 30 seconds, 20 seconds to use it then. Seven, six, five, two, three. Good morning traders, welcome to the Traders Lab. I'm your host Tom B. Thanks for stopping by today. Can I please get a audio and screen check in YouTube and the Discard Trader Lab? Thank you. Well, everyone, welcome to the Traders Lab. I'm your host Tom B. Thanks for visiting the Trader Lab today. I stream Monday through Friday, 11.30 to one piece of standard time. And this stream is about integrating book map order flow tools with auction market theory using the volume profile in the intraday developing time frame. You will be hearing some alerts in the background. There shouldn't be too many of them, but you will hear a few. One moment. Again, just to remind you guys, I am streaming from Costa Rica at the currently and infrastructure in Costa Rica. I'm in a very small little beach town, monkey swinging through the trees and the rest of it, and internet and power are intermittent, which makes it challenging. I do not trade live from here often, just so you know. And sometimes if you just, or if I am going to step out on the wild side, I would reduce size, but I did not take any trades today, but I certainly narrate them all the time, just so you guys know. The other thing about this is, if I do disappear, it probably means the internet dropped out or the power did. And if that happens, I will come back into the Bookmap Discord Trader Lab channel. If I drop out of YouTube, I may have a little more trouble getting back in. Another link may replace the one, if I lose this one, but if you cannot access it, there is a link in the bottom of the YouTube chat, so you can come over to the Bookmap Discord Trader Lab server. And you don't have to be a Bookmap subscriber. Bookmap will not solicit you if you should take that path, if you'd like to continue the stream. And again, thanks for visiting the Trader Lab. General disclosure, all Bookmap limited materials, information and presentations are for educational purposes only and should not be considered specific investment advice or recommendations. Risk disclosure, trading futures equities and digital currencies involves substantial risk of loss and it's not suitable for all investors. Past performance is not necessarily indicative of future results. I'm pleased to remember this is not a trade calling room. This stream is based on structured trades that you can download from the Bookmap Discord Trader Lab 60 PDFs of structured trades that you can reverse engineer and determine if they might have a good fit for you. In addition, when we discuss statistics which I don't spend too much time on, you can download stats that may help you get a sense of only probabilities of what might happen and there is no such thing of what will happen in trading. It's only maybe and always coming back to this and if you're new in the stream thanks for visiting. Trading is a statistically based random process. Statistically based means over a large sample size the probability of one thing happening over the other and the other part is you're in a random environment it never has to happen. It's a random distribution of outcomes. It's really gaming theory. Very simple. Just how the casinos operate. Their business model they've done really good only playing games that have a statistical edge and if we isolate what we do as far as structured trades or setups think of them the same way as a casino looks at their games. They are processes or games that are played with a statistical edge. The outcome of each hand or for us each trade is random and it's over the large sample size that this edge shows up. The casinos extract dollars from gamblers in a random environment. Gamblers do walk out with cash. That's part of the joy and for the casinos who see this like a business and if you're a professional career trader you will now see this like a business unless you want to sit up slot machine then you're going to see it like a gambler. You can be the gambler or you can change where you sit or position yourself and potentially become the house. It's up to you to decide. The other thing is nobody can predict the outcome of the next hand in the casino and we can't predict the outcome of the next trade. It's hard mentally or psychologically I should say to embrace that belief because we believe we can do better and psychologically we need to do better. Now the need to do better is emotional. It has really nothing to do with the business so what you need to fulfill a psychological need being right predicting and all that is not really based on the business of trading it's based on underlying psychology in our wiring. Run from fear you know run from the saber-toothed tiger it's all part of our our instinctual behavior and it works really well to survive you know running from the saber-toothed tiger but when you run into risk it's the same as running face-to-face with the saber-toothed tiger as far as your wiring is concerned. These are elements that are very important to learn to understand and to accept. Now I'm not saying you should accept them I'm saying is if you want to be in the business of trading you're going to need to understand these elements and again thanks for visiting the Trader Lab. So let's go take a look at today and the open. So what did we do? We opened lower outside of yesterday's range. Yesterday we had something called a neutral day. A neutral day means the first hour high and low of that day what's taken out and now what does that mean? We got to understand what's going on. First of all the market was long everybody's long right? We had the the rally and you know all this kind of nice thing and then yesterday we had neutral. Neutral is a market profile term that means the first hour high and low are taken out. Now theoretically I'm only and I talk theory only because that's all it is you know and theory is just another piece of maybe isn't it? So theoretically if you're able to take out the first hours high or low it means that a higher time frame participant was able to move price outside of the band and the reason the first hour high and low is important was back when market profile was created by Peter Stottelmeier and he was on the floor to CBOT and what it was is most volume in the morning goes off in the first hour of trade then we'd all go to breakfast and this is the floor don't forget and then we go down to Manny's on Jackson and go to breakfast that's what we all did. Then if the market moved out of the first hour's range because the volume had dropped off typically it meant that there was typically higher time frame participants who are able to move the market and who are potentially activated so that's why the first hour became important and in the market profile world that's called initial balance so why is that important? It means yesterday potentially if the first hour high is taken out and the first hour low there's a battle going on between both sides because both first hour high and lower taken out that means neutral it's like a stalemate now there's only about a 29 probability that's actually going to happen so the other piece becomes if you have two sides battling and it's almost like a standoff which is what it was yesterday because we came back inside the range after the first hour high first hour low and we came back in that means now it's coiled in other words somebody's going to be wrong think of a consolidation somebody's going to be wrong and all the energy that's wound up in this compression of two-sided battle one side's going to be off side and it's going to release I want you to understand what creates these conditions and then what it might tell us about what the potential is so before we come in we know this now what else do we know let's take a look you're going to find this interesting I hope let's go find out what's going on here okay let's look now this is eth okay our th hasn't opened yet so what we're going to do is