Hello, Just wondering if someone would care to enlighten me about using the T&S to hunt for clues about future price movements. Specifically, I'm interested in the significance of institutional 'block' trades. Are these detectable and or significant? What are some other techniques that people use to read the T&S? I am interested here in discussing swing as opposed to day trading time frames. Cheers, -Ben
bump I just discovered T&S in my charting program (SierraCharts) and it looks like the DOM to me in that it's too fast and randomly distributed to be useful. anyone want to help?
Tape reading via T&S does not work in the current environment. There are many off exchange blocks happening these days. Everything has become fragmented. Tape reading now involves watching key equities in different sectors, and seeing where the buyers and sellers are hiding. Also, studying program trading can help to recognize where the algos are trying to push the futures.
Put a filter on your T&S info so you're not distracted by every 1 lot piker that crosses the tape. Have it report only transactions above a certain size.
I put a filter on NQ at >= 50. I still see lots of red when price is going up and lots of green when price is going down. And sometimes alternating red and green during trends. And sometimes massive walls of green when price is chopping. Do not understand.
Only look at crucial S/R points. Reading the tape is no good without context. As an exercise, watch the volume, speed, and ratio of transactions on the ask in an uptrend pullback. Now watch this same set of transactions when a pullback turns into a reversal. What do you notice about the differences? If your software supports it I strongly recommend using playback with charts and t&s. Only screen time will show you anything useful.