Do what works for you, there is no right way. Don't try and overcomplicate things. You are dealing with emotion in the end so there is no rational why to figure out, only when. And the when has to with an imbalance in S&D which has been created by emotion.
(Sorry I may have mixed up level 2 and time of sales. I have been mostly looking at the T&S) To see such and imbalance that you speak of, would one look at limit orders being placed (on level 2) or the time and sales? Generally in the time and sales there is no imbalance as each buy order has already been matched with a sell. But I guess one could extrapolate a decrease in speed or change rate (or other function) of red vs green ratio. Where can the imbalance be seen better ?
Level 2 can lie. T&S will not. The speed of the tape is important. This type of trading is not for everyone. You to spend a lot of time looking at the tape and then formulate ideas on how things work then test the ideas.
Seems like the speed of the tape is an indication, but from what is given in the short time, I find that the speed turns around quickly, you can get a nice bar with a decent range but it is just a 1 min bar, a couple of cents, add to that reaction and execution time (entry and exiting) there is may be a few penny's to take. I guess one can set them selves up in a way that they pay low fees and that the profit minus thes fees add up to a penny or two. This usually happens but a few times a day though. so we are talking about 2 cent gains every few hours. Maybe there is a more long term thing to look at, I dont know .
To understand the bidding process one needs to look at it as a whole. Fragmented ideas that lack obviousness as of no use. Look, when I go to a store to buy some thing I am greeted at the door with air-conditioning and a carpet. I am offered a low price on things that people do not want. Where's my AC when I buy some ones crap ? Where's my premium, my rewards miles ? Maybe I missed the special while being slapped in the face.
"tape reading" came long before anything you are talking talking talking about. For all you look at, you still do not know the games played on the DOM. I do not believe you know the relationship of the DOM and the T&S, even. Have you ever seen an OTR chart with volume? Don't answer. Markets cycle because there are two kinds of trends. Between each is an important moment. Sometimes you speak of "momentum" as if you can see it or measure it. Some people can measure and you can't. The market is a system; the system operates with consumate precision. There is no noise, no anomalies and no flaws. Buy a clock and some tools. Take the clock apart and put it back together. A smart, intelligent person can learn clockworks by taking a piece off and putting it back 10 times. Then he can take off two pieces and but both back 20 times. And so on. In your case start with one leg of the clock. For you, you would make many many mistakes working on a clock. The way you deal with markets is more and more stupid than some tangible thing like a clock. ET really got screwed when you showed up. The connection between volume and price is that volume is the independent variable and price is the dependent variable. charts are NOT presented the common way two variable charts are ordinarily presented. Y =mx + b, is a common 2 variable equation. But markets do not use continuous functions. Charts have panes and just one variable is put on each pane. The DOM shows two variables and so does T&S. You are so mixed up you will never ever see a market much less follow it.
A number of data is given I find 1. price 2. time 3. number of transactions 4. number of volume of transactions. 5. Then the Level 2 which I do not look at. Im not sure if it is quantifiable. it seems more like a poker game. 6 colors The funny thing is that the value of things seem to change. I wake up and decided if I should buy some thing. I look for a reason to buy. I dont say wow this was cheaper yesterday I didn't want it yesterday so i dont want it today. It is about extracting the information How does one get it? once that is done you can have a dashboard. if value changes we need to see if we can adjust backwards . We need to normalize data to see the price and demand. Or we need to make it linear. To do this we can accumulate snapshots of price and demand. once we identify a common point ,say of no interest. We can proceed to plot the change on yet another chart. Now we should have some thing a bit more linear. a formulae that can bring us back to our first chart. Adding this with some common sense should at least clear out some noise. Maybe even show where the noise comes from. You need some tools here. you need people or money.Or you can try to learn. but there is just to much to learn.
This thread is about the independent variable, volume. The mind deals with three operators: space, shapes, and movement. I left the annotating on the independent variable blank except for arrows to show the relative volume, a number (3) to show something begininng, and a blue zone to start a retro process. One of the four pillars of trading involves getting permission to measure the independent variable. I use color for this and one symbol as THE signal for making the measurement. Look for the various colors of the "U's".