before the market opens you need to have a plan your plan has to give you a sense of possibilities and that's based on probabilities opening lower outside of range this is the overnight volume point of control fancy term market profilage volume point of control is retail and I always equate trading to shopping very simple why should we make this complicated let's make it simple trading's hard enough why do we have to add more complexity into something that's kind of simple now random that's a different concept that is what makes it difficult however if we can cobble together an understanding of market mechanics and probabilities it might at times give us an edge over our competition so here's a statistic I'm not going to spend much time if we open lower outside of yesterday's range and we did somewhere down here someplace there the open is right there this was the highest retail price uh from the eth in other words fair if it's a fair price and we open away from it then there's a few possibilities one is the eth low let me give you that that's about almost an 80 probability past performance not i'm sorry a 70 probability past performance not indicative future results you got to vet everything 70 probability while we open there this is not what you call a big leap of faith then overnight volume point of control the last retail price high volume 85 probability okay taking out the first hour is high approximately a 67 probability and again we have no clue okay so and there's more but i'll start with that so what do i know if i open here i can anticipate selling i can anticipate this depending on how low i go and nobody knows you know how low this is like the limbo there used to be a song and i forget was called the limbo rock and i don't know if it was chubby checker i don't know if you guys ever heard of that but uh how low can you go well if we're in a random environment who knows but we don't know so we operate in i don't know so if we're in the i don't know then the possibility is at some point if we get sellers and we run out of sellers then those shorts that are in here become buyers buy stops then the possibility with 80 about 80 whatever it was percent which i already gave you is this now how do you get there do you get there uh it's part of the joy so everybody tracking so far how we doing are we all conscious or did you pass out already and remember if you have questions uh yeah chubby checker wow i think i damaged my spine doing the twist um if you have questions please post them if you're in trader lab and if you're in the book map you uh youtube uh thanks for visiting a trader lab please post your questions there's a bit of a delay i'll do my best to get back uh also if it's not relevant to the stream uh please don't post them or post them in the general chat over in the book map discord so everybody okay let's continue so our th open here we go now let's watch now i'm going to show you struct remember this stream is based on structured trades that are available to everybody to reverse engineer in the book map discord trader lab uh the outcome of every trade is random and you need to understand the condition the reason i spend time with you is what is the context and we were having a very interesting conversation with one of our participants uh in the trader lab debbie as a matter of fact and it's about context and when if someone asked me and i get it i do get asked but if you were to ask me what's the hardest part of trading other than the emotional and psychological impediments which i think are the largest obstacle because i think you can learn everything else getting it down is understanding the condition of the market and who might be on the hook uh it's called context and the other part is when it changes to recognize potential change very difficult the reason it's difficult is we don't know anything has changed until hindsight so when the market changes its condition we're going to be zigan and the market is goes into transition we're going to get we're going to take stops uh the thing becomes in a trade plan understanding potential change and having a break you know by a break i mean an emergency break stop you know and that has to be part of your trade plan when it deviates from what you perceive to be the condition you're operating in there needs to be a breaker to stop you now the way we do it in the trader lab is called narration and that's conditional statements and i kind of got to this because when i built trading systems they were built on conditions so i always you know kind of not always but after i kind of started working on systems it's logic so conditional statements would create a branch that would take you down a path of and if you created a schematic there would be a sequence of steps for conditions that must be met and then sub conditions that would take you into like a decision matrix very simple so i kind of have that process built into my head because i think everything is conditional and context is conditional so depending on the condition hold on second guys let me see if i can lower that can't say i can but i'm going to try it might not have any impact on a but you know so let's look at the first trade okay so now let's look in the microstructure so what do we have gap high probably open overnight eth low high probability we're going to get over there overnight volume point of control on top potential target and clueless but what might we get now i'm going to give you another piece we are gapping out of range of the last several days and there's really nothing below us except the day we had a big breakout day and an acceleration or trend day up so that's poorly auctioned that means the market can go down into this area i don't like everything we don't okay uh gh i will get back to your question in a minute so here's the open so we anticipate the possibility of longs that are in here potentially selling and if they get caught then we can rotate and squeeze so that's what we know is it going to happen will it happen how will it happen i'm what we the term i like to use is clueless so rth open this is developing volume point of control right here this yellow line i'm going to mark it let's watch now i do this and this is micro structure it is extremely nuanced and you should not be in a hurry ever and if you're in a hurry it might be because your pulse is racing your adrenaline is pumping and you have fomo i find that there's loads of opportunity and i don't need to try to sell the high of anything because i have no clue where the high of anything or the low of anything is given up on that uh sign my job so this here is too high so let's look at what happens seller buyer this is too high now i don't know are we going to take this out what are we going to do i am clueless and write that down clueless what does clueless mean you can't predict watch we take out this first swing so far fine okay now i'm watching i've got two-sided trade so so far i've got nothing to do here this is micro structure here's microbiome nothing to do here right here i get something called vpok migration this suggests right here there now is too high here's my sellers so now how might i get into this trade let me show you here right there high volume let's look and see if we return to it right there is a short in the trader lab watch is everybody tracking now the next question i have for you do you know why are you guys with me in the trader lab gh manipulation and all that what does that have to do with trading i'm just asking because it is or it isn't this is part of the random nature you're learning of price move up and down the volume doesn't support it has nothing to do with it price moves all over the place it can move for a lot of reasons there can be volume or there can be pulling and if they pull it opens a vacuum so if there's limit orders on top or in other words sellers they pull there's no volume it creates a vacuum it's all it's