Trojans & Security

We recently posted about new security features in version 5.0.0.4 of daytradr. These changes were made in response to security threats mainly from China but also the Middle East.

Jigsaw daytradr 5004 – Security, Fixes. Trade Copier Discussion.

We are happy to announce the release of Jigsaw daytradr 5004.  The software can be downloaded here. We have fixes (in release notes) and also – this is the first time we’ve released security-specific changes. Note – if you see any errors loading the members pages – clear your browser cache, it’ll be because of additional security features on our servers.

Some People Just Need a Hug (or a History Lesson)

I once read that dentists were more prone to suicide. It’s since been debunked – but since hearing it – I’ve been extra nice to my dentist. In fact, when I had check-ups, my daughter used to come in and sit on my lap, while the dentist worked – the whole family has been going there for 18 years now! 

Trading Clarity: The Rebel’s Guide to Seeing Beyond the Noise

Clarity in trading—it’s the elusive holy grail for traders of every level. You know – cutting through the “noise”. Traditionally, “noise” has always referred to the seemingly random market moves that defy prediction. “Oh, I don’t watch a 1 min chart – that’s just noise” – OK – I get the concept. But here’s the kicker: just as much noise comes from inside our heads. It’s hard to watch a market without forming opinions on “what ‘they’ are trying to do” – in the moment, based on pure intuition. Yeah – we’ve done it – it turned out just as well for us as it did for you! True clarity demands distancing yourself from this chaotic thinking, and that distance comes through rules. But not all rules are created equal. There are mechanical (universally understood) and discretionary (universally misunderstood) decisions to be made – and today, we are going to help you hone your discretionary skills with guardrails to prevent you from falling for your chaotic thoughts – you can reserve those for the dance floor. 

Simplify Your Trading

 

Take a look into the decision making process of professional traders with this video training series that helps you make smarter trading decisions.



Penultimate daytradr 5 Beta Update

We will soon have a final release for daytradr. We do have a small number of fixes remaining but mostly, we are holding out for some cool improvements in strategy management for the final drop. 

NOTE – If you still have unfixed issues – please email support to ensure they are on our fix list.
That means you guys on DISCORD – we had a few reports on there – VERY VOCAL – but when we reached out for a screen share – no reply and no email to support when asked.

Simplify Your Trading

 

Take a look into the decision making process of professional traders with this video training series that helps you make smarter trading decisions.



Fixes in this release: 

Fix – DPI Awareness and GPU plugins were clashing, creating very high CPU usage, making daytradr crash or freeze
Fix – Rithmic was attempting too many connections.
Fix – “Closing Outstanding Orders” option triggered an error message with Rithmic
Fix – JT Market Profile chart wasn’t saving drawings
Fix – When we manually added brackets with OCO and Trails, the order moved immediately to the inside market
Fix – When we made the DOM narrow, the name of the product was disappearing
Fix – When we select a drawing on a FP chart, the chart auto-centered itself
Fix – When we set a 4 tick compression, the gradient in Auction Vista disappeared
Fix – When we changed the date in the chart, it gave an error
Fix – When we changed the D&S template, the cross trading was disabled
Fix – When we right-click on the main window, and we disable tools, all icons stopped working
Fix – When we have virtual desktops in Windows 11, trade window was visible on all desktops
Fix – When Increasing Auction Vista’s Interval Width >15, the Volume Chart started to display duplicates
Fix – .csv levels were not showing Vista chart lines
Fix – We were not showing all the depth IQ Feed supplied
Fix – We needed to open a position first so we could see orders markers on the chart
Fix – Trade window was not saving the “Always on top” option when we saved the workspace
Fix – Enable/disable order button in D&S not working; we were missing ‘save’ and ‘save as’ buttons
Fix – When we changed D&S column width, the change was not being saved in the workspace
Fix – S2P, L2P, and OCO buttons in the trade window could not be disabled
Fix – When we moved or dragged the chart up and down or right/left, there was a point where the chart will stop responding.
Fix – If we set the interval to 10sec, the chart takes a long time to move as the mouse moves, and there’s a disconnection between the left side (history) and the right side (real time).
Fix – When the market moved in a sweep (i.e., 4 ticks in a row), Auction Vista chart showed that movement a second later.

