Trade Execution - Chart Trader or DOM?

Hi all,

Question to discretionary traders who place orders manually:

Do you place trades from your charts or on your DOM?

Personally, I use and have always used the chart trader on Ninjatrader. I use automated strategies which always submits a hard stop and limit orders for my exit as soon as my entry order is filled. I can easily adjust both by drag and drop afterwards.

Would be curious to hear what others use and if there may be an advantage with using the DOM instead. It's possible that submitting the initial order can be faster?

Thanks.

PS: Don't really use the DOM for any analysis. Have considered implementing it, but not sure if I need it or it would benefit me or my style of trading.

 

I've traded a lot of different platforms and speaking from personal experience I can execute orders faster on a DOM than a chart(this positive does not out weigh the negatives)

With that said, as far as efficiency all the information I have seen, based on personal experience and based on all the long term successful traders I know(7 in total) placing orders on the chart is more efficient(particularly if you're using a chart / indicators on a chart to base your entry/exit decisions on).

Lastly not one successful trader I know uses information on the DOM, they all use information / indicators on a chart. One of them does use the DOM to enter positions, but they are also extremely confident in what they are trading and extremely mentally fit for trading, so the negatives of the DOM do not have any measurable effect on them.

 

I use the DOM with ATM.

 

If you do not use DOM information per se - save your vision, stay away from DOM.

 

Yup.

Only advantage of DOM is DOM.
You can see standing bids and asks.
I use both chart and DOM to place orders.

You don’t have the width of a chart on the DOM,
But it’s quicker to place and move orders to the tick.

Depends how you trade.

Nowadays not only DOM display the depths.
Bid ask spread. And the market orders hitting the liquidity.

And more information isn’t equal to better decisions making.

But if you scalp ... You need a DOM.
You’re just closer to the micro structure.

Some need to zoom in.
Some need to zoom out.

 

I was using the JigSaw DOM a little while back for a few weeks. Very interesting and exciting for sure, but I didn't yet use it to aid my trading decision/analysis. I'm a bit on the fence with regards to the actual utility of the DOM.

But it sure is interesting to see thos bids and offers both resting and going off. The JigSaw DOM is probably one of the better ones out there.

I will probably stick with chart trading for now, but interesting to see what everyone else is doing of course.

 

Discretionary traders:

Do you use automated strategies for taking profits, trailing stops and otherwise managing trades?

I already use an automated strategy for submitting orders, i.e., Ninjatrader submits a hard stop and a limit order at N ticks from my fill price.

I think it could be a wortwhile improvement to add a trailing stop to my trades too. Particularly in this fast moving market.

One basic improvement could for example be to trail my stop to B/E + 1 tick after 12 ticks of profit.

This can be easily set up in NT8.