not what you think it is it was it's just isn't like that in my opinion and at times it is so if that's random then how do you integrate an inconsistent process so that's just all i can say about it because i don't know i mean let me put it to you this way if that it's a part of let's think casinos that's a random piece i cannot quantify that piece versus any other random piece i can understand the volume and the price interaction i also can understand order flow but i have to understand what this says as a chassis for structured trades i then add in the nuance and that's what order flow does for me so this is a short you know so anyway this is your short so right there trader lab short off you go having a wonderful time now what do we have we have liquidity let me show you this liquidity so if you took a short here this is trader lab process now and and again these are not trade recommendations this is just what you can do if you come to trader lab you download these things and these trades and you can study them in reverse engineer now don't forget our statistics our statistics suggest a high probability of getting the overnight volume point of control what are you going to do about that so let's look this is called resting liquidity this means something if i'm short from up here which is right there there's my first trade i believe there um then i have to get risk neutral so my stop can stay above here where it fails and then i'm targeting this or or i'm targeting this for a scale subject to your plan and then i'm holding why would i hope because i don't know what the bottom of anything is now this is called v pock migration this is part of a structure in the trader lab well let's watch two possibilities everyone in the trader lab who's been in the trader lab for a while uh knows what's next we if this is too high and this is now the new price now what does this say let's talk for a moment this is a consolidation up here in other words from there to there is a rotational trade and it's the cutoff is right there the high volume is there so that's retail think of this like shopping i'm not paying that yeah but it's on sale and that's happening there it's on sale and we come back here i'm not going to pay that so too high too low retail if i can't get back above here just watch the symmetry i leave the store simple right now what's too high if this is too expensive i break in other words we get in a car we leave too high too low too high this separator is called a low volume node this is too high i switch down the volume developing volume point of control is here now this is retail too high too low too high too low so i've rejected this and what happened when we tested it we pushed away does everybody see that i want to make sure we're all in alignment are you guys tracking how we do it in youtube now we pull back here now right now we are auctioning this now this moves down what we want to see is the same thing that happened here it moved down we pushed away from it it moves down we want to push away from it to continue to down leg and if the opposite happens it might underline be saying this is too low so now and i don't remember this so i have joy look what it does we push away from it too low do you see the change can you see the opposite here i'm showing you context and structure i'm also showing you i have no idea what's going to happen because it's the way it is we don't know okay how we doing debbie so looking good louis there's our break uh oh push the other way problem so here's your choices exit and now there's a couple possibilities here's here they are and this will make you nutty because that's what it does does we have another structured trade in the trader lab here's what it's called vwap mid to v pock or vhvn to vhvn which is it wouldn't you like to know i wish i knew i don't know so this says the possibilities are this this to this or this to this to this and i can't tell you which one to trade i'm going to say that's what it says now if i'm thinking i'm out of range and i'm lower this trade is qualified to come back here and then it has to clear this to continue lower so let's watch so for me the trade is the following short short cover or hold short to hear scale if there's enough range now look at this you got to be using a toothpick and a micro micro you know a micron telescope for this so up to you i'm showing you structured trades the thing to understand i'm sharing this structure i cannot suggest to you what you do as far as the edge in other words if you see this trade and it's a trader lab structured trade what do you need range wise qualify the trade remember the matrix i talked about at the start of the stream conditional statements well what are the conditions right so if you got short here are do you have enough range from entry to hear to get scaled to cover your stop if it comes back above here the answer is no you don't have a you have a structured trade that's not qualified you still mentally narrate it and you still want to imprint in your brain the potential behavior the auction could care less about what we need individually to get from a risk management and a statistical probability you can learn these and then you have to fit them into your trade plan which is really about statistics so outside edge and here's another piece remember where here i'm going to give you another piece let me open it up a little bit i want to show you because i want you to see that there's there's a reason for all this remember this consolidation we broke out it's a breakout we pull back and test it here right that's also a potential short why we broke out this is an outside edge if this is too high we're going to do this now we're trading this distribution this drops down so just follow the story we want to see it do this this is now retail this is too high watch the story this is the outside edge here this drops down retail that's too high this is the outside edge this sets up the next structure trade vwap to vpok which is this do you have enough range if it did this is the short to here if it doesn't get below here it's going to come back potentially and come back here that's the story see it is everybody tracking i'm taking my time and this is for everybody who's trying to understand context which by the way is fluid so now let's look this is retail follow the yellow brick road follow the story this is too low this was too high this is too high this is too high this is the open where might we come back let's look at the levels this level was where our short was initiated remember right there so i know the following short to here and then if not these guys go away thanks for playing this is when the broker sends you the gift basket this was too high because we rejected it and in the micro developing structure this was our original short if you remember here this is also the open and of course anything can happen if this comes back here watch right here micro structure right there you see the volume you see the seller now we're looking at a test and the potential to come back under here and return here or not or keep going up this is where your trade plan comes in and where do we go this is your target you're trading this vhvn back here there let's look at it now i by the way if you're trying to do this i'm going to suggest don't i'm going to suggest you start reading it this is kind of and this is there's nothing easy in trading guys there's no mechanical aspect what i attempt to do is this is like reading a foreign language and believe me it is foreign um and translating real-time behavior i don't use any indicators the reason and what makes it hard is there's no absolute anything why didn't it stop here how about this it could have so what keeps me from just selling it here do you want to know what it is does anybody know why i won't sell it here come on take a chance willard are you asking me a question in in the chat r to r okay