You can download the new version here

6 Misconceptions That Blind Traders —And How to Overcome Them

If you’ve been trading for a while, you’ve probably felt stuck. Spinning your wheels, trying harder, and not getting anywhere is frustrating, right? Maybe you’ve convinced yourself that the solution is more knowledge, more tools, or uncovering some “secret” that only the pros know.

Here’s the truth: none of that will get you where you want to go.

The problem isn’t that you don’t know enough or aren’t trying hard enough. It’s likely to be one or more of these misconceptions – things traders believe that sound logical but hold them back. They point you in the wrong direction, like trying to ride a motorcycle with a blindfold on.

Let’s explore six of the biggest misconceptions that trip traders up—and how you can overcome them.

Simplify Your Trading

 

Take a look into the decision making process of professional traders with this video training series that helps you make smarter trading decisions.



Your Trading Roadmap: Cutting Through the Noise

A while ago—years really—I decided we’d put enough information out there on how to trade. Our Group Therapy sessions tailed off as I felt we’d said all we could or should say. On the one hand, it’s great for people to be immersed in trading and be fed information constantly. The flip side though, is that it gives people the impression there’s always more to learn, that there’s always one more thing that will push them over the edge into success.

Simplify Your Trading

 

Take a look into the decision making process of professional traders with this video training series that helps you make smarter trading decisions.



Is it Time to Tame Your inner monkey?

I had an interesting chat with a trader today. He has what it takes to make it, he’s just a bit stuck. From where I sit – it seems that if he could just iron out his “off plan” game, he’d be profitable.

daytradr 5 Beta Update

Just a quick note about the daytradr 5 Beta. Normally, during a beta, we release updates every couple of days. As of writing, it’s been more than 4 weeks since the last beta.

So what gives?

In version 5, we moved a lot of work to the GPU from the CPU. Partly because “why not?” and partly because we want CPU use reserved for peak times. Not particularly taxing.

The process involved upgrading our code as well as other 3rd party “plug-ins” we use. These plug-ins support both GPU and DPI Awareness (to scale on 4k screens).

Unfortunately, two of our plug-ins started fighting. Specifically, when DPI Aware was on. The symptom of this was REALLY high GPU usage – but not on the daytradr process but on a couple of Windows services that had to clean up the mess of their fight. 

Anyone who has used the tech support of any company will know this is a death spiral. When there are 2 products involved – then each company will neatly point the finger at the other. It’s one reason we answer non-product questions in support at Jigsaw, so that you don’t end up with Jigsaw and another company (e.g. data provider) pointing fingers at each other while you sit on your big fat problem.

While I’m churning out the excuses – we also don’t have the code for all 3rd party plug-ins. So it made finding the issue problematic. At one point, we even reviewed every line of code changed since March!

Anyway – it was 4 weeks of having the entire team look at a single problem. That’s a record in my career and one I don’t want to beat. We are all now heading to Red Bull detox.

It’s now service as normal – we are pushing out a release today and I expect us to spend another 3-4 weeks in beta with releases every several days. 

I appreciate your patience and apologize for the delay and associated GPU issues. You can download the new version here

Simplify Your Trading

 

Take a look into the decision making process of professional traders with this video training series that helps you make smarter trading decisions.



