Hmmm, what if the box had two dimensions, Price and Time? than a tall box may have to be wider than a short box, obviously.
you can also put a box on the vertical line..i personally do not..as my TIME is fairly constant when dealing with the ES/MES..but no reason why not if it helps clarify things!
some good points..if you place a horizontal line at a previous major S or R level..and price approaches the line..what is to say that this approach is the same as the previous approach? can you rely on volume..personally i think not for ES/MES..as..the majority of intraday trades on the ES are automated trading..with very little change in the OI..so..they are short term bets and not long term bets.. if you can distinguish between long term and short term bets then you might see some reasoning for going long or short..but..how is that accomplished!!!
So called S/R levels that you can visually see on a historical chart seems to me to not offer any real accuracy and are at best zones - not accurate levels. Intellectually, I never quite understood how volume analysis could mean f''k all in an instrument like ES/MES which is the subject of arbitrage, program trading and hedging activity left and right all day long. Volume, if it means anything, would make much more sense in single stocks or commodities. Time frame. Or time frame *******.
in the past i had buy and sell limit orders active..which..many times missed out by just 1 or 2 ticks..so..yes..a zone is the answer to resolve this issue..if you are sitting in front of the screen when it happens..then the zone need not be highlighted! i have spent many many hours looking at various volume at price levels..and..although sometimes you can "read" it correctly..at peak times it can be very misleading..so..i decided the best approach is to just ignore it completely! current level being equal to past level..how to decide direction of bet.. would that not be a so called "edge"
The original poster(s) focused on (US) stocks, which normally show a gap at the Open. @M4-1 ; you like E-mini and keep an eye on BTC; which are both continous contracts, but you don't like FX... Is the Open still that important...?
Of course. While it's true that the e-mini S&P 500 trades continuously - it's still a derivative of the S&P 500 index which have a cash session from 09:30 - 16:00.
I have to agree with that, although I'm obviously no expert. LOL. The market can rise on high/low volume. It can fall on high/low volume. But my main concern with volume in an instrument like ES is that what you see is very misleading (and for obvious reasons). I do still plot volume, but I can't say it influences my buy/sell sequences. In some ways I feel the same about the $TICK - which I'm still using. If something isn't consistently giving you an 'edge' - then why use it? Yet, I feel the $TICK is worth paying attention to as it can confirm strength/weakness and also provide some interesting divergences at price extremes. I think nysestocks spoke favourably of the $TICK. Do you use it?