well debbie says retail okay let me tell you why i can't take a short here and i'm thinking i am by the way there and work because i have another level here but what what what did not happen let's look where's my trigger do i have a trigger here no what do i have i have uh maybe well we just went through here i don't have it struck i don't i have a location this is like real estate i have location i have no trigger okay are you guys with me now watch where's my next level so this is my area i'm stalking this this are areas now i'm looking for a trigger this is the next piece here's my micro high volume now i have no clue well look what else this is how book map is going to help now i'm in the microstructure i call book map the tip of the spear because now i'm zeroing in 57 by stops coming out 54 by stops coming out these aggregates i open it up at my location watch now book map location remember real estate location let me open this up a little further for you i'm going to show you how i use all these pieces now i'm getting down into fractals or microstructure okay so location and i'm going uh where's my trigger anybody see a trigger it's still going up i have an area i have no clue i am the clueless so i need a trigger what does a trigger look like are you in the trader lab you've been studying triggers haven't you not click the mouse here where's my trigger here there's my microstructure here's my volume break high that's not too high how about over here here's my volume i'm holding this i'm testing this volume from above break high oh well that's not too high here's my volume microstructure break low hmm where's my volume there now what suspect watch seller took out this volume watch seller structure volume trigger this is my short watch trying to get back here right so this is a short trigger this is what puts me in the trade this is the location not a wall an area very important are you guys tracking okay how are we doing in youtube so short break pullback vpok migration let's look at the behavior i'm spending time on this guys because what's the purpose of this stream think about it it's to help you read the market to speak the language and you know i'm not here to dazzle you it doesn't exist i mean let's get real everybody takes stops but what can we do to interact with the market on a timely basis that's what this is all about now this moves from here to here that is saying too low this is so right here let's look at the behavior notice how we went from here too low back to too high selling trigger break this shifts up this is a uh-oh moment but what does it have to do if we're going lower it can't go over this what does it do pulls back and what does it test this too high still that's also another trader lab short where are we trying to go here bang bang wasn't it share who did some uh some song bang bang they shot me no no i don't know i think i'm delirious so this is too high this is too low so short teeth chatter back to the micro high volume back to this volume is up here we're in ping pong world this this will make you nauseous always trade with an air sickness bag and what do we do we're going for this come back here another trader lab short or you're about to be stopped out guess what who knows if you think you need to know wrong business target there now helmet what and now here's the situation if this comes down here we're looking at the same process if we can't clear this we're going to come back here if we clear this then we have the potential to go south we got to get below this see the behavior same thing look too low too high too high is it too low let's look break below pull back potential short watch you see is everybody seeing this is process this is auction market theory you can understand this you are on your way to a better market understanding and market understanding of market mechanics is everybody seeing it share thanks debbie why am i spending time here you want to speak market do you want to do it other retail traders can't won't do do you want to be dependent on lagging indicators i use no indicator and by the way that doesn't spare me the privilege of taking stops that has nothing to do with it right this has to do with narrating an auction and this is not easy i mean this is two-sided trading it is abusive it's my least favorite condition now right in here i don't have a problem with this because we're kind of you know doing our thing but i have not and we're under the th low so we are heading south right looks pretty good for the shorts so let's walk look too high break come back here too high if i stay under here i'm doing pretty good if i come above this that puts me back to this or at least the mid in the v-walk so let's watch v-pock migration now you guys remember right v-pock let's go v-pock migration too high here too low too low break below too high right looking good lewis too high looking good lewis shifts down what do i want to see no cheating don't i want to see it push off let's look what the heck um look what happens here let's look right here that's resistance in my thinking because it was too high and then so you see how this once we break above here squeeze everybody gets carried out that's where trade management comes in so now let's look at this now and this by the way i could not do anything with um and i told you i'm not trading today but i let you know i'm trading it believe me i am trading it mentally i just this surprise and that's part of trading seven what is it uh all these stops went out stop sweep it was ugly so everybody gets carried out right here v-pock migration so this right here would be a short if you can activate i'm i could not even if i'm not trading i could activate it's just too fast so now i have a variable high volume note i checked the overnight low i now and the volume is all over the place uh i'm really uh not like in this what's too low this and this now this was a squeeze so remember we have overnight volume point of control i have to be thinking about so if this right here is too high i can now return here but i have no way in here i'm just telling you i looked at it and i said well that was a nice short and i'm sitting there like a deer in the headlights you know so there was no way i i would not be able to take this straight so if you were if you were able to if it's part of your plan congratulations i could not move this quick because i'm still like sitting there going what this shifts up i'm looking for the right the push i get the push that sets up a short but it was just i would not if you know for me to get in here i'd be selling it here and i gotta have you know my stop's gonna be over the high and uh it just didn't fit for me and this this this turns into junk so vpok migration vhvn vhvn and you see we're all over the place so this is not my thing so let's watch it though watch vpok migration so i have no clue in here i know this is too high this drops down we break above i don't have a trade i'm going confused this is too low confused break here test too high come back here this is a potential short for continuation here's what sets it up this is a problem too this is very problematic and if you don't take this trade it's okay uh i looked at this as a short squeeze i did not get short i would not get short if i was trading it i pulled back here right here i have conflict because i cleared this this is too high i break down here too low see i don't know if you hear roaring in the background that's a troop of monkeys that aren't too far away i don't i have filters on this so you don't hear that kind of stuff check here too high it's got to clear this to go lower this is an aggressive trade because this is what you've got to clear again if it doesn't fit you don't get involved your target is i below or i'm sorry i'd be 30 which is coming up vpok migration we wanted to push off where do we come back here that's a short in a trader lab wow those monkeys are really