It is a consolidated tape. The snapshot does not reveal its true character. But it is not a T&S window, and it is specifically designed only to show those stocks whose price action matters.
Hard to trade off that. Especially if you are only following a few stocks. Time and sales gives you more info and level2 shows where traders might be positioned. Real time charts don't tell you who is trading or how much each trade unless you aare using tick charts.
You sir are mostly correct. "Hard to trade off that".... especially when the market is closed. Hard to trade off that when the market is open, too! But what you don't yet realize... is that information is WORTHLESS for trading... which is my point for jumping into this thread! Everything you need to know... everything you actually want to know.. is in the price chart. Everything else is a needless distraction!! KISS, baby!
All I can say is that those who know wouldn't do without it, and those who don't do not know what they are missing. It is a skill, like anything else. For those who develop the skill, it is quite useful, and perhaps not in the manner many would think. It is an excellent tool for preventing losses (ignoring otherwise valid technical "signals") and exiting trades in order to book profits or prevent a larger loss by waiting for a technical stop loss to be hit.
from jesse livermore's 'reminisces of a stock operator' (I think), it's all about the 'patter of the tape' -- pure price action i follow blocks, speed of how fast price moves, ratio of red/green transaction order flow etc
That's good to know. Although I'm an old dog and the tricks I have used successfully over the years are ingrained.
Tape reading is a 100 year-old notion. Back in its day, it was the "cutting edge" because trades could be posted to the ticker tape faster than they could be "chalked-up" in trading rooms. Not the case any longer.
Tape reading for intraday traders is invaluable. For example, if you see frenzied activity with the bid getting hit hard but price does not down move much, what might be an reasonable expectation when this aggressive selling ends? Experience and judgement comes into play in determining what is meaningful, but is that not like anything else? If you do intraday trading, put up a time and sales on ZM and PEIX, two stocks with strong relative strength, along with a chart and give it a try for a few days. Watch the ebb and flow of activity. You might conclude that you can get away with some pretty tight stops while exiting into the “Wall” that later develops at the offer or bid. Depending on your time frame, you could scalp all day or get well positioned for a daytrade and combining WVAP and maybe considering ADR, or whatever else you may find valuable. By the way, an interesting study would be to focus on the tape at key areas such as S/R, VWAP, a retracement of a WRB, etc.