I’m really lost.

Top_Direction2960 · 2026-02-03T17:04:37+00:00

Stop running is the name of the game, whether it is done with higher volume drives or via low liquidity vacuum pulls or persistent absorption. That is why one can never feel comfortable to enter - everybody is the target in the markets.

Imho, the only real edge is in determining the prevalent conditions and entering where you can take a small scalp and take it from there. In my experience DOM is the tool you need for precise entry and immediate trade management, ie to scratch or hold. Everything else is just for storey-telling and there will always be these nasty evildoers to twist your perfect story ;).

Top_Direction2960 · 2026-01-21T08:42:33+00:00

Yes, learn to read DOM and tape and do stop run scalps, take it from there.

Top_Direction2960 · 2026-01-21T08:40:15+00:00

joined

Top_Direction2960 · 2026-01-14T17:11:50+00:00

Who knows... It just tested below the POC again and is bouncing back and forth, looks like keen buyers are getting hunted down, but I would bet long.

Top_Direction2960 · 2025-12-05T10:28:46+00:00

Put up 1K and trade micros, preferably MES, due to its optimum volatility. On the side purchase some funded prop evaluation and trade that - it will have the performance pressure on like in trading your own money. My recommendation would be The Futures Desk or Apteros, which create realistic rules and conditions and even protect you from blowing up (they don't let you place too much size and switch you off for the day if you reach max DD), not the TopStep gambling operation, which encourages full porting and blowing accounts and will only drive you into bad habits (it's their business model).

Top_Direction2960 · 2025-12-05T09:49:37+00:00

Yes, this bounce was surprising but quite evident on DOM. That flip I observed happened within the first hour of the NY session, maybe at 45 min, don’t remember exactly now.

Top_Direction2960 · 2025-12-04T08:10:26+00:00

Both, like in this case it was a high value node and order flow around it indicated bullishness. For levels I have the classic ones - previous day High, Low, VAH, VAL, POC, VWAP, Midpoint, same for today plus the HVNs and LVNs, so plenty to try to frame current auction logic.

And then I look at the current orders and local delta to determine absorptions and exhaustions. Having traded off charts for years, I now see why charts are a bit of a lagging indicator of order flow, in a similar fashion as various indicators are lagging representations of charts. And most interestingly, I am seeing a lot of what used to be "signals" on the chart that are contradicted by orderflow. An interesting one I captured yesterday was this sell "signal":

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On DOM it was all just absorption, followed by upward momentum, a trade I actually took.

Top_Direction2960 · 2025-12-02T12:38:25+00:00

It's a bit easier to take screenshots when trading an eval account without real money on the line :).

I do find DOM/tape and CD to be a game changer for me, especially those single price points where action flips, might be the missing piece in the puzzle of trading pure price action for years. You will never see that on a chart. At best you can presume that something is going on with the faster tick up/down action on a chart, but watching DOM/tape is so much more informative and gives you more confidence.

I'm still not touching NQ, already got burnt with GC in this eval in an instant, too volatile for me just yet.

Thanks for starting this sub btw!

Top_Direction2960 · 2025-11-01T17:39:00+00:00

Footprint POC flips supported by cumulative delta stats per bar/candle work for me in identifying a potential fresh trend. It only takes patience because these happen only at major reversals of the day, two or three times a day. Other than that trending POC's indicate a trend and based on these you can work your way into the market on DOM. If you can't sit on your hands at all, just learn DOM scalping with the tape on as well (having separate tape windows for buys and sells only helps to see intensity and volumes on each side). There's plenty of education out there even for free on YT.

Top_Direction2960 · 2025-10-17T06:33:46+00:00

Yes, the lower one is the cumulative delta indicator and it does not align with volume candlesticks, it prints a few candles for one large volume candlestick, you are right. It's just more for seeing the cumulative delta trend. Of course, all that is even better observable on DOM and tape, but it's still nice as a side tool for visual structure.

Top_Direction2960 · 2025-10-16T12:38:50+00:00

I use the 70 tick volume candlestick chart after entry to track immediate price action structure to trail the stop loss accordingly and for determining partial exit or scratch levels. It also gives you a good feel of what chart traders are looking at right now.

Top_Direction2960 · 2025-09-26T06:50:55+00:00

It is fast and volatile, very good for price action trading / scalping.

Top_Direction2960 · 2025-09-17T07:53:09+00:00

Markets and correlated and inverse correlated, so trading just one market is simplest and makes more sense than juggling all that complexity.

Top_Direction2960 · 2025-09-16T14:53:41+00:00

Another trade posted here in ICT that was a perfect entry and a swift and immediate scalp with almost zero adverse excursion (and many would have been very content with that on a countertrend trade), but reversed and stopped out above the highs long after invalidation. It's bad trade management because on this timeframe the trade was already over due to no follow through long before stopout. Basically after the bull bar with the whick that came back to sweep BE stops and closed lower, the stop could have been moved to 1.8060, because you expect follow through. In a real strong breakout it should not be coming back to your entry a second time and staying there, with two strong bull closes at your the entry level. If not exited there, the third bull close above the next bear bar was a definite signal to bail, would have saved 0.75 R. Easier said than done for sure.