gone at it so this is a very hard trade i mean i could just tell you it's uh miserable if you had a hard time with this i have a hard time with it and that's because it's too side of trade is everybody with me so far and we're only in the nine a.m look at this thing now look at this so now what do we got we're at nine a.m and we have statistics at nine a.m nine a.m we have something called the i b 30 the i'd be 30 whichever side we break we have the possibility of taking out the first hours whichever side of at the first half hour breaks we have a statistical probability of continuing in that direction so right here we avoid the monkeys are really going here um we took this out nine a.m low which is there so we just popped it and then we're looking for us to pull back and continue instead we come all the way across and take out the first half hour high that changes the context around who a long probability and let me explain what it does and again not my joy at all puts this on the table the overnight uh volume point of control remember 83 percent probability okay you don't hear the monkeys rub well that's good they're not that close actually they're probably uh i don't know 100 200 feet away not maybe not that far might hear of a discord because i don't have filters and discord for noise so let's watch so market comes up we we traverse the range we take out the ib 30 sets up the ib high the ib high uh has about a 67 probability and the overnight volume point of control now has about an 85 probability so this sets the longs in motion so let's look so we come up it's 915 wow if you don't hear these monkeys you're lucky variable high volume node v pox shift we want it to bounce off it breaks down miserable trade too high we shift up you see how this chop is this is very bad for me i don't do well in this 903 te well i'm getting a question that uh was this a hint to get long well we wanted to stay below here and we wanted to stay below this one it was okay here and this is sort of your over under right here is when it broke through here you're out of your short this it's a mess i mean this is not my thing i'm going to tell you it's not my thing because this is chop uh and i posted in a trade lab we were in balance so this is very hard to trade uh it's very easy to make to get chopped up in here and here's why it's not honor i mean it's just two-sided trade the thing we have going here is statistics so this becomes if this is the high which it's going to be at 930 then the statistics are favoring the long side too low v pox migration if this is going down it's got to push off what does it do it does the opposite so this can set up along from here playing towards these statistics which is up there and here but you could take a bunch of pain in between trying to get a position for that because that's a target based on the probabilities here so that's target okay so this trade is doable but in here you could hurt yourself pretty bad i mean i in this condition it's not it's not one that i'm you know i'm just it's not aligned with what i do uh no we're dive a trade plan and i it's like the casino it's like everything else um the once i get into this i'm gonna what i have to do is i'm looking at my statistics and i know that the market has changed it failed to do something it failed to continue lower i also know that there are stops sitting in the market uh sellers right so i know you know this was all fine until here so this is all fine getting the short up here is fine getting below here is fine this shifts down we're looking for this we get the opposite we get that we come up here i'm going okay uh potential to come back mean reversion i'm looking for this i don't get there i don't get there then you get your explosion up now what well puts this back on the table so this is just hard trading i i just find it really hard hard for me it's not if it's easy for you give me a call we'll talk uh we come back here what do we got to do we got to clear this to go lower and this is this is mean reversion so if you're short from here you're looking for this and you're looking for it to come out here or there actually low volume area then down to here and out the bottom if it can't get below here too low then we're going to come back and check what was too high that's the logic how does it do it random okay so this becomes our target now the next possibility is the following and this this is really what's going to happen maybe if this is too high we're going to come back here if this is not too high we can fill the gap and squeeze out the rest of the seller that's what i know so here's the trade long if you got long and really the long is really down here getting long here very difficult because you can easily come outside because of mean reversion you have to decide you know it's one of those things i know the probability is to come here i don't know how if or when that's and write that down we can understand market mechanics we can't understand the path this is like saying well i know i'm headed towards the east coast and if i just point the car kind of in this direction but i don't know the roads i don't know anything i just know maybe i'll hit the Atlantic ocean at some point so that's what i know i don't know how if or even when or not yeah i don't know anything so this is too low don't know it this is too high is it too high i don't know it that's why it's a statistical target so if i have a long if i'm able to get long and the outside edge was out here here was the last outside then see if you had a long here even if you got involved here against this volume your stop would be under here then i like the trade getting long here i think is pretty difficult because your stop would have to be under there if that makes sense so and let's talk about why this is too low we rejected it right there you can see it you can see the buyers you can see the pull back to this volume let's look at it microstructure here buyer volume is here pull back who knows who low is here stop has to go under here if you're getting long your stop is under there not saying you can't pull back to here your stop has to be under here is that okay for you it's not terrible you know it's a couple points and then you're going here is that trade fit your risk reward parameters now let's watch the next trade now there's a couple possibilities let's go back overnight volume point of control price check in aisle three in the big store too high we rejected it that's what all this selling is about did we find too low let's come back and check too high if it's still too high what are we going to do mean revert if it's not too high what are we going to do push through fill the gap that's what i know i don't know anything else that's all i know thanks slaughter slaughterize you on the bond auction but let's look at this trade so this is your target now if you think we're going to fill the gap you be holding a runner if you don't think we're going to fill the gap you're going to be flat if you think we're going to mean revert and this is too high we're going to come back here that's the choices you have as a trader and any of them can be correct so let's look at the microstructure in a potential short and this is the way i kind of think i'm going if this then that if not then what if i get to the overnight volume point of control and because i'm auction based in my thinking it's too high the market has a tendency to visit prices in all fractals and timeframes to check them it's like you go into the store and they go price check and i'll free you know we don't know what it's going to do but we do know what creates these levels and that's volume and if the market had left this before it can come back and check it and if it's still too high it sets up return to the initial balance the initial balance is the first hour's high here's how this trade would work if this is too high we get a short and we come here outside