Jigsaw daytradr 5.0 Beta Update: Important Fixes and Moving Forward

We apologize for the issues that arose with the initial release of daytradr 5.0 Beta. We understand the impact these problems had on your trading operations and want to assure you that we’ve been working diligently to resolve them. Here are the important updates we’d like to share.

daytradr 5 Beta: Experience Market Movements at 250-Millisecond Intervals

At Jigsaw, we certainly believe in constant innovation, even when it comes to our most celebrated features. The Auction Vista Heatmap has long been the gold standard for order flow analysis, but we’re not content to rest on our laurels. As we continue our “Features Week” for daytradr 5.0 Beta, we’re excited to show you what we’ve done with Auction Vista. It’s all part of our mission to give you the tools you need to make smarter trading decisions, without piling on unnecessary complexity. But, before we get into the details, take a look at this video. It’ll give you a real feel for what we’ve achieved:

Workshop recording: Mastering the Metrics that Matter in Trading

Are you tired of focusing on the wrong metrics in your trading journey? Do you wonder how professional traders consistently outperform the market despite seemingly low win rates? Our recent workshop with Richard Bailey from Axia Futures was AMAZING! He revealed game-changing insights that could revolutionize your approach to trading.

Trading The Crash

 

{% module “blog_post_audio” path=”@hubspot/blog_audio”, overrideable=False %}

 

As of writing, it’s the afternoon in Asia and early morning US. All markets are continuing to sink, following the drop on Thursday and Friday.  The Nikkei is down 12% on the day and the Kospi (Korea) is down almost 9% and circuit breakers kicked in to halt trading. Stocks are sinking to around January levels. Money is moving to Bonds and Gold. Certain currencies are rallying – like the Japanese Yen – which worsens their situation and puts them in a sticky situation recovery-wise. 

Jigsaw daytradr “Refresh Rate” – Faster than the human eye?

In this article, we’ll discuss the way Jigsaw daytradr gets information in front of your eyeballs as quickly as possible whilst avoiding performance issues when the market “speeds up”. The speeding up of a market is most obvious when news hits but there are other shorter-term increases in pace when (for example) stops get hit. Both have to be considered when developing a trading platform. 

See Pro Traders Reveal Their Secrets LIVE – Nov 2nd, 1pm ET

We’re doing something unprecedented…

This coming Thursday, November 2, 2023 at 1PM ET, We are hosting Richard Bailey from Axia Futures to deliver a FREE Workshop on: How to trade moves with the “Volatility Scalping” Technique.

Would you like to attend?

YES, Count Me In! <<<

When Traders at AXIA faced the challenge of trading “news” without any major news at hand…

What did they do?

They developed unique trading strategies like “Volatility Scalping” and techniques for trading “news” without even needing a news terminal. 

Now, Richard is ready to share these game-changing strategies with YOU…

Besides that, here are a few other things Richard is going to share with you during this workshop:

Release 4.0.1.9 – Mandatory for Rithmic Users, Break Even Stops

We are happy to announce the release of daytradr 4.0.1.9. This release is mandatory for Rithmic users following a new restriction on the Rithmic side of 2000 calls to their “GetAccount” method. daytradr calls this method to check to see if new accounts have been added to the current user id logged in. Should this limit of 2000 calls be hit (possible in older versions), then the Rithmic user could be disabled.

Choosing The Right Market For YOU To Trade

Many traders gravitate towards the S&P500 Futures as their go-to-market, as it’s the single most “advertised” market in the futures arena. It effectively acts as the ‘default’ market to trade. It might, however, not be the best-fit market for you personally. We are all different, and we all have different interest/boredom thresholds, which will impact the type of markets we can work with initially. I say initially because over time the type of markets you can read will expand with your experience. You may end up watching a range of markets, each with very different volatility profiles, looking out for momentum moves in each one, even though momentum expresses itself differently in each. Initially, most will be working with 1 market – and that should be based on the best-fit for the trader in question.

Jigsaw’s Independence Day Sale

To celebrate Independence Day, we have decided to run a quick sale. With some special deals for both new customers and existing ones. 

If you are on the sidelines, now is the time to jump in at the best prices ever.

Overtrading? Taking ‘a breather’ between trades

One of the most common issues that traders face at some point in their careers is going completely off-plan and putting in a succession of off-plan trades, with disastrous results to their account – be it SIM, a trader tryout account, or a live account. It’s classic overtrading and is something you can overcome. 