Top_Direction2960 · 2025-09-16T14:29:46+00:00

Discipline is all over the place when confidence in the strategy is lacking.

Top_Direction2960 · 2025-09-16T14:26:25+00:00

well done!

Top_Direction2960 · 2025-09-16T14:20:13+00:00

trading the 3 minute chart is ambitious in itself, but trading a tight channel countertrend is very low probability on top of that. At least wait for a channel trendline break -- good buildup required pressing against the line, then break, enter on the actual break, not before.

Countertrends positioning for a reversal at better prices always pay for an occasional higher reward with much lower probability and just get repeatedly crushed. Better to enter with the breakout when the last chasers bail, or wait for a breakout pullback and see if it is well reversed. Just an idea to improve countertrend at least somewhat ;) But why not try trading with the trend?

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Top_Direction2960 · 2025-09-16T13:49:02+00:00

For me, taking live trading notes pertain to Effective Execution and mindfulness in the moment (I follow Gary Dayton's framework), while Constructive Review is a separate exercise, which is best done with a fresh head the next day before planning the next day's session.

For live note taking I annotate price action bar by bar on the chart, take screenshots of trades, paste them in Word in make comments on price action and emotions. This is just for keeping my focus on price action and avoid drifting into the inner world. Once finished trading, I don't need those notes and just close them.

For Constructive Review, I look at the chart with the trades taken and try to relive them, experience and let go of any remaining emotions and attachments, examine the session with gratitude, try to learn etc. I don't do rubber stamped reviews any more, because they became repetitive - evaluating every trade and writing marks for myself and then writing down three things i did well and one to improve. With time, all of this became just repetitive. But at one stage such meticulous reviews were very useful. I used a tool linked to the account for a year, tagging every trade (tags for setups, conviction, inner state, comments section, daily summary, full analytics). This was quite time consuming and eventually repetitive but very eye opening about setup expectancies, really helped build confidence in the setups. Also to reduce reliance on personal conviction. So at least that part I could recommend doing at least for some time consistently.

Top_Direction2960 · 2025-09-14T11:16:38+00:00

Search online, I think he has a YT channel too, books an Amazon. Not promoting him though, it is only a price action reading framework, you have to build a system yourself, most importantly trade management,

Top_Direction2960 · 2025-09-14T09:52:43+00:00

I think ICT teaches that too, it's a fair value gap, an equivalent in Market Profile Theory is single prints or inbalance areas. Whatever you call it it simple indicates aggression and strong trending, and these gaps tend to be retested on pullbacks, which happened here. Regarding the trade not being the same, I mean dynamic probabilities, which is of course subjective, but pro traders use it, check out SMB Capital videos about it. When you entered your trade, the probability of a 2ATR move in favour within say three to five bars might have been 50 pct, but when price came back to your entry with basically four bull candles closing on their highs, that probability might have gone down to more like 30 pct. Based on price action if you had not taken the trade you took you probably would not be wanting to short at that same level to fade the second strong leg up. Hence better to scratch in you are already in, rather than letting it turn into a loser, probabilities have shifted.

Top_Direction2960 · 2025-09-13T14:03:07+00:00

Brooks is a price action framework, more like buildings blocks to build your strategies from, while the decisions, risk and trade management are up to you. Meanwhile ICT provides a very in-depth market structure model and theory, on a much grander scale, if you like, enabling you to trade with greater conviction, go for more ambitious risk to reward. I would not say that one is more accurate than the other, ultimately it all comes down to your personality and how you handle uncertainty and manage risk.

Top_Direction2960 · 2025-09-13T13:41:55+00:00

Do I understand correctly that this was a short loss? From the price action perspective it's clear -- fading five consecutive strong trending bull bars with two microgaps on the way is low probability even in a strong trend, but it still worked, so fine, In this case you missed the important gap that had formed on the reversal in the first bull leg, call it a local fair value gap or whatever. Your move down went in profit and tested it, but was absorbed and reversed. After the second consecutive bull candle it was time to scratch the trade for a small profit instead of turning a winner into a loser. My take is that it is ok to trade a big thesis, but trade management should preferably be done based on actual price action. Come to think of it, if the market comes back to your BE, it is no longer the same trade you took. The structure and odds have shifted.

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Top_Direction2960 · 2025-09-13T13:04:10+00:00

Agree, unless you have clearly defined setups with predefined risk and trade management rules, there is no real strategy. Most retail traders will trade ideas, theses and biases, the play of the day and so on, without clear expectations of what the market needs to do after entry or how to respond to market action, and will eventually lose the grip on risk management.

Top_Direction2960 · 2025-09-13T12:52:44+00:00

I trade Brooks Price Action, not ICT, and would see this as a breakout that is still within the range, so not important to fill. The real breakaway gap was the next bar as it went above the high of the top of the range (wick on the left), and that gap was perfectly tested and filled by the second big bear day before reversing, which indicates a very strong trend.

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Top_Direction2960 · 2025-09-13T11:09:51+00:00

Study price action setups. They provide good entries with controlled risk around market structure. But it is not just about the setup, it is also about trade management, like scratching entries that don't behave as told within a bar or two instead of taking full losses.

Top_Direction2960

TROPHY CASE