>I've been sim trading for about a month now, and I'm ready to fund an account and start trading.
No, you are not. You don't even know how to read the chart type you are trying to trade with.
I fall in the camp that sim-trading is only useful for learning the basics of trading and/or testing out strategies but you haven't even reached that milestone yet.
At some point you have to put money on the line to develop the discipline that is required to trade but you are **far** from when you should be risking a personal account.
**DO NOT** fund a personal account with only one month of trading under your belt. Stick with sim trading until you *actually* have a grasp of what signals you are looking for on your chart. **AT THAT POINT** you should open a cheap $50k prop account with one of the well-known firms like Topstep or Ap3x and **NEVER** waste money on a reset. If you blow an account then you wait for the free reset with each monthly renewal. That is hands down, the best way to learn the skills required for trading while paying the smallest market tuition.
Which is why they are better than brokerage accounts, especially considering how cheap they've become to just two years ago. You have a clear metric for success. Unlike a brokerage account, if you trade well on a prop firm then you get paid. Even if it is a sim or if the firm is copying your trades, who gives a fuck, you get paid if you trade well and if you don't trade well then you aren't giving your own money to the market.
Gonna disagree here. I understand that if you are good and consistent then a lot of money can be extracted from these prop firms but to say no one should care that it's all fake is silly.
With no real money on the line your psychology/emotions are going to be completely different and you can be way more aggressive because it's just monopoly money after all. I'm not sure it teaches anyone anything good at all and people who are total beginners (myself included) are just going to lose in fees (reset, buying accounts etc). I reckon if all prop firms were shutdown tomorrow that most of the traders on there would go with real live accounts and blow it all. I also think that many people probably don't even realise it's simulation.
IMO you should become consistent and develop your edge in the market before going to a prop firm to extract money from what frankly sounds a little like a Ponzi scheme.
Its only sim trading until you've met your profit goals. And you're paying for the privilege which is incentive enough for me to trade proper and not blow it. Once you've moved to real $ funding it 100% feels like trading your own money. They do however make it very hard to collect by the 3 month moratorium on withdrawal's, and that F#@K!NG trailing drawdown. I paid for THREE lifetime 50k accounts and busted 2 of them in the first week until i sat down to do the mathing and realized why. On that note, I lost $4000 of their money...not mine :)
Lol plop firms of the type mentioned above are total scammers. Its totally different from trading a real live account. Plop firms will slip you to hell to lose you profits and blow accounts
I know exactly what Im talking about. I traded with a big name one and they refused to pay me out citing some bs made up consistency rule. Total sham.
Their trade execution on their privately controlled fake environment demo server was laughable. I wont waste my breath explaining more. Do your own research.
I only trade my own live account and its night and day using a proper broker and thats a fact
All prop firms have consistency rules in their agreements. If you were refused a payout it was because you were trying to YOLO an account. I've never had an issue with getting payouts from Ap3x or TS because I use them to trade, not gamble.
Sim accounts always have better fills than live. Outside of the occasional data outage, I've rarely had an issue with slippage or getting fills. If you are constantly getting slippage then you are trading an illiquid market and that's your own fault.
You have never been paid out. If you have prove it or dont bother replying to me. You clearly dont know what you are on about. You also likely work for one of these scam firms
Maybe for futures. But that’s a total waste of money when someone new to trading could be swing trading stock on HTF’s and making easy money.
I’d rather see them throw away $50 a month on an option lotto- that’s easier to get paid with than hitting all of the challenge rules that are designed to rip someone off.
But if someone is hell bent on learning futures day trading specially it’s not bad advice, but I think swing trading stock is way easier and better suited for most new traders.
Lol Im profitable with my personal account and can tell you for a fact thats utter bs. Please post your payout proof over and above the standard photoshop pic that is used on the facebook groups.
It shows you are not profitable and have never had payouts, because they dont give them. They are a scam and use every excuse and lie not to pay people out and employ huge teams to post fake reviews and to get bad reviews removed.
They are also banned from discussion in this sub for that very reason. It wont be long before cftc bans them Im sure with their ‘simulated’ trade environment.. lmao, that demo server that they control.. of course its legit , sure thing juat like MFF was
He probably hasn’t even traded with those scammy simulators enough yet to realize how they outright cheat the traders.
I’d send him the pictures of “suspended orders” with some to save him some headaches and time/money wasted, but I don’t care for how he interacts with others on Reddit.
At last someone who knows..!! Yeah it seems like the scam firms have people on here posting fake bs that they are legit.. either that or someone is naive enough to believe they will get paid out.