Jigsaw’s 12th Birthday Discount Bonanza

It’s now 12 years ago since Jigsaw Trading was launched. A big thank you to all of our customers and partners that made this journey possible.

12 is a good age for Scotch and a good time to throw out some special deals to both new customers and existing ones. 

If you are on the sidelines, now is the time to jump in at the best prices ever.

Jigsaw Trading Review – Alternate Dimensions of Trade Info

 

Indicators, can they really help with your trading? Or are they just a nuisance, one more thing for you to look at and probably making you always second guess your initial reading, ending up losing a good trading opportunity? Or maybe not all indicators are equal. 

Feature in Focus – Reading Market Intent with Auction Vista

 

Many traders believe they can fully assess price movement by looking only at a basic bar chart. To some extent, this is true, I’m certain that the majority of you are able to see consolidation areas, where prices are being traded inside a range, where sometimes prices test the range high to the tick, and other times prices may go above by a couple of ticks, or prices may not even touch the high at all, reversing back down, targeting the range low.

 

Feature in Focus – Footprint Charts

Have you ever looked at a Footprint Chart and wondered what all those numbers mean and how to take advantage of them? In this video, we will take a look at how Footprints Charts can help you with your trading, giving you an information advantage over the traders using candlestick charts.

Christmas at Earn2Trade

 

Santa knows what’s on your wishlist, so this holiday season he’s bringing back Earn2Trade’s best deal! 

Feature in Focus – Real Time News and Economic Releases Widgets

Have you ever placed an order seconds before an economic release that you knew nothing about? Your order is executed, and the market jumps literally 10 ticks against your entry price, and you get completely lost without knowing what happened and many times, without really knowing what to do. Should I wait a couple more seconds, or just close the position and try to understand what happened?

Black Friday at Earn2Trade

We’ve been working with Earn2Trade for a few years and they certainly excel in trader support and education, with rules very much in line with what you’d find at a “Regular” Bricks and mortar prop firm.

Jigsaw Trading Review – V4.0.1.0 Beta – Taming The Volatility Tiger

We are happy to announce the release of Jigsaw daytradr V4.0.1.0  Beta. The release includes some very exciting new features, which we’ll detail here. Note, we have attached “Beta” to this because of the number of new charting features. The other new features should be considered non-Beta. Note that we do beta releases to get more exposure to new features to iron out remaining bugs. If that’s not for you, then please stick with version 3.2.2.0 until this one is out of beta.  

Learn To Daytrade For Less With Our New Institutional Pricing

We are happy to announce that we are making the Institutional package more affordable starting today. As you may know, this package includes THE best price ladder education available anywhere, from our partner – London Proprietary Trading Firm “Axia Futures”.

Introducing Jigsaw Hub

Dear friend,

We’re excited to tell you about some changes we’ve recently made to improve the way you interact with your Jigsaw assets and resources.

Market Mechanics – Understanding How Prices Move in The Markets

“Why does price move?” is an interesting question that traders spend very little time contemplating.  Traders tend to accept that price moves around in a semi-orderly fashion without worrying about the mechanics behind a price move. Why does the price of any market move at all? Why doesn’t it stay in one place? Why doesn’t it jump around at random? Why doesn’t the emini S&P500 (ES) trade at 2100.25 one minute, 999.75 the next, then 10,000.00 the next? It’s all about market mechanics.

The Path to Becoming a Professional Trader by Chris Gray

Today we are happy to be posting the recording from yesterday’s event with Chris Gray. It was refreshing to hear about the “intangibles” a trader faces in his journey, such as how to validate a trading concept, how he levels himself out before trading, and a host of other things most traders don’t consider, yet as important as any setup. 

