You need to re-arrange the columns but that's pretty much it. You also need to set the colors for upticks, downticks, and double prints.
I made the colossal mistake of relying on open book this morning for an opening order. Since we're on the thread of tape reading, ... how do you guys play the morning on the NYSE? I've never been able to make money on the open, and want to try some strategies using 100s.
IBM 85.00 84.98 x 85.00 100 x 300 800 Something like that. I don't like having a bid column and ask column, can you put them in one column?
See "Don's Openings and More" - we've been making money for over 2 decades. Today, +$500 on 3 stocks. BTW...of course the NYOB is meaningless prior to the opening bell...and can even be deceptive (stale quotes or just miscellaneous quotes). All the best, Don
Just another comment: As one aspect of our trading, we try to become "Surrogate Specialists" in 2 or 3 stocks...know everything about them fundamentally and technically (and news, etc.)....that cuts down on research time, and we don't jump into someone else's "poker game" every day. We then, of course, add "wild card" stocks as the market dictates. But, if you think about it..the Specialists have been making money for 200 years....trade "with em" not "against them." No time and sales windows...we focus on bid/ask size, last trade size...last 1 and 2 prices (for direction). Combine this with an open montage with L2 and ECN's and NYOB, you pretty much see what you need to make good decisions...wait for gaps by having "outside" orders in...wait for the Specialist to gap up through your price, give you price improvement, and pretty much guarantees that you're on the same side as the Specialist...kind of like an Opening Only order, just mid-day. This takes practice, as does everything...but greatly reduces risk for newer traders especially. There are many ways to make money, and the bottom line is what counts...and we all have to adapt to the markets. Some of you may find this article of interest, about adapting to the markets. www.stocktrading.com/Adapting.html All the best, Don
mav, Can you elaborate on the NYSE and Arca merger (I believe you said tape reading would not be valid anymore) and if Don could elaborate on his feelings also. Thanks Glock
I've read the threads regarding tape reading all the way through. In addition, I have also read the post by Maverick on double prints. First of all, I would like to thank you, Maverick, for writing that fantastic little article. I literally read that and tested it out the following day. I noticed CVX was showing a lot of double pritnts, at 700, 1400, 1000, 500, i mean everywhere. Naturally i got very excited since i just read about them last night. So i bought a 100 shares, then another 100, and another 100, and sold them at 300 right before the prices start to drop again (i'm normally not that accurate at timing and spotting the best time for entry and exit, but i did well that day) And from only 300 shares, i made about 62 dollars out of it. So thank you so much for that article. Do double pritns happen very often? And if so, how many should i see before i know it's really a strong buy. I mean sometimes there would be a lot of them , but also a lot of times, there would be an odd one here and there, with a lot of time in between. Finally, I was wondering if you/or anyone reading this would want to show us beginner traders more things to look for like the tip on doubleprints, I t hink that would be very very helpful. For example, could someone explain how to spot fakeouts, sudden change in the bid/ask spread(to a wider gap), refresh orders, cross order, and show us exactly why they are important, and how we could indicate them and use them to our benefits? Even little things would be much appreciated here. For example, given a certain scenario and situation, let's say the stock is going a certain way, and the sellsize is decreasing or increasing, bid size is decreasing or increasing, and the pritns are going off at whatever price, or whether there are a lot of people buying off the offer stocks, what do these all represent, what type of action would be more favorable here... I think more posts with insights and description like the one i just described here, and the one posted by Maverick would really help accelerate the beginner traders to a newer level. Speaking from personaly experience, having learned to identify double prints, and the meaning behind them, and actually seeing them being demonstrated in a live setting is just exhilirating. And by learning a few new things each day, no matter how trivial they are, it has no doubt helped mold me to become a better trader. The game is there, and the game is exciting, but if I could just learn all the rules(how to read different little things in the tape) it would no doubt make this a much more enjoyable game. =D I have already fell in love with this game, but being able to only spot downtick, uptick, and doubleprints, i certainly dont feel at all comfortable with what i'm doing. If anyone could share a little bit of insight I would really appreciate it. Have a good one guys.
I posted an article about the merger on the trading forum. I dont think it approaches the issue of tape reading directly, but it should be a good guide of what we can expect from the merger.