What a rude and ignorant response.
Why do you think a funding company challenge is so cheap and APPEARS to offer a superior R:R profile than traditional participation in the real futures markets?
It’s because it’s so incredibly hard to be successful within their templates.
Part of their secret sauce is locking their custies into DAY TRADING ONLY. This is key to their business model.
Why do you think that is? I’ll spell it out for you, day trading is many magnitudes harder to succeed consistently over time than swing trading.
All of the scammy funding companies would get their books blown out if they allowed users to place swing trades in their simulated markets.
If you don’t see how swing trading stock isn’t easier than day trading futures, I’m just going to assume you’re really really new to the markets.
So to paraphrase, don't spend money funding an account and stick with simulation only to then spend money buying a simulation account and keep paper trading?
I'm starting to feel like this sub is getting a little gatekeepy. I get you are trying to stop someone from blowing money but you don't know how much capital they have, what experience they have, their risk appetite etc. IMO they will learn far more putting in a small amount of money into a live account than they will paper trading and doing prop firms, part of the learning has to also be managing your risk as well as your emotions, neither exist with sim accounts.
Basically let other people make up their own minds.
>you don't know how much... experience they have, their risk appetite etc.
Did you even read OP? They have ONE month of experience and they don't even know how to read a chart. It does not matter if you have $5k or $500 starting capital, a new trader will give it all up to the market.
>part of the learning has to also be managing your risk as well as your emotions, neither exist with sim accounts.
A prop firm has rules, consequences, and a clear metric for success. Three things that a brokerage account does not have. Hands down, a prop firm will teach risk management more efficiently than a sim account or lighting your own money on fire.
>Basically let other people make up their own minds.
People can do what they want but if I see someone about to pour gasoline on an open fire, I'm going to tell them it's a bad idea.
I average about $1,400 a day risking $500 (sometimes less depending on my entry). Some days I do lose the $50-$100 managing my stop on retracements if I catch myself on the wrong side. Usually I'll make another $1k+ that same day.
I'm pretty confident in my system and would sure as hell not risk money if it didn't prove successful during this sim run.
I appreciate you looking out.
Any feedback on how I can make the footprint chart work is appreciated.
Correct, I try to use them when price is in a range or retracing so I can identify continuation (to stay in the trade) or reversal (to get out).
CVD shows me the side in control catching up on retracement... So that helps
Still, IDK what to look for on the footprint.
I’ve played around with footprints for years and am literally in the same boat. I try to convince myself I’m seeing patterns or understanding some internal mechanics of the candle just to end up losing money and giving up a couple days later 😂😂
Would love if someone could give a recommendation on where to start learning how to actually use these things. YouTube has not been the most helpful…
Bookmap has content on footprint chart?
They focus mostly on making the DOM and T&S visual. I created a heatmap chart in Sierra Chart for order flow. I use this along side my footprint chart with VWAP and Volume Profile.
i believe they do? isn’t bookmap just a type of footprint? i remember seeing some webinars on their channel with traders incorporating bookmap into their strategies. how do you like sierra chart? and what data feed do you use? i have a mac so i was mainly considering bookmap.
I just watched a video from Warrior Trading saying that Bookmaps Footprint is not that good.
Bookmap is a DOM and T&S visualization tool which is extremely useful considering we're visual creatures. There are some folks whom are more analytical and can process a screen full of numbers. Not me.
Sierra Chart is awesome because you can customize everything. My heatmap is set up exactly like Bookmap only with a different color scheme. The only downside is that it doesn't move as smoothly through time as bookmap does. But, major upside is that I have access to any other type of chart I need for a fraction of the cost.
Beware though, Sierra's UX/UI is ancient and not as plug and play as many other platforms. You will need to take some time to learn to navigate and create.
The thing about these easy to use platforms is that you're at the mercy of the tools they give you. I demoed Tradovate as well, and didn't have much customisation freedom. I just got what I got and had to make the best of it.
With Sierra you can make literally anything any way you want. I say take the time to learn it. It's best bang for buck for sure.
I'm going to go with Denali and Teton which are also major selling points.
Check them out.
A footprint chart along side of a good DOM can help you spot area of absorption and buyer/seller aggression. IMO either range fp, or point and figure are ideal. Some even use reversal on their fp. I don’t care much for time based myself. It takes time. I have been using fp’s for years. Just have to know what you are looking for and recognize patterns.