edge low volume back here so a short here sets up a trade to there if we take this out we come back here if we don't take this out we can potentially come back take out the high and fill the gap and then we have another statistic up here also but that's another story so let's look at the short this is a short or not you know it's like what's your trade plan i'm going to just show you the trades so this has a probability and let me show you the trigger and everything else i'm going to show you the full thing if you're interested are you guys interested in this or should i just go along a little quicker okay um i'm trying to have saying let's see it okay now here's what's important alignment microstructure liquidity in the book let's come back i want to show you something i should have showed you this sooner see this liquidity it's been sitting here let's go back since the open here there so when you're looking at this i look at the price map which is volume and look at the alignment with the order flow they're sitting in the book they're waiting for it they're giving come on get over here so i'm looking at this i'm going okay i first of all if i'm long i got a scale or flatten out which was the trade now if this is too high i'm looking for it to come down so let's look at the trade watch this is the target here let's let's look at it microstructure target liquidity watch volume seller does this look familiar now where's my high volume it's there and let's go let me take you a little further back here i just want to open this up this is how i use book map i mean there's a lot of other pieces the book map that'll help you um i would i'm just going to try to keep it expedient i cover a lot of this in my other uh streams that are posted in the book map trader lab uh there's a library of webinars i've done that you can see a lot of this behavior plus some of them are four hours long of real-time narration as the market's rolling here i want to take you into structure here's my liquidity there's my target i do not pick the higher low of the day i do get lucky and trust me luck you can't take luck to the bank you can take skills to the bank and you can accept randomness like the casinos do because who knows here's my volume too high don't know more volume here than here clueless seller do you see the change in behavior watch where's my target there watch so i see my seller okay do you notice the change in behavior volume buyer buyer volume uh where's my buyer now i get my seller huh volume too high volume too high against this seller so subject to my still set i can be short here or there same is everybody tracking do you guys see it two entry opportunities if you're um quick draw on the draw and you are have unconscious competence and you understand the nuance you're short in here if you go oh that's a short and you're going darn it and now you're experiencing emotional stimulus and you're losing your mind it's called FOMO uh your job is not to get engaged it comes back here you know right there is the volume in this structure which is there can you see it this is the test remember i talked triggers remember triggers trigger there's the entry so your entry is here and if you were going uh like i do you see the seller and you see now this is too high this is too high all we did here is test it short here or here you'd be in here wherever stop is above here where you're going there i'm right ahead of it for a scale so watch so you put your short on you get a scale now let's manage the trade just follow so you'd be scaled and you're sitting here your stop goes here or subject to your trade management plan let's watch it watch it let's assume you got your scale comes back up let's assume you did not manage the trade let's assume you got scaled because this is the target you entered in here and your stop was here you would have maybe a happy meal or a distressed meal doesn't matter where do we come where do we come back to the volume and what do we do liquidity comes back in the book and what do we test this huh what do we do here chop chop chop chop volume let's look break pullback to what the volume anybody recognize anything similar trigger break pull back to the volume trigger break pull back to the volume is everybody tracking is that a yes is that a no is that what yeah this is trading write this down random random random get a rubber stamp put one on your forehead one on your hand and put the other one on your screen random casino random what do we know too high what do we know here buy stops let's assume you got taken out maybe it did maybe it didn't i don't know how do you manage your trade do you give it use a shoehorn give it a couple ticks put it above the liquidity all that subject to your plan you know but let's assume you got taken out let's be conservative and right here you're thinking oh my goodness it's gonna go to the moon no seller high volume test short where's your scale here where's the stops under here what are we shooting for mean reversion where's the stops mid vwap and maybe back to vpok let's look mid vwap i haven't seen any of this so this is all new to me down here this is your this is your target so what you're doing is you're trading high volume i'm not paying that well let's go back to retail target stops target is everybody see this trade and i still haven't seen any of this so what's going on anything oh there you go life in the fast lane and be everybody with me the big bars to the right um bars are you talking about these vertical bars uh gh those big bars to the right are volume this is delta so it's just showing me what i'm seeing here so what i have these green bubbles coming up it's just showing me the aggressor and that's buyers and buy stops it's also so and i'm just seeing this represented over here that's all i don't need to see this but it's there is that what you're asking about gh let me know 1017 was an i bc 1017 uh my time okay i'm getting an i was an i bc at 1017 15 16 17 oh you mean this yeah yeah yeah yeah right yes this could be a long so we have two setups here we have a short from here to here that's why the scale and the target was here okay then this is either a long back to here it could be and you're looking for and it has but here's the deal you got to clear this because we rejected it so this is where context comes in so here's what you have short to there thanks for pointing that out this is a structure trade in the trader lab long back to here and either through or selling structure short to here back to there so what you've got right here is you've got a short and a long and one of them is going to work now i'm kind of inclined to be bearish call me crazy don't call me crazy but i'm inclined to be want to be on the short side and if it by the way if it took this out it because it hasn't taken it out and we rejected it that suggests to me we're going down this is the priority of inputs and that thanks for asking that question teammate that that's a very good question right it is an i bc it's an i b continuation trade but what has the auction told us and it hasn't said absolutely anything it says maybe remember the best you have in trading is maybe it's saying this is too high this that's why the short the target is here because we might get buyers and if we take this out then yeah we go north if we can't take it out and the reason is it's too high the short then if we get under the i b this outside edge low volume then the next stop is down here return mean reversion does that make sense teammate that's a good question yeah you're welcome thanks for asking i forget all about these you know when i was looking at it i was actually thinking the same thing i bc you know i forget i should probably write these things now so now coming under we have what i b so if we come on so this is too high back to retail mean reversion now what let's go look at our volume this was too low so it's another target this