Bund Order Flow - 18th Sept

Massive Size In Treasuries At Settlement

Someone pointed out to me this unheard of action on the close.  Oddly size did NOT move the market.  40000 contracts trade in the Tnote in one minute across a few ticks only during settlement at the 9pm mark local time, dwarfing the entire days action.  Over these few minutes its the same volume as after the recent FOMC where it moved a full point.  Massive size across all markets. There is a 100000 offer in the 2 year.. crazy.  This was the last settlement before debt deadline too so maybe somethings up with that. Its a bit jumpy as is replay data.

EDIT: I asked some prop traders what the deal is here - This is end of month volume occurring at the close. Prop traders look for this to occur, which is all the funds closing out their positions for the sake of accounting, then immediately reopening the position.  As funds are doing this on the long and short side it occurs in a very tight range, on massive volume.  Some traders look for this end of month trading to get out of balance and trade the breakout.  They look for the same thing at end of quarter and annually, with more extreme volume on these occasions.  

Scalping The Bund Action

The first minute is fast forwarding for overview of the action.  

From 1 minute on watch the games start to play out with a big order chasing the Bund up which turns out to be real and a bunch of size trades up in the area of the Open.

Around minute 3  you can see the orders thicken up in the Bobl when its over as obvious as can be. 

Wish I was not poking about and hit in.

Bids Pumping Bund / Bobl / Schatz

Select full screen and 1080HD or Original Size.

I was reviewing some trades from just before I stepped aside for the holidays and thought this was a great example to study in the Bund / Bobl / Schatz.  What was probably a level, was forming where a lot of traders were looking for a break up The bids looked solid but were actually trying to push orders into the offers. Once it starts falling (around the 4 minute mark) bids pumping all the way down trying to hold it up, or more likely lure traders into hitting into what they already have on the offer.  I fell for it, taking just 3 ticks when the bids pumped, but reviewing this will help me hold on next time in this scenario

Aug 08 - Trade 5 Good Reading OK Execution in Bund

Select 1080 HD or Original.  A nice trade to get me back to even for the day.

Aug 08 - Trade 4 Lessons Relearned in Bund

Select 1080HD or Original Size for clear viewing.

Sort of trading related

Sure we want to get over the stepping stone and actually make bucketloads of money scalping the orderflow.  Perhaps there is better motivation then just making above and beyond hundreds of thousands.   80000hours.org/  actually recommends some people chose financials as a career if they want to do something meaningful with their lives.

Just a thought to fill in the void of posts lately.  More order flow vids to come soon.

April 24 - Comeback

To put this day in perspective, I was down 8 ticks. Had also scratched 3 trades that within moments would have been worth more than 20 ticks total.  In essence had been trading like a turnip, after having yesterday off even. Spirits were low, I was going to call it a day then things turned around. Volume really is my friend when reading the order flow. It makes it a lot easier to get a feel for things as there is more 'flow' less 'chop'.

The stops 6 ticks away are catastrophe stops incase I get disconnected or whatever.  I use ATM strategies in Ninja to place these.  Jigsaw cancels all trades when I close the position.

00:45   -  Felt the momentum in my bones.. and scratched immediately. Why oh why? Looks like I was chasing but volume was really building and I instinctively wanted to get a chance before it went to lows. As soon as I entered I panicked that I had just chased the market like a fool and should have known better so exited.

01:25   -  Offers were sticking at the step at '85 with momentum down still. Didn't go in the window I gave it so settled for 2 ticks.

03:10   -  Since didn't in previous trade and range was massively extended for the time trading so far in this Bund session I felt we might get a pop up so hit into the step at '85. Would know I was wrong if it went 3 ticks against me.

05:45   -  Got another opportunity at same setup before. Ideally would have bought '83 but 2nd time shouldn't stick around long if its going to go so I jumped on it.

Took one more trade later on and settled for 1 tick ... instead of about 8.. dam.

Music is added to make it slightly more exciting. Comment if you want me to stop doing that.

Oleg Teaching Us A Thing or Two

This is what he has to say: Published on Apr 10, 2013 That's how they crack the market. The buyers cannot absorb enough and the sellers just still hitting the bid. The probably best entry short is after a small print on the ask side, when on the next level the battle beguins. Watching attentively we can see on the firsts breakouts there are no prints up after some levels (which means the pressure still strong), and if the first entry short was missed, there are probably some opportunities left.