How to Daytrade, How NOT to Daytrade…

I consistently get 5-10 emails per week from people saying ‘I am lost in my trading, can you help?’. Mostly these are from prospective customers but about 30% are from existing customers. The mistakes they are making, and the comments I get are so similar, that I thought I’d try to write a blog post to cover most of the issues. In Summary, these are: 

Innovative Jigsaw User – Constant Trade – Video Library

In our last major survey, 23% of Jigsaw users were trading full-time. Many of these now have their own YouTube channels as they pay it forwards to other users on the same journey they tool themselves. 

Some of these are ‘power users’ of Jigsaw and put together amazing videos on how to get the most from the tools. One great example is Constant Trade and his videos “Full Tutorial Jigsaw daytradr” and “Every Tip You Need on Charts With Jigsaw”.

That’s saved us a job!

Just kidding – but we all have different perspectives, I’ve been around software for a while and it’s never failed to amaze me when I’ve walked into an office/factory and saw them using tools our teams had developed in ways we hadn’t envisaged. It‘s always good NOT to put too many limitations on code to allow for this “unexpected usage” and that’s what we see with Constant Trade. He’s an innovative user. 

These videos are excellent, so, we thought we’d share his tutorials with you.

Constant Trade started using a DOM in a trading room in Paris back in 2019, but the platform used at the time did not meet his requirements. While reworking his sessions using market replay, he discovered Jigsaw, and it has been his trading platform ever since.

And by the way, don’t forget to visit Jigsaw Trading’s YouTube channel, and look out for changes there as we add more playlists and more videos. They might not all be as good as Constant Trade’s videos though!

And to Constant Trade – a big thank you for putting this out there. 

Jigsaw’s Labor Day Sale! Up to $350 off! 100 coupons only.

It seems like every year, we get a new request for a sale we didn’t run before. This time we are getting requests for a “labor day sale”.   

To be fair though – this one makes more sense – after all, “Trading Season” starts the week after the Labor Day holiday. Which is when trading starts to ramp up after the holidays in The Hamptons. So while the private jets are being parked, maybe it’s time to strengthen your defense and offense with the Jigsaw tools and education.

So there’s no better time to ramp up your trading toolkit to make the most of the oncoming volatility.

Coffee With Chris: His Path to Becoming a Pro Trader 21st  Sept, Noon.

We are happy to announce that on the 21st of September at noon EST, we’ll be hosting Christopher Gray, who will be taking us through his path to becoming a professional trader. This is one of those webinars where everyone should get at least a gem or two of intel to help in their trading. Some of you will be close to Chris’s journey and others further away. Click here to register for this free event.

Learn to Trade Futures in 5 Simple Steps

In this article, we are talking to the new futures traders or those that are now banging their heads against a wall trying to figure out how to trade futures or any other financial market.  

Trade Exit Automation Pt 2 – Einstein Edition. Advanced Features.

 

In this video, we continue to discuss the benefits of Automated Trade Exit Management Strategies. We show more complex strategies, such as having multiple targets and stops as well as using a mixed mode of automated and manual management for those active traders needing more refined control in managing their positions. We take a look at volume stop strategies and how to add more legs as we keep adding to our position (scale in). All these different exit strategies have one goal, to help you better manage your position.

Can’t capture profits fast enough? Automate Your Exits.

 

This week the Feature in Focus is the Automated Trade Exit Management Strategies. Having automatic, defined exit prices on the DOM when trading fast markets, can help better manage our position, not only on the target side but also on the stop side. How many times, have we had a profit on our hands and markets reversed so fast that we had to exit at the market, at the worst possible price? In this video, we will show how to set up a simple stop loss strategy and a more complex strategy with trailing stops and multiple legs, and also show a small feature that some might not know when moving orders manually.

 

 

The Training Dilemma – What to Really Look for in Trading Education

Learning to trade can be an expensive and frustrating endeavor. Many retail traders end up buying (and discarding) numerous training courses in the process of learning how to trade. In this article, we’ll take a look at developing a more holistic view of the market. To develop your own training curriculum, as opposed to taking a series of disjointed ‘magic bullet’ courses that have you starting at ground zero each time.