and then the first hour's low and then we have something called a neutral day and so you guys know neutral days do tend to come in pairs so where are we here oh here we are so let's look so here i mean i say here it's like you know they're sequential to me so this was a variable high volume node it's a sequential location this is the outside edge high volume node this is the i b and if we take this out then uh we could put our helmet on and then you basically are going down the rapids potentially not a recommendation this is our target extended target out here not a recommendation this is not easy to trade i mean i don't think the term easy applies here uh because it's random right consolidation started 1051 i'm not sure this is a short off the overnight vpok that's that's the key to this the long at the i b brings you back to the overnight vpok if you clear it then we're looking for the overnight mid and getting into the range you don't clear it it's too high and we're coming back here that's a bit that's it fred then if we get under this now what we all we did here besides squeezing and abusing everybody thanks for playing uh is check this volume it's too high so that sets up out the bottom this is the only target i've got in the areas down here so that i'd be trading towards that 45 not a recommendation broke lower is a short if so on breakout would you wait for me well my short is up here right now we have another trade that'll potentially set up in the trader lab let me explain what's coming up we have a couple ways to play this and you got to be very careful now market is short so we can anticipate counter rotations we come out the bottom and rotate back in it sets up a couple possibilities and unfortunately none of them are pleasant if they don't work one is something called the ib continuation trade which is what the long was off of here if we come out here it sets a short up for the continuation down if we come back inside the ib it sets a potential to revert back to these levels here here and here so that's what i know our low volume outside edge of this distribution is there let me open it up so i have a couple possibilities all of them are shorts by the way so i have no longs not a recommendation i always got to say that because i'm kind of required because i'm this is not a trade calling room i just know what might happen i don't know what will happen i never will so i speculate on what might happen i get paid for taking the risk and i get paid for being willing to operate in a random environment that's why we get paid casinos get paid because they're in the same condition as we are okay let's watch let's see if we can see triggers these are not trade recommendations guys everybody gets abused part of the joy and it's the abuse part of it is basically overhead and cost of production it's very hard to separate yourself because dollars i understand in the emotional attachment and you feel it emotionally but i can tell you in the casino business somebody walks out with cash it's just cost of production and overhead you got to write that down and it's not easy to separate yourself i'm saying is that's your major obstacle that'll keep you from taking the next trade when it shows up because now you want to be right you want to earn it back casinos don't think that way they don't operate their business that way that's why it's so hard for us so let's look this is our i below this is an outside edge outside edge this is a low volume note so if we look at this like a distribution this is the outside edge what's above this out here let's think about you got to think about this stops or sit above here so the it could do anything of course this is a buying structure microstructure it's a trigger but it's not a long it's showing us that we're gonna potentially have an upside rotation so we're just generating we're not trading right we're hanging out let's watch so let's watch so this is too high this is our outside edge there that's a low volume node we're going to keep an eye on that we're going to watch this volume area here and we're going to watch this outside edge so right now we're looking at a potential short and we have no structure yet so we're just cruising we want to watch this which is related to this volume or potential short our obstacle is this volume here so right here we can push off so when i'm looking at this i'm looking i see a structure that suggests to me the market's going to move potentially higher now i don't know anything how far will it have to do anything this keeps me from getting short at the moment it lets me look for this rotation now i'm going to be looking on the other side what do i have i'm in micro these are not trade recommendations let's narrate together this is my outside edge and this is sloppy and very easily come back here come back yeah i could do anything right so let's not predict anything because we can't but what we can look for is an opportunity to get short somewhere structurally it would be out in this area stops are sitting above this swing this is the mean so if we come above here we have the mid the v-wap and now we're just going to tour let's watch these are not trade recommendations we're now up to our low volume area right here you guys tell me what you're not a trade recommendation what are we looking at here not a trade recommendation just follow the yellow brick follow the yellow brick remember this is retail this is outside edge of this distribution out here we're in mean reversion now so this is an was an area to observe just like this is the same behavior that's why this set this up now how high does it go that's part of the joy don't know so if we return to the mean let's just go look at our levels now stops are above this then we have stops here if we can't clear if we test this and push off it sets up a potential short back to there to there and 40 thought and we could just sit in garbage here you know it can do anything this is not a fun day to trade you know because of this I don't know fun's the right word but it's just a difficult day so what you're doing here is you came out into this liquidity back to the mean and where's retail stops v-wap and bid so now let's go to the other side and try to see what's there there's anything else to work with if we come through this this is the next low volume area it's out here let's let's label this so this is like a potential outside edge of the whole distribution and that says again we're going back into balance so what we're looking at is this from here to here so if we push through this it sets up that this and I and I nobody knows where you know this was too high right that's a short for an i b i b f so the trade is there to there the short to there to wherever back to here and since we got through this it sets up maybe back here or here and I I couldn't tell you because I don't know that's what this is right now it's still not fun now let me show you a little something else here let's just watch this go I got about five minutes by the way it's not an easy day to trade if you know I mean days like this I just like everybody else I take my trades I take my stops I get my scales and do whatever it does it does and if if you have an edge it'll show up there are going to be days you don't you just you know it does what it does you know so that's that's what this is but what do we know about today two-sided trade we know we check the overnight volume point of control too high so far we know that I think we had our shot to the upside and I suspect that's all I have suspicion that we're going to take this low out at some point and the potential is to get down to 45 or not not a recommendation to get down there high volume node and intermediate time frame so this is my target so if I can get a short that sets up cleanly get risk neutral I'm going for this or or not but I still inclined to think that we have a chance to come out the bottom any questions