The point I would focus is: Do Dark pools affect us as retail traders? Are then Volume and put/call options ratio less indicative measures of smart money accumulation? if yes the countermeasure is: how do we monitor the real flow?
Oh! If i am wrong I apologize I explain you my train of thought if you lend me your ears for a minute: I decided to dedicate the weekend to ATS studies, so I run also a research in Elitetrader for `Dark Pools` key words and found 4 recent results were pointing to this thread: Is trading easy? Dark pools are sometimes cast in an unfavorable light but they serve a purpose by allowing large trades to proceed without affecting the wider... Post by: easymon1, Jul 16, 2022 in forum: Index Futures Is trading easy? https://www.investopedia.com/articles/markets/050614/introduction-dark-pools.asp Post by: tomi01, Jul 16, 2022 in forum: Index Futures Is trading easy? Who has access to dark pool price volume data? By what method? Does an entire parallel market exist with dark level 1, dark level 2, dark options,... Post by: easymon1, Jul 16, 2022 in forum: Index Futures Is trading easy? ...institutional lots are hidden from public view and known as dark pools, which affect the market price less than if they were in pubic view and... Post by: tomi01, Jul 16, 2022 in forum: Index Futures So I asked without quoting any of the 4 results nor starting a new thread. (Saying that although futures are super liquid, I guess there is some HFT that may justify dark pools but is just my view/assumption, but (outside paper trade) never traded futures, my famous broker does not allow me eligibility to take MES positions, and found really pitiful because what i want is just some hedge and swing some market direction for 3-5 days )
Getting older now, one minute too fast for me, hands/ memory slowing down, have switched to 5 minute. Profits much larger now and so is risk--20 points. Learning best is on internet, practice everyday. https://thepatternsite.com/BestPatterns.html
As traders, we need price to change. Dark pools are designed to obfuscate both Price and Volume to minimize change. If you are looking to understand real flow, then various Order Flow methodologies and tools are where you want focus your attention - Market Profile, Volume Profile and Footprint charting. The countermeasures are to go to higher levels in your trading timeframe, trade with the dominant market cycle and/or use different instruments. A simple 65d avg volume can give you DU and FRV as events that are characteristics of smart money accumulation in equities. Generally, Accumulation is with increasing volume and Consolidation is associated with decreasing volume.
I do not want to continue cause @SunTrader expressed his opinion of not speaking of dark pools for futures, and i respect cause is an estimated member of the forum and i guess experienced, just briefly: I am indeed using weekly more and more, but I forgot that I read was representative of the trend of the institutions. Thanks, this tip is gold to me to use as another tool to understand the marketing direction and institutional coverage, although does not help me of course to find inversions.I am gonna use more the 65d, I noticed that often indeed the market bounce often in that point(more the exponential than the simple for some reason) I found a service called FlowTrader that with 200 eu per month gives me a dark pool scanner, but looks too much for my capital, when i will start my hedge fund will buy it probably(sarcasm) As rule of thumb 40 per cent US markets transactions are Dark pools, still if I see huge volume in the normal charts should mean institutions could not cover a good part of their transaction in one bit(they did not find counterparts in ATS), so volume when is present remain still relevant, expecially on break outs Also I am going to try to trade in minor markets to see if they are more predictable, not having a lot of HFT and consequently DP That is really general, and because of exception can lead to probabilistic wrong trades, there is an universe of theory: the follow through studies from O'Neill, Anna Coulling book, Wyckoff and his followers.
Dark pool discussions and the index futures section are mutually exclusive. They cannot co-exist. Bring your dark-pool talk to the stocks section.
Forex trading is challenging to begin with because you have little knowledge about it. Once you begin practicing on your own and sign up for a demo account with a broker, trading is not difficult unless you practice with consistency. The biggest risk in life is not taking any risks.