1. Are there participants who know that information? 2. I like your second point as well. Could you share some examples, say based on time of day or other?
I have no idea if I buy from losing traders, or if buy from traders being stopped out of a short position at a loss, or if I buy from someone who thinks this particular breakout is going to fail and they use the liquidity of a stop cluster to exit a profitable long position because of what they think. BTW, I rarely buy a new high, but if I tallied the stats of all the times I did buy a new high, less than 5% of the trades were losing trades because I only trade breakout setups under positive expectancy conditions and I scratch the trade if the breakout is weak. This thread asked if counter-party information would help me, I said it would help me in no way, and you asked if I wanted you to provide an example. I mistakenly thought you were going to provide me with an example of how knowing the intent of my counter-party would be helpful to my trading.
Yes, and I gave you the example (I explain why it is below). Before I do, I want you to know that I am not against your views. I like to think with the views and opposite the views to hopefully make a less complete analysis. Back to your point. The new highs automatically exclude any loser from the long side, because anyone who is long at that point has a profit. So in a new high, if your counterparty is a long it means he was not a loser, and he is a winner (excluding commission). I just wanted to point that out since you said it is of no help. If new high buyers make money, then it may seem as counter intuitive, but I trust the people when they say they make money from new highs. I am one of those who believe that people by nature are good. You may have noticed that some people abused me, and I stayed silent. They seemed to have assumed that because they think I have a different view, and wrongly conclude I am against them. I am not. I am just trying to think and analyze in an objective way. I believe in goodness, and also in the goodness of forgiveness. So your concept/perception of rivers might be correct under certain circumstances.
would you want to know if the other side of trade had inside info? of course. more info is better. the "I only trade price action, pure trader I am" responses were predictable.
In the pits knowing who was on the other side was valuable. If a local was buying you knew it was a scalp. If a big house broker was buying them it might led to a move. If it was outside paper then it was just the public. In the old days the paper coming into the pit was colored based on where the order was coming from, public, broker, local. This was a significant advantage the pit trader had. Listen to a SP squakbox and you see the value of knowing who is buying and who is selling.