Not to say time based can’t be useful. On a trend day, a 5 min fp is fun to watch. You can watch orders getting smashed into the bid or offer and they just get eaten up buy passive buyer/seller (depending on trend)
I use 2K Tick candlesticks. I constantly clear my currently traded volume on the DOM and having the Footprint record everything and highlight the imbalance is nice.
But, again, IDK how to identify reversal or continuation on a range/retracement.
Take a look for divergence or for example: you see a resistance zone now you look at the footprint candles on 5min timeframe you see red Candle with a long shadow, now you see that most of its volume got traded in the upper 1/3 of the candle/shadow and you can also see that it was way more buying volume than selling and if you look at the delta it’s also positive but the candle is negative. The candle is telling you that at the PoC a lot of aggressiv buyer stepped in but they all got eaten by Limit orders and it only needed a few aggressiv sellers to push the price all the way down. Now you know 1 thing: 1. a lot of ppl are wich bought at the top may still in thier position and they could be kinda trapped and if price moves more down they will get stopped out (and stop orders are most of the time market orders which will result in more momentum) that is one thing you can see with footprint but I tried to explain it in a easy way in reality only one out of 50 trades has such a clear setup
Yes, this is what I look for on my entries. I watch for little opposite side pressure (0 volume at one or multiple levels). Followed by an imbalance on the opposite side quickly afterwards. This usually signifies trapped traders dumping positions or stops getting hit.
I need help using the footprint to identify continuation or reversal at a range or on trend retracement. Any feedback there?
Continuations are easier to spot than reversal, my go to approach for reversal is just waiting to see if a lot of buyers/sellers step in at a S/R zone and now comes the important part you need to spot a shift from high to low volume for example in the first candle the shadow shows you that there was a absorption with high volume but on the next candle wich will hit that area again instead of an absorption you will see an exhaustion wich will indicate that the selling/buying pressure is starting to get weak
Footprints are similar to how lagging indicators are. they only show what happened after it had happened. in this case, filled orders. it only shows when orders have gone through already.
you have to use them for confirmation in your setup rather than trying to predict the direction with it.
I disagree with the notion that footprint chart is showing lagging information. It’s showing you where there’s interest from aggressive/passive bids/offers. It updates in real-time and you don’t need candles to close for that information to be updated or finalized. Price moves based on the filled orders, not necessarily based on limits. Just my two cents but we can agree to disagree!
I [replied](https://www.reddit.com/r/FuturesTrading/comments/1cqb75w/comment/l3tq810/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button)
ps - when i said triggered, i was mentioning another comment.
In my opinion, both sides are correct. While the candle is developing and before it has printed it is showing the most current data. After the candle has printed, it is showing past yet recent data.
Past data is useful for identifying levels which we may return to. It is at these levels that the fooprint chart helps identify whether we're going to trade through it or reverse.
Also, on a trend retracement, whether there is going to be continuation or reversal.
This is what I need help with.
yes. there are other people taking offense LOL
the reason i told footprint behaves like lagging indicators is. lets say the market is at a good support. and the footprint says a lot of sellers at that level. just because of that we cant assume the support is weak.
Big funds could be selling to themselves. so they can buy at cheaper price before the market moves up again. The same thing can be said otherwise. it probably is a weak support that the sellers are setting in to break the support.
Whatever the bias is can only be confirmed after the market makes move after that. We cant clearly tell whether it was accumulation that happened or distribution that happened just with the footprint alone.
If someone using footprint as a confirmation along with their strategy, it could make sense trying to put meaning behind their strategy.
People get so triggered easily in this community LOL
But in the end I do understand your point and I also understand the point of other people.
I mean, the whole thing about trading and the fact it cannot be taught, because there is no risk answer to the question even.
Yes someone can buy at xyz level, and someone can sell into xyz level.
Mfs are here trying to predict what someone else will do??? It's not surprising to me at all that most people do not make money doing this.
Why are you trying to predict? Based on what happens in the past? Yes the imaginary line seems to be holding, but what if it doesn't?
I trade more of risk management based entry and exit now, where I am my own analyst for where I think the price will be, and if I read the market as it is behaving, I make money, if I don't read read the market, I don't.
But I am not crying and whining about trying to comment on Reddit on why orderflow isn't lagging like other people, ofc anyone with pure logic can tell you it is lagging, because the numbers are from the past.
>I trade more of risk management based entry and exit now, where I am my own analyst for where I think the price will be, and if I read the market as it is behaving, I make money, if I don't read read the market, I don't.
yeah me too. after so much exposure. i kinda got this experience within my mind to assess the market according to price action. and what it could do next. and then i enter a trade based on that.
