Order Flow Trading: Foundations of Time and Sales

Mind Over Markets

In this episode Leo and myself talk about the most foundational concept of order flow trading in futures - the time and sales. This is also called “reading the tape”. This is a brand new segment we will be co-hosting and airing together the first Thursday of every month, where we will discuss a new order flow topic each month. For the first ever episode of our Between the Spread order flow series, we went in depth on these topics and much more:

• Market Receipts or (fills) - why it is important to follow these transactions and what information they reveal about large position traders
• Order Types - breaking down the types of orders retail and professional traders use and how they impact the time and sales and order flow
  • At Ask - a market buyer matches with a limit seller
  • At Bid - a market sellers matches with a limit buyer
  • Above Ask - a big market buyer purchases all available limits and flips to next level to trade with more inventory
  • Below Bid - a big market seller eats all the best bids and flips down to next level to trade with more inventory
• Above/Below = Sweeps/Aggression/MarketOrders - learning the foundational importance of what sweep orders are and how they indicate an important market sentiment - this will shock you and is opposite of what you think it means. This is why traders often use it so wrong.
• Aggression (responsive) - the concept of how to see aggression in the time and sales and what it means for the current trend and sentiment
• Absorption (passive) - how to find market absorption and when it can mean the trend will continue, or when it is expected to reverse
• Speed (how fast orders are coming through) - Gives idea or sense of potential velocity of the upcoming move.
• How to spot? Aggression / Absorption / Speed - applicable examples of how Leo and George use this information to form an edge in their trading strategies.
• How to respond once you’ve spotted?

This could really be a full on lesson in any order flow day trading course, but we are here to provide information to you so you can get started with reading the time and sales. It was a blast to record with Leo, and be sure to check him out on Twitter (link below). We are extremely excited to keep this series going and the future episodes we have planned are gonna blow your mind. We need your help though, please leave us a rating and review on iTunes if you love the show so we can bring you more great content. Thank you for listening, we’ll see you next time. Resources

• Follow LEO on Twitter here
• Checkout the TRADEPRO Futures & Order Flow Course here
• Enjoying this podcast? We’d appreciate it if you can drop us a rating and review on iTunes here
• Connect with our community online: Trade Pro Academy
• Catch up with our earlier episodes: Mind Over Markets Podcast
• Join our FREE trading room here
• Follow me on Instagram here and on Twitter here