 As exemple, at the beguining there is 9 print at .86 ant then 71 at .85 on the ask side. The price then never lifts 9 and prints just about 100 contracts at .85. The rest of the battle is on the .84 level (about 4000 contracts whitin 1-2 min), where probably is the best short for the first range breakout.

April 10 - Needed this

I had been chopped up on two trades already, added to by a string of small losers over the last few trading days.  The Bund just seemed to be trading very thick with different behavior to what I am used to. Strange being all time highs, I would think there would be a lot of excitement. Regardless these two trades made me a small but meaningful 3 ticks up for the day. Hopefully this helps turn the corner for April.

March 11th, 2013

Thanks Mr G for setting up this blog. Heres a quick scalp on a slow day in the BOBL.

Bund dropped a few ticks so I expected Bobl to follow. Iceberg in the bobl was holding market and big red print in the schatz. Good set up.

March 7 - Scalps In Slow Bund GG

Trade 1 @ 1:00 (fast forwarded market upto that point)
Trade 2 @ 4:50 (leading into from 4 minutes) (fast forward between action)

Trade 1 
Doubled up in my editing so ignore trade at 30 seconds when footage slows. Based on the slow action I expected the Bund to reverse below yesterdays close to stay in the profile range that was forming. I was looking for two small breaks to new lows and then for a quick scalp back into the range. The entry worked a treat - the three tick auto stop is fail safe reasons only and I don't want to actually give away more than two ticks. I have had a large string of losses and finally getting over the jitters so was probably a bit to quick to lock in two ticks here for a 1:1 Risk Reward

Trade 2
After the market moved back up off the lows formed around Trade 1 I was confident for a fade opportunity at the top of the range in the profile within a few ticks of yesterdays close. I missed an opportunity initially but it came back to my the step in the profile where I got filled at '19. Once again - was quick to put two ticks in the bag to help get some confidence in my trading. Being a rates day, Spanish and Italian auctions, and some other big numbers, as well as rollover, not a day I want to hold onto profits for too long in hope of a run. Thought it might help jog my memory putting all the action in there and fast forwarding between trades.

March 6 - Oleg's Bund Trades

Bund Trade 1



Bund Trade 2

March 5 - Jimmy Bund Trade

Details are in you tube comments.

March 4 - Example Post Of Bad Trade In Bund

Trade occurs at 3 minute mark.

This was my first trade for the week. Not a particularly good one to start with but want to test the posting of a video and some example commentary.

The Bund had gapped up on the Open then sold down to the where the profile level eventually formed at 145.70 - 72. It then tried again towards the Open where it bounced off (the Open) and came back down to the step in the profile where I was looking to fade for a few ticks bounce for some reason. I was anticipatory stupid and jumped in after seeing a small amount of absorption in the middle of the profile. It went against me straight away and I exited at 3 ticks loss before it potentially broke lower. One Stupid Trade given the speed of the market, I should have had the patience for a better entry.

That better entry was at the bottom of the profile range just two ticks down from my entry, and could have expected the bounce after noticeably some more absorption of size was occurring with some buying.

I got more cautious after this loss straight up, and volume continually exited the market for hours to come, so this was my only trade for the day.

Including editing and uploading the video this post took me 10 minutes to get an idea of the commitment involved here ;)

Introduction and Posting Guidelines

The idea -

The goal is to expand participants exposure to successful scalping trades based off reading the order flow as demonstrated in the No BS Day Trading material and John's subsequent webinars.  Your example can add layers on top of the No BS style trades, as long as the main idea is placing trades in the DOM based off order flow and generally that no chart based indicators are used as triggers (ie moving averages).  Unsuccessful trades can also be posted if there is a key lesson worth sharing in the trade. It does not matter what instrument is being traded, as long as there is some demonstration of order flow involved.

Some guidelines:

• 1 trade video per post
• Tell us what time the trade occurs in the video recording
• Make sure trade video captures enough before and after of entry AND exit to see the trade concept. If holding for a long time (> 10 minutes) edit the recording to include entry and exit or post two videos to cover entry and exit.Viewers can always fast forward through it if they want
• Outline what you saw before, during and after the trade
• Add anything beneficial for others to learn from this trade like:
• What you saw in related DOM screens
• Mental state going into it (might have had 3 losers beforehand)
• Trades should be live. No SIM trades unless specifically making a point on the simulator

Embed video at the top of the post with the commentary and other dialogue below.  You Tube, Vimeo, and Screencast can be embedded. Copy the Embed link from the relevant site.  You can change the dimension of the video in the emed code to: height="360" width="580" to fit it well in your post.

Thanks and look forward to seeing some trades.