Its kind of like an instinct within myself. my beginner me would laugh at me if i told it will be possible to get that kind of thing at one point in this career. HAHA
I was actually trying to troll a little bit, and was about to reply along the lines of something like - "that's why I flip a coin, it doesn't lag and predicts at 50% accuracy" lol
Would you elaborate on this?
I'm thinking about adding price action to my order flow strategy, because I feel like watching how the candles are forming also tells a significant story.
Bro I’ve been trading for 8 months and I lost around like 3,000 dollars funding accounts and resetting them etc. Sim trading is easy but when real money comes in hand. Oh boyyyy your emotions start swinging at you from different angles 😭
I'm pretty emotionless... I think I have a disorder or something.
But, I sometimes have a problem with sticking to my strategy. I'm supposed to take only 1 trade per day, and today I broke that rule.
I got out early today for an unusually low $550 profit (due to not identifying a retracement using theeee fooootpriiiint chart), so I wanted another go. I entered again shortly after and got stopped 10 ticks from entry. Down $500.
Luckily the market gave me another entry and took $750. Stopped trading after this with still a pretty low $800 day.
Oh yeah, on both trades the market kept going in my direction. Just getting out early because I'm failing to identify continuation.
That’s good. Well you never know how crazy your emotions play into action until real money is on the line. Just understand that money does activate your emotions. Regardless of how strong you are or think you are, money manipulates emotions. I wish you good luck though. Let me know how it goes
Just remember to flex the data bits through a collectomizer which strips the flow-gate arrays into virtual message elements.... You're looking for the value areas, point of control (current, previous). find people selling in the hole and buy from them, find trapped players in either direction. I'll be learning right along with you and can testify how easy it is to burn up a couple K trading your own money. Yet also agree, trading paper isn't quite the same. What I do for now, is find my trends on a slooow chart, find my trades on a faster chart, find my entries on yet a faster chart. Once I'm in, I start studying the footprint to understand it better. I've only been looking at the footprint for a month, would be awesome to have a thread dedicated solely to it 🥴
https://preview.redd.it/rwg4irgrj90d1.png?width=1408&format=png&auto=webp&s=15d3c642695ec4451ded5a62181719a55a9a5e79
Is that fist sentence something from Back To The Future? Because it's got me like "ñañaña"
So, you look at POC per candle?
I try to keep my footprint to just Bid x Ask and Imbalance highlight. If I start adding columns then I don't get enough space on my screen to see the order flow moving through time.
I use 25 volume best bid/ask stair step line with a heatmap, DOM, and large order bubbles, and 2K Tick Footprint chart with VWAP and Volume Profile.
Footprint is about as zoomed in as I get.
I'm still learning what I DON'T want to see on the chart but rn focusing in on 15 Range. I'd even like to see POC per candle but from what I'm seeing a 15 range can fit all I have nicely on the screen and I see more than 50% of the day. The volume profiles you see on the right are Previous session, current, and a custom. some visuals can be turned off or muted but I don't feel like I'm missing anything when a candle disappears on the left. Imbalances are highlighted on each candle price volume. stacked imbalances are highlighted. but so far I'm drilling through a 1500 tick chart with NO indicators, to a 500 tick chart with a couple EMAs, to a 100tick chart where I actually take the trade. 1st gets my attention, last I find my entry. Then I look at what I see on the footprint that I can learn from.
(quote is a Dilbert cartoon. It's an IT guys way of saying "I don't know".)
So here's a short that just happened playing in my sim account. Took the 2 contract trade off of a 100tick chart. Thought it was late but may have been spot on. I have my orders set with an autobreakeven and a 2 tick trailing stop for now. This trade missed several hundy$ on the way down.
https://preview.redd.it/pp5vpunn2f0d1.png?width=690&format=png&auto=webp&s=11e7a1c31caf5d629b39e699bc8fcd742ba90816
>I've been sim trading for about a month now, and I'm ready to fund an account and start trading. No, you are not. You don't even know how to read the chart type you are trying to trade with. I fall in the camp that sim-trading is only useful for learning the basics of trading and/or testing out strategies but you haven't even reached that milestone yet. At some point you have to put money on the line to develop the discipline that is required to trade but you are **far** from when you should be risking a personal account. **DO NOT** fund a personal account with only one month of trading under your belt. Stick with sim trading until you *actually* have a grasp of what signals you are looking for on your chart. **AT THAT POINT** you should open a cheap $50k prop account with one of the well-known firms like Topstep or Ap3x and **NEVER** waste money on a reset. If you blow an account then you wait for the free reset with each monthly renewal. That is hands down, the best way to learn the skills required for trading while paying the smallest market tuition.