I hope you guys got something out of this today if you're in youtube I appreciate you visiting it's just that this is what it is this is trading you know I wish there was something more that I can offer but you know the reality of trading is this is what you got it's what's going on how do you get an alignment risk management uh structured trading developing an understanding of the mechanics of how the market works vetted structured trades where you know you have a statistical edge but the outcome of any interaction is random this is the casino business we are attempting to sit on the house side of the table the outcome of any trade is random uh casinos deal the cards they are random the way the gamblers play the cards and how they interact is random so it's all random the casinos only play games that have a statistical edge and because they don't change the game they're not emotionally attached to last hand or the next one they just play them the same way that's how they extract the dollars from the gamblers over a random sample distribution of interaction with gamblers they don't know which hand is going to pay them and they don't know what's going to pay to gamble we don't either it's very important to try to uh distance yourself from all your emotional needs and that's what'll take you out of this business over trading needing to be right needing to recover the last stop you took uh hesitating because you don't want to be wrong again you know all that stuff right if that's what you're doing that's not what casinos do so you need to emulate the gaming business and all its facets in fact in the trader lab that's what the trader lab is built on understanding market mechanics how the market works why it does what it does and also understanding the random nature of our business and we have no control the only thing we have control over is ourselves hopefully and our trade plan and the thing about a trade plan is and this is what we work on in the trader lab in fact you're all welcome there's 60 pdf so you can download from the trader lab of structured trades you pick one reverse engineer make it your own and then watch how it behaves and see once you understand the mechanics of the trade and how it fits in alignment see the thing about trading it isn't one size fits all it's the first in primary input it's what's the condition of the market well we're out of yesterday's range so far we tested the retail price and the eth it's too high and if we stay under here it leaves the bottom open if we stay under here now if we get above here then we can fill the gap and potentially get up here if we can't get above this location then that's potentially come out the bottom and go here or none of those that's what i know i don't know anything else this is the trader lab and this is what the reality of trading is it's maybe so how do you operate them maybe random environment anchored inputs uh the primary webinar i did and i did it not quite not even two years ago has over 27 000 views there's a good reason why it has that many views because it speaks to something that most other trading educators don't speak to it talks about the business of trading and it talks about structured trades and understanding this process from a high-level overview in other words market mechanics why does the market do what it does how do you get in alignment and you're all invited to visit the bookmap discart trader lab chat and there's a lot of additional free education stocks options crypto uh market maker behavior how to use a high tier tool like bookmap you know order flow understanding algorithmic behavior options trading market maker behavior goes on and on and and much more uh and there's a link in the bottom of youtube if you're interested in that uh you don't have to be a bookmap subscriber bookmap will never solicit you and it's all free also in the trader lab it's a community of like-minded traders looking to leverage their collective experience it's a team effort we're all looking to get better i look to get better every day and i'm not saying i'm uh you know i'm just like you the only difference is i've had more opportunity to wake up in the same place i call it trader groundhog day and i'm going on 44 years of trading that doesn't mean i know anything what it means is i've done i've spent more time at dead end that's what it means and it means that i've eliminated the things that don't work for me and the illusion that i was on the right track with processes that were defective the problem we have the least i had and i only talk about me is that in a random environment you are have winning trades and it takes you down a path of trying to tweak and tune a defective process and the thing you don't know about it is you believe it's working you just gotta make it better maybe another couple indicators maybe an adjustment maybe another time frame maybe this maybe that a little salt and pepper throw some mayo in there that's what we believe and we believe it because it's random and we have success with it the casinos don't operate that way why would they not do the same thing if it worked they don't do it maybe we can learn from a successful business model which is gaming and try to emulate a successful process not sit with the gamblers who are tweaking and tuning with random play with in a random environment the casinos are dealing random cards in a random environment but they play their game exactly the same way with anchored inputs this is what covered in my primer webinar and you can access that plus a library of webinars and some of them are up to four hours long of real-time narration as the market unfolds just like what you see me doing here but four hours of it if you're inclined please give a thumb up in youtube if you got something out of this i appreciate you visiting the trader lab remember the trader lab is here for you it's a free online community of like-minded traders it's a serious um a serious endeavor for serious traders it's not romper room it's professional um if you are satisfied with what you're doing but all means bring it with you to the trader lab and help us improve there's no right way to trade but we can certainly identify the ways that don't work randomness does not work the market is random you need to be consistent and anchored you need to be able to measure it you just like the casinos they only play games that have a vetted statistical vetted edge which means they don't make them up as they go they're not emotionally attached to the outcome they just deal the next hand we have a real hard time with that especially if we take losses because of our emotional attachment casinos don't work that way maybe we can learn something from them thanks for visiting guys hope you guys are having a good day thanks for visiting a trader lab to remember these streams are available to trader lab participants for review remember screenshots circles arrows build a library build a statistical base and remember we can trade with confidence we also have to accept that we are trading in randomness and depend on our statistics so we are operating like a business not like a an emotionally triggered individual which is what most retail traders are thanks again guys visiting a trader lab please give a thumb up in youtube i hope you got something from the stream remember we can only deal with what the market offers and hopefully if we have a vetted trade plan we can stay in alignment with it and when we get out of alignment we play we pay for the privilege that's the real world of trading thanks again guys appreciate it see you soon and please in the trader lab thanks again for being part of this terrific community if you're in youtube thumb up also there's the link in the bottom of youtube if you want to visit trader lab down take advantage of the resources in a great online community have a great day see you guys soon and remember trade with a plan and trade with an ad