Anyone using this platform ? It has gotten outstanding reviews on investimonials.. http://investimonials.com/software/reviews-jigsaw-trading.aspx However, I've never been a big fan of the DOM...especially in this day and age of the bots and algos. Any and all comments welcomed.
I'm a noob so my thoughts carry little value. I have 6 Bookmap charts up daily, alongside my TA charts of the highest moving stocks. What I see for stocks may reveal different information than other trading instruments. I find it very interesting, especially in this time of "bots and algos" to watch the DOM and how it directly correlates to and affects price movement. Liquidity is critical to price movement and seeing exactly where it is helps in determining an entrance or exit. Seeing the icebergs, which can be a brick wall to price movement, will prevent me from entering a position. With an accurate heat map, of DOM, you can watch the sudden removal and addition of orders, in relation to price movement, in attempts to manipulate the activity. JIgsaw is a little different than Bookmap, but it reveals buyers and sellers in real time, which I feel gives you an edge in determining when a reversal is forming among other things.
The DOM is OK as a trading platform. As for "market insights", I look for that in the price charts. Whatever spoofing may or may not go on in the DOM, I don't pay attention.
The DOM is basically "right here, right now" info and what most prop firms trade off. Charts - even the order flow charts showing depth history - show you what's gone on before. Think of it like "cause & effect". The effect is what you see on charts and of course you often see potential cause on charts - the DOM is all about cause. It's not about like or don't like. Bots and algos are largely irrelevant. It's not a "timeframe thing" It's about whether you trade based on what's happening now or what happened before. In terms of Bookmap - best thing to do is call your brokerage and ask how many live trades are going through that platform per month & make your decision based on that ;-)
I am aware that Bookmap does not include all trades, only those on TotalView and a few others; that certainly isn't the best and it certainly doesn't give you all of the data one would desire. I wish that Jigsaw would have an application for individual equities; I have spent a lot of time viewing Jigsaw videos. I know that to cover all equities is a much more complex task.
I think the DOM may be effective for scalping....you know target 4 ticks, risk 8 ticks in the spoos. I think I might give Jigsaw a shot as I have an IQ Feed subscription. However, my trades would go thru Interactive. How's that done ? Do I need to have TWS up and running to place the trades ?
If the software supports IB, most likely you won't need TWS, but the IB Gateway (essentially the API that the software would talk to). "Bots and algos are largely irrelevant. It's not a "timeframe thing" It's about whether you trade based on what's happening now or what happened before." I don't understand that statement. If there is a consistent and repeatable pattern that can be discerned from order flow, bots and algorithms co-located at the exchange will be able to react much faster than a human looking at a chart ever could. Additionally, instead of just monitoring order flow on one instrument, the algorithms can monitor order flow on multiple instruments at the same time. So I fail to see how a human could have any advantage trading off of just DOM / time and sales (tape reading).