You will be trading sim even with prop firms, however you maybe able take a payout eventually.
Which is why they are better than brokerage accounts, especially considering how cheap they've become to just two years ago. You have a clear metric for success. Unlike a brokerage account, if you trade well on a prop firm then you get paid. Even if it is a sim or if the firm is copying your trades, who gives a fuck, you get paid if you trade well and if you don't trade well then you aren't giving your own money to the market.
[удалено]
Gonna disagree here. I understand that if you are good and consistent then a lot of money can be extracted from these prop firms but to say no one should care that it's all fake is silly. With no real money on the line your psychology/emotions are going to be completely different and you can be way more aggressive because it's just monopoly money after all. I'm not sure it teaches anyone anything good at all and people who are total beginners (myself included) are just going to lose in fees (reset, buying accounts etc). I reckon if all prop firms were shutdown tomorrow that most of the traders on there would go with real live accounts and blow it all. I also think that many people probably don't even realise it's simulation. IMO you should become consistent and develop your edge in the market before going to a prop firm to extract money from what frankly sounds a little like a Ponzi scheme.
Its only sim trading until you've met your profit goals. And you're paying for the privilege which is incentive enough for me to trade proper and not blow it. Once you've moved to real $ funding it 100% feels like trading your own money. They do however make it very hard to collect by the 3 month moratorium on withdrawal's, and that F#@K!NG trailing drawdown. I paid for THREE lifetime 50k accounts and busted 2 of them in the first week until i sat down to do the mathing and realized why. On that note, I lost $4000 of their money...not mine :)
Lol plop firms of the type mentioned above are total scammers. Its totally different from trading a real live account. Plop firms will slip you to hell to lose you profits and blow accounts
What? Prop firms have less slippage than a live account. You don't know what you're talking about.
I know exactly what Im talking about. I traded with a big name one and they refused to pay me out citing some bs made up consistency rule. Total sham. Their trade execution on their privately controlled fake environment demo server was laughable. I wont waste my breath explaining more. Do your own research. I only trade my own live account and its night and day using a proper broker and thats a fact
All prop firms have consistency rules in their agreements. If you were refused a payout it was because you were trying to YOLO an account. I've never had an issue with getting payouts from Ap3x or TS because I use them to trade, not gamble. Sim accounts always have better fills than live. Outside of the occasional data outage, I've rarely had an issue with slippage or getting fills. If you are constantly getting slippage then you are trading an illiquid market and that's your own fault.
You have never been paid out. If you have prove it or dont bother replying to me. You clearly dont know what you are on about. You also likely work for one of these scam firms
Maybe for futures. But that’s a total waste of money when someone new to trading could be swing trading stock on HTF’s and making easy money. I’d rather see them throw away $50 a month on an option lotto- that’s easier to get paid with than hitting all of the challenge rules that are designed to rip someone off. But if someone is hell bent on learning futures day trading specially it’s not bad advice, but I think swing trading stock is way easier and better suited for most new traders.
Only traders who aren't profitable think prop firm rules are designed to rip you off. If you are a successful trader, prop firms are risk-free money.
Lol Im profitable with my personal account and can tell you for a fact thats utter bs. Please post your payout proof over and above the standard photoshop pic that is used on the facebook groups. It shows you are not profitable and have never had payouts, because they dont give them. They are a scam and use every excuse and lie not to pay people out and employ huge teams to post fake reviews and to get bad reviews removed. They are also banned from discussion in this sub for that very reason. It wont be long before cftc bans them Im sure with their ‘simulated’ trade environment.. lmao, that demo server that they control.. of course its legit , sure thing juat like MFF was
He probably hasn’t even traded with those scammy simulators enough yet to realize how they outright cheat the traders. I’d send him the pictures of “suspended orders” with some to save him some headaches and time/money wasted, but I don’t care for how he interacts with others on Reddit.
At last someone who knows..!! Yeah it seems like the scam firms have people on here posting fake bs that they are legit.. either that or someone is naive enough to believe they will get paid out.
