'm nothing I do this because of what I went through I really have a sweet spot for all the traders I've seen who failed over the years I'm doing this 43 years I will tell you I can't tell you how many people I've met over the years that are not here anymore most of them well 95 fail the goal of the trader lab is to give you some tools and to give you a template in a process to build the business of trading not the video game and not the gee I'm a trader now I bought a software package let me find the right combination of indicators now I'll be a trader I'm going to suggest it's naive now you can be the exception and if you are come to trader lab share because that's what the trader lab is all about you know leveraging our collective experience to get better but to build the business of trading the business of trading is all really a statistical business it's it's nothing more than that now it's random that's the other thing you got to accept many retail traders think it's about picking the high and when I started I believe everything you've done or are doing I've done it that's why I can relate to what we go through and one of the problems is that we keep doing the same thing over and over again in a derivative fashion and it's a defective process if that's your experience that I'm going to suggest you put the brakes on and maybe you know research some other ideas there's 60 PDFs you can download it's a package I guess of PDFs that are just various things that I created they were not meant as a trading course they're available to everybody and a library of webinars where you could see this narrated just like this in real time and then I go into real time some of them are three four hours long and you'll see real time narration based on these structured trades and the thing I find is if traders can understand the market not the indicator that does the work actually understand the message this is language based on the participants it's a foreign language think about if you want to learn to play music or you want a learn a foreign language see the volume see the volume in the next fractal fractal see the check of this volume is it a coincidence I don't think so if you understand what it means does it either give you opportunity or does it help you would this be a potential long for you back to the volume for a scale and then you just put your helmet on and either it comes back and you scratch and that's just one of a thousand trades if you're a career trader or what so this is how I operate because this is what it said it spoke it said too high break too low back took it out maybe too low break back in too low where do we come back here where do I scale back here if I take this out I'm going to have a party invite you all for dinner if it doesn't take it out then whatever see the behavior is it makes sense yeah peter i'm sticking with the rib eye michael 82 is a clvn I watched it more in the short term I'm aware but as you get higher in fractal a clvn is a higher time frame low volume area the markets tend to come up into these areas because they're outside edges uh the same as this if the market comes down here it's an outside edge in the developing daily time frame as you go up in fractals higher time frames it's the same behavior we're just operating on a higher time frame that's why I can look at this here I understand what it is it's retail and the microstructure if it's too high we come back here I understand also in the in the developing time frame which is a next higher fractal this is retail so it's retail micro to retail if too high break below it retail back to retail for the scale if this is too high and this is an extreme then back to retail and then maybe everybody goes to lunch goes out the window and back here I don't know what it'll do but to answer your question on the 82 it's another it's the same as this little low volume area but higher time frame the market operates like a russian doll you know a big russian doll all and they're all the same which is what i'm showing you in here this is the same as this but this is a fractal of that this microstructure is a fractal of this so they're inside of each other the russian doll I have no short I only have long unless I have to turn the tanker around for a good reason then not a but this isn't crater lab longs that's all I can say about it because I don't know anything I'm just going with a narrative trading with the trend I understand what is going on it's called north yeah if you find anything useful here for you guys I invite you to come to the book map discord trade a lab chat by the way 4205 is an outside edge of this thing and there's a link in the bottom of youtube come to discord you don't have to be a book map subscriber you won't be solicited you can download those pdf say hi it's a great community and there's a lot of support among us trade plans get posted screenshots charts of trades taken loads of stuff this is a serious community that is looking to understand and build out the business of trading career trading not hobby not a video game you know I mean if that's your thing then the trader lab won't be for you and it's okay to ask questions we've all been there and you're gonna it's gonna take you some time to realign your thinking I know when I started well let's tell you it's hard to remember but when I started I had certain beliefs I was very naive I thought oh classical bar charting there's I had shoulders you know don't we all do that so that's where I started I took a course at the CME and I learned classical bar charting and I went oh then I had to do my charts by hand we didn't have computers it did my charts by hand and then oh gee that trend line blew off let me erase that you know what I mean yeah we all done this but the point is that many others have done it and the key to this is if it's not working I'm going to suggest don't keep doing what doesn't work you already know if it works and what your mind is going to do is remember the times it does work because the environment we're in is random the differential is having a consistent process that actually gives you a statistic what is my probability if I get long here or here that I'm going to get back to this volume so I can get risk neutral that's the first one then how do I manage my trade not necessarily an order and then what well I know this is sitting up here with in the order book so that we might take that out I also know up in here up in somewhere up here and let me find it this is a potential target on the outside edge of a higher time frame Russian dolls so I'm trading those fractals so this is what the trader lab is all about not complicated I'm not going to say it's easy because the bigger obstacle assuming you can let go beliefs that might not be appropriate for the real world of the business of trading is to deal with your emotions which are going to be making a mess because we are triggered if you were sitting and shorting shorting and now you've or yesterday you missed the upside and you're saying well I can't go any higher and you'll walk in the day and you're selling when that's not the context why because you want to make up for what you didn't get yesterday or how about this you come in the day and you get very aggressive with no plan and you get chopped up because you're not being patient for a vetted trade or you don't understand the context remember in a trend configuration yesterday's high was a high probability 77 was a high probability you see if you have a trade plan you'd