New to a given trader maybe but not new to the dynamics of trading. This sort of thing dates back to the end of the 19th century. You may find the following article from Business Insider interesting. It explores how "big-money" traders trade, and it's a real eye-opener for most retail traders. The Richard Wyckoff Stock Trading Method.
yes, Wyckoff general structure is in my view still in work but the problem is that in today`s market its even harder to spot , especially on US market because of the number of assets you can operate on (which means overall liquidity pool where big trader can hide with his size). That is why at one point I realised that reading tape or analysing order flow on for example just emini futures is rather pointless because you see just a fraction of a market and volumes.
Depends on what one means by "market". I find these manipulations easy to spot in the NQ, and probably would in the ES if I were interested in trading it (I gave up on stocks long ago). But if this is more than just an intellectual exercise for you, look for things that are directional but that aren't cute about it, that are mean-reverting, that reverse cleanly, that are liquid, that are reasonably predictable, that are popular with "big money". There's no reason why trading needs to involve back-breaking work. As for what one "sees", if it doesn't show up on the chart, I don't much care. But if it prints, it's there to see for those who know what to look for.
One would have better results by measuring relative volume within the instrument. Tape reading produces better signals when one’s resolution of perception is coupled with the market’s granularity. The majority doesn’t penetrate nor explore the relationships that are present beyond the limit of a cursory understanding of market structure. Instead these price movements are defined and interpeted as ‘random’ and/or ‘noise.’ Every area of PA that is noise to one trader is signal to a more informed, knowledgeable and profitable one. Contextual understanding of market action is fractal, nested and interlocking with layers of context above and below any domain of focus. Most consider signal the presence of something - this perception is distinct from the signal generated by the absence of something. PA when compared and contrasted within multiple timeframes, all observed through ‘sweeps’, one can see the dependent variable of price led by the independent variable of volume. An analogy would be tracking footprints at the edge of incoming waves on the beach. The footprints are easy to see until the incoming tide obscures the view. This is similar to looking ‘inside a bar’ on a faster timeframe.
"back breaking" is very subjective now days. Although what im saying might seem overthought or complicated, having some coding skills and data feeds on a plate it really looks "back breaking" for people who wont handle amount of information by eye, its imposible ofcourse. But since everyone is able to quantify whatever amount of data available it makes a big difference as what is hard or overcomplicated i guess. I do not want to underestimate any other way of trading like PA, I know it works for many traders. Its just that what Iv learned about some more advanced traders than me is that chart itself is the last thing they actually look at, treating technical analysis as just a small part of timing their ideas, also price is used to advertise certain things so people see it and react on it. What im trying to do is use as much information coming from the market as I can. Its just about widen my perspective and quantify it.
I agree that "back-breaking" is subjective. Some traders consider looking up an unfamiliar term on Investopedia to be back-breaking. As for seeming overthought or complicated, one can't really know what he needs to know until he begins his investigations. He can then sift through it all and come up with what he truly needs. You are to be commended for doing the investigating; most would spend their time looking for someone who'd give them an answer. Not necessarily a good answer, or a useful answer, or anything resembling a correct answer, but any answer that would enable them to avoid doing their own research. As for charts and TA and so forth, you may not have decided what interval you want to focus on: daily, weekly, or intraday. And you probably shouldn't try until you're farther along in your investigations. You will likely find, for example, that intraday volume is far more informative than daily volume, much less weekly volume, at least with indices and index futures, whereas volume of equities can be very informative regardless of the interval. But if you're interested in using the information that comes from the market and not what is commonly referred to as "technical analysis", much less the gobbledy-gook that is often ladled onto charts, you could do a lot worse than Wyckoff. In fact anyone who predates indicators would bear a look-see, particularly if they were working before technical analysis became a "thing" (TA is after all nothing more than the analysis of price movement. Or used to be).
This was interesting today, 30 minutes before news about North Korea hit news feeds something happened if you look at wide market which I was talking about before... There was no way you could read it out of price action... i think.