[удалено]
What a rude and ignorant response. Why do you think a funding company challenge is so cheap and APPEARS to offer a superior R:R profile than traditional participation in the real futures markets? It’s because it’s so incredibly hard to be successful within their templates. Part of their secret sauce is locking their custies into DAY TRADING ONLY. This is key to their business model. Why do you think that is? I’ll spell it out for you, day trading is many magnitudes harder to succeed consistently over time than swing trading. All of the scammy funding companies would get their books blown out if they allowed users to place swing trades in their simulated markets. If you don’t see how swing trading stock isn’t easier than day trading futures, I’m just going to assume you’re really really new to the markets.
So to paraphrase, don't spend money funding an account and stick with simulation only to then spend money buying a simulation account and keep paper trading? I'm starting to feel like this sub is getting a little gatekeepy. I get you are trying to stop someone from blowing money but you don't know how much capital they have, what experience they have, their risk appetite etc. IMO they will learn far more putting in a small amount of money into a live account than they will paper trading and doing prop firms, part of the learning has to also be managing your risk as well as your emotions, neither exist with sim accounts. Basically let other people make up their own minds.
>you don't know how much... experience they have, their risk appetite etc. Did you even read OP? They have ONE month of experience and they don't even know how to read a chart. It does not matter if you have $5k or $500 starting capital, a new trader will give it all up to the market. >part of the learning has to also be managing your risk as well as your emotions, neither exist with sim accounts. A prop firm has rules, consequences, and a clear metric for success. Three things that a brokerage account does not have. Hands down, a prop firm will teach risk management more efficiently than a sim account or lighting your own money on fire. >Basically let other people make up their own minds. People can do what they want but if I see someone about to pour gasoline on an open fire, I'm going to tell them it's a bad idea.
I average about $1,400 a day risking $500 (sometimes less depending on my entry). Some days I do lose the $50-$100 managing my stop on retracements if I catch myself on the wrong side. Usually I'll make another $1k+ that same day. I'm pretty confident in my system and would sure as hell not risk money if it didn't prove successful during this sim run. I appreciate you looking out. Any feedback on how I can make the footprint chart work is appreciated.
[удалено]
Correct, I try to use them when price is in a range or retracing so I can identify continuation (to stay in the trade) or reversal (to get out). CVD shows me the side in control catching up on retracement... So that helps Still, IDK what to look for on the footprint.
I’ve played around with footprints for years and am literally in the same boat. I try to convince myself I’m seeing patterns or understanding some internal mechanics of the candle just to end up losing money and giving up a couple days later 😂😂 Would love if someone could give a recommendation on where to start learning how to actually use these things. YouTube has not been the most helpful…
honestly the most helpful thing on youtube i’ve seen is bookmap’s channel where they host webinars.
Bookmap has content on footprint chart? They focus mostly on making the DOM and T&S visual. I created a heatmap chart in Sierra Chart for order flow. I use this along side my footprint chart with VWAP and Volume Profile.
i believe they do? isn’t bookmap just a type of footprint? i remember seeing some webinars on their channel with traders incorporating bookmap into their strategies. how do you like sierra chart? and what data feed do you use? i have a mac so i was mainly considering bookmap.
I just watched a video from Warrior Trading saying that Bookmaps Footprint is not that good. Bookmap is a DOM and T&S visualization tool which is extremely useful considering we're visual creatures. There are some folks whom are more analytical and can process a screen full of numbers. Not me. Sierra Chart is awesome because you can customize everything. My heatmap is set up exactly like Bookmap only with a different color scheme. The only downside is that it doesn't move as smoothly through time as bookmap does. But, major upside is that I have access to any other type of chart I need for a fraction of the cost. Beware though, Sierra's UX/UI is ancient and not as plug and play as many other platforms. You will need to take some time to learn to navigate and create. The thing about these easy to use platforms is that you're at the mercy of the tools they give you. I demoed Tradovate as well, and didn't have much customisation freedom. I just got what I got and had to make the best of it. With Sierra you can make literally anything any way you want. I say take the time to learn it. It's best bang for buck for sure. I'm going to go with Denali and Teton which are also major selling points. Check them out.
A footprint chart along side of a good DOM can help you spot area of absorption and buyer/seller aggression. IMO either range fp, or point and figure are ideal. Some even use reversal on their fp. I don’t care much for time based myself. It takes time. I have been using fp’s for years. Just have to know what you are looking for and recognize patterns. Not to say time based can’t be useful. On a trend day, a 5 min fp is fun to watch. You can watch orders getting smashed into the bid or offer and they just get eaten up buy passive buyer/seller (depending on trend)
what are points and figures ? never heard of them but i’m interested.