know that then you'd be saying to yourself and 55 also overnight high you see all these were targets now you need to accept it's all random you know that not part of the business of trading because you have no control my best way to compare this is to Las Vegas the house deals the cards to the gamblers the house has a vetted edge in the game they don't change the game whatever the house throws the cards out they're random the gamblers play the cards they play it randomly it's all random but the house has a statistical edge and over time the dollars transfer from the gamblers to the house that is what the business of trading is it's about having a statistical edge and each structure trade each setup however you want to define it has to have its own edge and the other part of it is and here's what's most difficult for traders is knowing which structure trades fit in different environments because it's not mechanical the context is the top here input in other words what's going on here with this volume and price and you know what's happening that is the primary I call this the chassis that's the primary input now this thing is going you don't need me to show you this I want to show you something else that I think you might find interesting this is the process and I haven't showed this in a while it is in the primer webinar in the bookmap discord trader lab chat along with the structure trade you can ponder this is how this works it's simple auction market theory is strictly pricing what's it worth what's it worth and the market moves from location to location try to figure out what's it worth in all timeframes and fractals so it doesn't in the micro and it does it in the higher time frame rush and all the volume profiles just the tool to see inside price so we know volume price in a vacuum doesn't mean anything your indicators basically depending what you use have nothing to do with that they're looking at it in time they're not looking at it in price that's a big differential then it's about the time frame that's frack you guys think of time I don't think of the clock I think of rotations and volume which is based on this this tells me now the time frame what do I trade in my typical risk and it's just me and I'm not saying anybody should do this you probably could do better is around three points on the outside edge or less per contract the if I'm let's and for the trader lab we only talk about building a template or a process it's a two lock configuration the job of the first contract is to buy the stop on the second one so the worst that happens is scratch the context is what is the condition of the market well we're in a trend configuration no shorts how do I use the micro structures I can see them as targets or obstacles and I can see them that tell me there might be a counter rotation back to another location and subject to what I observe and that's using book map and all the tools in book map is to get a line so if the trend is up context and inside of that trend it is rotational then I'm trading a different context inside of a context I'm actually trading something called mean reversion that's outside in trading in enough trend that's fractal and then of course book map I call it the tip of the spear I mean this is where it happens where I get down to the micro structures I watch the order flow I look at use the stops and iceberg detector to see what's going on and the liquidity you know how the order flow shifts in the book that's kind of what I do you know so I hope you get something out of this guys I hope you found today interesting I invite you all to come to the book map discord trader lab chat in addition to what I do there's a lot of other terrific education available what's this thing doing see what it's doing terrific education available stocks options ETFs I guess if you're a swing trader it's all the same right say this process by the way is generic you can trade any market with this process subject to vetting the specific characteristics of the market I mean we have traders in trader lab at trade and cues which is fine you know it's all the same crude you could trade pork bellies with us it really doesn't matter absolutely doesn't matter because the fundamental basis of the market is to figure out what it's worth and the market's job is to go as high as it needs to go who attract a seller in other words get overpriced or as low as it needs to go who attract the buyer and that's what you see here and that's what you're going to see in the higher time we're still going north of the border and that's fine where you if you are selling today I'm going to suggest you visit the trader lab there's a link in the bottom of YouTube you click on that you come over to book map discord chat visit the trader lab download the PDFs and start watching the library of webinars be sure to watch the first one the primer before you do anything because you need to build the foundation and then sit back take a deep breath and try to be open minded that's really it you know and this is not the end all anything this is just one way I found and it's just me and I'm not saying it's you I found that this was the purest form of understanding the market because it's not based on any indicator it's based on the participants that's who makes the market right so that's pretty much it come to book map discord trader lab chat you won't be solicited you don't have to be a subscriber you're going to learn a lot from a lot of other traders plus all the education market maker behavior crypto algorithmic behavior in a course order flow and for me I got book map in 2015 because I could not read the dome and believe me I tried I could not read the dome so I said oh this is great this keeps track of everything I can see the algos I can see now the buy stops who's I mean 500 stops there's a thousand stops right here why huh that's a thought thanks for visiting guys please give a thumb up in YouTube if you got something out of it Joe in discord we do not you make your own trade plans but we give you the tools to start putting it together there's no blueprint there's process everybody operates differently but the structured trades I provide are really a place you can start you might be able to save yourself years by just coming to trader lab and picking up some ideas I'm not suggesting it's it's a you know it's the end it's the solution I'm suggesting it's a piece and then it's up to you what you do with it you make it your own you know what I do I can tell you I mean there's there's vendors and other people to say it absolutely doesn't work and I'm going to say maybe it just doesn't work for them it certainly works for me and for many in the trader lab thanks for visiting guys have a great weekend this stream is available exclusively to trader lab participants who want to review it it'll be available through the weekend if you come to trader lab these streams are available otherwise they are not there's just too many and I don't keep them up the other thing is there's a webinar library there I think things that are more material than just another day in the jungle thanks again have a super weekend thumb up please in youtube I appreciate you visiting the trader lab hope you see you in the trader lab thanks again guys appreciate you that is in the trader lab click the link below give a thumb up you want to go to join the discord trader lab get some materials and hang out you're welcome and uh thumb up in youtube on the way out thanks again guys have a great weekend