I have stayed out of this discussion you have been having related to the topic of tape reading...until now. You go ahead and think when price is moving up being well-supported by a series of prints hitting the ASK, that it is...SELLING interest in the market, yes, SELLING. And I suppose price moving down being well supported by prints hitting the bid is BUYING interest in the market? After all, if you are doing it, then everyone else has to be doing it, right? Selling at the ASK and buying at the BID? Whatever works for you. Damn, those Jane and Joe public traders are a PREETY SMART group, aren't they? Just think, they have been WAY ahead of you all this time until you figured this out for yourself. Correct? :-)
And when a trader like me sees the tape telling me that the activity showing up on the tape is not valid, essentially one large headfake, and be right something like 9 out of 10 ten times whent the tape indicates this to me, I must be one damn lucky trader. Yes, everyone is lucky in this game who uses the tape for their trades, right? The tape does not paint a valid picture of buying and selling interest. What the tape is telling the trader is not real, just an made-up story. It shouldn't work for them like to buy genuine buying interest and inauthentic buying interest, should it?
Remember when you commented on my initial observations several years ago on IFMX that it was not possible for me to understand the MMs actions since there are a group of INDIVIDUAL traders making a market in the stock? And how I was essentially telling you the tape was giving me a different picture, that it is almost like one MM managing the market in the stock? How come much of what I already knew the MM to be doing like this example I foun to be well-documented by the SEC? This includes all of the MMs following the lead MM (axe) in a given stock, and how the system they had going for themselves kept them inline as a group, including threatening each other over the telephone when one does not follow the group with the axe as the leader in making a market in a stock. I already knew they were functioning together as a group, but I did not have the specific details on this until I read the SEC report. For another example how I had seen at times a net accumulation of stock by the MM. And I actually began to think those large prints that followed were somehow related. Lo and behold, I find out MMs do accumulate stock for their customer which do in the end come out as large final prints. I got it all wrong from a read of the tape, correct? Or are you in denial where you think this is simply not possible from an ongoing reading of the tape?
IMO the issue to you has become more important than the reality. The issue has been filtering the reality for you that you have been posting about. You have actually been painting your own picture about what the tape can and cannot tell on the trading action of a stock, that which you have been asserting others have been doing to their own disadvantage. Who is right? Probably those who have been making the money. I do think a reality check is in order here.
Aside from the more serious message I am attempting to convey to you here, I do think you are one of the more well-informed traders in the market. This is what is making your posts on this topic seem all that more difficult to believe.
Bob Graham |