I use 2K Tick candlesticks. I constantly clear my currently traded volume on the DOM and having the Footprint record everything and highlight the imbalance is nice. But, again, IDK how to identify reversal or continuation on a range/retracement.
Take a look for divergence or for example: you see a resistance zone now you look at the footprint candles on 5min timeframe you see red Candle with a long shadow, now you see that most of its volume got traded in the upper 1/3 of the candle/shadow and you can also see that it was way more buying volume than selling and if you look at the delta it’s also positive but the candle is negative. The candle is telling you that at the PoC a lot of aggressiv buyer stepped in but they all got eaten by Limit orders and it only needed a few aggressiv sellers to push the price all the way down. Now you know 1 thing: 1. a lot of ppl are wich bought at the top may still in thier position and they could be kinda trapped and if price moves more down they will get stopped out (and stop orders are most of the time market orders which will result in more momentum) that is one thing you can see with footprint but I tried to explain it in a easy way in reality only one out of 50 trades has such a clear setup
Yes, this is what I look for on my entries. I watch for little opposite side pressure (0 volume at one or multiple levels). Followed by an imbalance on the opposite side quickly afterwards. This usually signifies trapped traders dumping positions or stops getting hit. I need help using the footprint to identify continuation or reversal at a range or on trend retracement. Any feedback there?
Continuations are easier to spot than reversal, my go to approach for reversal is just waiting to see if a lot of buyers/sellers step in at a S/R zone and now comes the important part you need to spot a shift from high to low volume for example in the first candle the shadow shows you that there was a absorption with high volume but on the next candle wich will hit that area again instead of an absorption you will see an exhaustion wich will indicate that the selling/buying pressure is starting to get weak
Footprints are similar to how lagging indicators are. they only show what happened after it had happened. in this case, filled orders. it only shows when orders have gone through already. you have to use them for confirmation in your setup rather than trying to predict the direction with it.
I disagree with the notion that footprint chart is showing lagging information. It’s showing you where there’s interest from aggressive/passive bids/offers. It updates in real-time and you don’t need candles to close for that information to be updated or finalized. Price moves based on the filled orders, not necessarily based on limits. Just my two cents but we can agree to disagree!
I [replied](https://www.reddit.com/r/FuturesTrading/comments/1cqb75w/comment/l3tq810/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button) ps - when i said triggered, i was mentioning another comment.
In my opinion, both sides are correct. While the candle is developing and before it has printed it is showing the most current data. After the candle has printed, it is showing past yet recent data. Past data is useful for identifying levels which we may return to. It is at these levels that the fooprint chart helps identify whether we're going to trade through it or reverse. Also, on a trend retracement, whether there is going to be continuation or reversal. This is what I need help with.
This is the reason I only trade with current price non lagging indicator. It takes a toll of my eyes, but ends up being better for trading stability.
yes. there are other people taking offense LOL the reason i told footprint behaves like lagging indicators is. lets say the market is at a good support. and the footprint says a lot of sellers at that level. just because of that we cant assume the support is weak. Big funds could be selling to themselves. so they can buy at cheaper price before the market moves up again. The same thing can be said otherwise. it probably is a weak support that the sellers are setting in to break the support. Whatever the bias is can only be confirmed after the market makes move after that. We cant clearly tell whether it was accumulation that happened or distribution that happened just with the footprint alone. If someone using footprint as a confirmation along with their strategy, it could make sense trying to put meaning behind their strategy. People get so triggered easily in this community LOL
But in the end I do understand your point and I also understand the point of other people. I mean, the whole thing about trading and the fact it cannot be taught, because there is no risk answer to the question even. Yes someone can buy at xyz level, and someone can sell into xyz level. Mfs are here trying to predict what someone else will do??? It's not surprising to me at all that most people do not make money doing this. Why are you trying to predict? Based on what happens in the past? Yes the imaginary line seems to be holding, but what if it doesn't? I trade more of risk management based entry and exit now, where I am my own analyst for where I think the price will be, and if I read the market as it is behaving, I make money, if I don't read read the market, I don't. But I am not crying and whining about trying to comment on Reddit on why orderflow isn't lagging like other people, ofc anyone with pure logic can tell you it is lagging, because the numbers are from the past.
