I've PMed Don for you. Let's see if you even work for Bright Trading. It's not about wrong or right. You simply do not have the faintest idea of what tape reading is. You sound like a mook. A mook tries to step in front of bids and offers and then runs in a panic when that bid or offer gets pulled. LOL. I use to make a lot of money off of mooks like you. Shit, if it were so easy to just look for a size bid and buy in front of it, everyone on ET would be billionaires! Think about it man. Free money. You could even automate it to watch every single listed stock and search for size bids and offers. Free money! Oh man, if only trading were that easy. Let's see what Donnie boy has to say.
great thread guys - appreciate the time and effort it took to write everything out in detail - did you guys have a mentor to help get this type of experience ? or was it all by looking at the screen and trial by error?
Both, I had a couple experienced profitable traders show me the ropes and then, day after day of trading, I picked up my own niches and applied them to my trading. A mentor is great because he/she can lay the foundation for good trading down and then you take that foundation and build upon it through your own experience.
I had a mentor. I was probably with one of the best tape reading groups on the street. I don't want to use their full names on here but those of you in this business will probably recognize them: Adam W., Keith E., Eugene C., Saul F. This group probably collectively made 15 to 20 million a year. Not bad. I basically learned from these guys as well as stay late every night after the close. I would pull up all my stocks I traded that day and go through the time and sales from open to close. Every single print, every single stock. I would be the last guy out of the office to leave every night at 8 or 9 in the evening and turning the lights off only to be the first guy to turn the lights on in the morning. In other words, a lot of hard work.
Steve Tvardek asks: "Shortseller, do you really buy in front of big bids or sell in front of big offers" I have in no where stated this is the only "THING IN DETERMINING" a entry or exit point in trading. However I did mention it giving you a heads up for example look at a chart of what GE did Friday at about 3:00 - 3:30 there was a large bid at 33:50 buying up everything ... even when the spoos were headed down the buyer just sat there buying everything large size. and yes I bought a penny above him.. and we shot up. Large bids or offers also show support or resistance levels as well. There are many factors at work here so its hard to isolate anyone and try to weigh its merit alone because its never the only thing effecting a stocks price. I am very hard pressed to see SIZE buying constantly at one level and then all the sudden assume its a head FAKE. If we have a established buyer at a certain price level with size I would not want to be FIGHTING THAT position. Unless I am misunderstanding what is being suggested by some on here it seems as if they are taking the SIZE HEAD ON. Steam rolled if you will. Some more of the confusion is I am speaking only about REAL established size... and it appears others are talking about phony bids and offers. which I am not referring too. My mind sees it as supply and demand if we know there are many wanting to buy ... its only a matter of time till they drive the price up and vice versa.
You are wrong. If that size is not stepping up, it's not an aggressive buyer end of story. The reason he is sitting there absorbing all the size is because it's a stale buyer. The reason the mkt shot up after that is not because of him, he was not stepping up, he couldn't have pushed the market higher, it went higher because the spoos rallied. The only reason to ever step in front of a bid is if that bid is stepping up. If that bid is NOT showing size, and the stock is strong. Otherwise there is no reason to step in front of a stale bid.
We can sit here saying "your wrong", "no, your wrong" if you want to but I don't believe that adds anything to the discussion If the market (futures) is going down .. and people get short.. only to "not" have the stock move at all (being absorbed by a HUGE BUYER) .... guess what happens when the market turns.. those people are squeezed north and FEAR causes panic buying to the upside. exactly what happened here. over lay the spoos with ge ... you again are talking with out even looking at the data.. your wrong in assuming the spoos rallied ..
I'll tell you one thing, GE did not rally because of that stale buyer. Do not get fooled into thinking that just because GE rallied after that bid was getting hit, that it was because of that bid. That argument is non sequitur. That stock could have just as easily had the bottom fall out of it. And yes the spoos did rally into the close, albeit only a couple of handles. But they rallied and GE is the 2nd largest weighted cap in the sp 500. Like I said before, my criticism of you is around your statement that you are tape reading. You are not tape reading. You are simply stepping in front of large bids and offers. When a large bid shows up, I am already in the stock with my hand on the sell button waiting to see if the stock spreads up so I can sell into that spread. I am not buying the stock there, I'm SELLING it!
Since this is just 1 part of many overall tape reading data, you cannot make a decision, not nearly enough data. For example, what is the depth of the NYOB? What is the PREM or DISC to FV? And, if you were a Bright Trader, I would say you do nothing, because we would never trade a $100 stock...just plain bad, too much slippage. Tape reading is "all encompassing" - not just looking at a simple level 1 quote. Don