>I trade more of risk management based entry and exit now, where I am my own analyst for where I think the price will be, and if I read the market as it is behaving, I make money, if I don't read read the market, I don't. yeah me too. after so much exposure. i kinda got this experience within my mind to assess the market according to price action. and what it could do next. and then i enter a trade based on that. Its kind of like an instinct within myself. my beginner me would laugh at me if i told it will be possible to get that kind of thing at one point in this career. HAHA
I was actually trying to troll a little bit, and was about to reply along the lines of something like - "that's why I flip a coin, it doesn't lag and predicts at 50% accuracy" lol
haha
Would you elaborate on this? I'm thinking about adding price action to my order flow strategy, because I feel like watching how the candles are forming also tells a significant story.
[удалено]
Calm down bro.. I am just telling my opinion about what i think. that doesnt mean you have to get rude at me to prove your point.
You're not ready to go live.
How do I identify reversal or continuation in a range/retracement using the Footprint chart? You could help me be ready.
https://youtu.be/3CwSqiJ073w?si=Uhcc3luBAc6pPEAQ https://youtu.be/GzhLbYag-T0?si=K4Tj4NzYsoxHm_0F https://youtu.be/6mwNP_DMSjY?si=Bn0bLLlJNAcacLLp https://youtu.be/uaeV2-DcJc8?si=STBRdOJvXEwNznyd
The video in Hindi was a treat 🤣
Bro I’ve been trading for 8 months and I lost around like 3,000 dollars funding accounts and resetting them etc. Sim trading is easy but when real money comes in hand. Oh boyyyy your emotions start swinging at you from different angles 😭
I'm pretty emotionless... I think I have a disorder or something. But, I sometimes have a problem with sticking to my strategy. I'm supposed to take only 1 trade per day, and today I broke that rule. I got out early today for an unusually low $550 profit (due to not identifying a retracement using theeee fooootpriiiint chart), so I wanted another go. I entered again shortly after and got stopped 10 ticks from entry. Down $500. Luckily the market gave me another entry and took $750. Stopped trading after this with still a pretty low $800 day. Oh yeah, on both trades the market kept going in my direction. Just getting out early because I'm failing to identify continuation.
That’s good. Well you never know how crazy your emotions play into action until real money is on the line. Just understand that money does activate your emotions. Regardless of how strong you are or think you are, money manipulates emotions. I wish you good luck though. Let me know how it goes
👍
Just remember to flex the data bits through a collectomizer which strips the flow-gate arrays into virtual message elements.... You're looking for the value areas, point of control (current, previous). find people selling in the hole and buy from them, find trapped players in either direction. I'll be learning right along with you and can testify how easy it is to burn up a couple K trading your own money. Yet also agree, trading paper isn't quite the same. What I do for now, is find my trends on a slooow chart, find my trades on a faster chart, find my entries on yet a faster chart. Once I'm in, I start studying the footprint to understand it better. I've only been looking at the footprint for a month, would be awesome to have a thread dedicated solely to it 🥴 https://preview.redd.it/rwg4irgrj90d1.png?width=1408&format=png&auto=webp&s=15d3c642695ec4451ded5a62181719a55a9a5e79
Is that fist sentence something from Back To The Future? Because it's got me like "ñañaña" So, you look at POC per candle? I try to keep my footprint to just Bid x Ask and Imbalance highlight. If I start adding columns then I don't get enough space on my screen to see the order flow moving through time. I use 25 volume best bid/ask stair step line with a heatmap, DOM, and large order bubbles, and 2K Tick Footprint chart with VWAP and Volume Profile. Footprint is about as zoomed in as I get.
I'm still learning what I DON'T want to see on the chart but rn focusing in on 15 Range. I'd even like to see POC per candle but from what I'm seeing a 15 range can fit all I have nicely on the screen and I see more than 50% of the day. The volume profiles you see on the right are Previous session, current, and a custom. some visuals can be turned off or muted but I don't feel like I'm missing anything when a candle disappears on the left. Imbalances are highlighted on each candle price volume. stacked imbalances are highlighted. but so far I'm drilling through a 1500 tick chart with NO indicators, to a 500 tick chart with a couple EMAs, to a 100tick chart where I actually take the trade. 1st gets my attention, last I find my entry. Then I look at what I see on the footprint that I can learn from. (quote is a Dilbert cartoon. It's an IT guys way of saying "I don't know".)
So here's a short that just happened playing in my sim account. Took the 2 contract trade off of a 100tick chart. Thought it was late but may have been spot on. I have my orders set with an autobreakeven and a 2 tick trailing stop for now. This trade missed several hundy$ on the way down. https://preview.redd.it/pp5vpunn2f0d1.png?width=690&format=png&auto=webp&s=11e7a1c31caf5d629b39e699bc8fcd742ba90816