My $6,000 mistake – avoiding the 6 most costly errors with trade rooms

Trade rooms, where subscribers pay to watch somebody trade live online, seem like the perfect education tool. I speak to a lot of traders looking for mentors who say, “if only I could watch somebody trade, THEN I’d get it”. You aren’t alone, in fact, this way of thinking cost me $6,000. More on that later.

Random Entry Trading

There is a famous trading book that ‘proves’ you can enter the market with a random entry and still make money. Or did it prove that? There are some important lessons to be learnt when we take a deeper look.

Master Trade Management using Order Flow

Trade Management is very much an overlooked aspect in the art of trading. Many retail traders are so focused on getting the trade entry right that they pay little attention to making sure they get the most from the trade or do their most to avoid losses in a losing trade. On the other hand, many professional traders will tell you that closing losing trades is one of the most important elements of their strategy. With the right trade management techniques, traders can expect tangible benefits in their trading within weeks.  

Anatomy of a Reversal

A huge proportion of traders are focused on trading reversals. Usually, there is some method of setting levels at which a reversal may occur; Support & Resistance, value areas, volume profile, pivot points, Fibonacci are all commonly used methods of setting locations where a reversal may occur. 
There is nothing inherently wrong with trading reversals, but it is worth considering WHY traders are attracted to reversal trading and what the downsides may be. 

Trading Therapy Group recording – The Man With 3 Brains

 

On May 11th, we had a great therapy group session where we looked at examples of personality extremes, such as ADHD and Dyslexia, and how people suffering from these disorders, despite being considered by most as troubled, because of the way their brain is wired, it might bring benefits elsewhere that they don’t know about.

It’s not all about mental wiring, it’s also about figuring out who you are, what your skills are, and how to adapt them to trading, understanding your own strengths and weaknesses.

 

Feature in Focus: Momentum Tails – Less Effort and Better Trading Decisions

 

In this second video, we continue to look at the momentum tails and how they can help us make better trading decisions or rather, how it takes less focus to make decisions you are making anyway. We take a look at using the tails in correlated markets and we also discuss the power of one of the simplest tools – the center line. It’s all about having the brain do less processing. We look at the differences between thinner and thicker markets, and how volume or the lack of, can affect momentum, which can also be affected during news or economic data release.

Day Trading Support/Resistance Levels

The most commonly played areas to trade-off also tend to be those that are the most visually appealing. It should therefore come as no great surprise that the most visually appealing “Support and Resistance” are the ones that are most discussed on trading forums. These are the areas with the highest participation of inexperienced traders.

The Man With 3 Brains. Matching Your Mind With Your Market

 

On May 11th at 12 pm EST, we’ll be holding our next (and overdue) Group Therapy session titled “The Man With 3 Brains. Matching You With Your Market”. As usual, this is a more interactive session with plenty of back and forth.

Jigsaw’s Inflation Busting Sale! Up to $350 off!

Like a lot of you – I am currently enjoying a flood of self-pitying emails from companies, telling me how hard their life is right now because of inflation. We’ve all had them – “Inflation is hitting us hard, so we have no choice but to hit you hard”. 

Because what company could possibly take a little hit on profits when everyone is suffering?

Well – this one. Inflation is hitting us too. But to us – it’s like some random guy punching you in the face because some other random guy punched him in the face. What do they call it? “Pay it forward”? Or did that go out of fashion?

Anyway – welcome to Jigsaw’s “anti-inflation sale”.

Strength in Numbers

The ability to gauge the genuine strength of a move in a market has a number of implications. We can assess the strength of a move in one direction against the strength of the last move to decide if a market is reversing or just pulling back. We can also look at a move in more absolute terms. Armed with swing chart and cumulative delta indicators, and also with knowledge of how that specific market generally operates, we can assess if what appears to be a good move in price action terms really has a chance of being sustained. 

Trading advice – A traders’ dilemma – true story

I often have traders call me to discuss their trading issues. Today I heard from a trader whose problem was a common one. It just wasn’t the problem he thought he had. For the purposes of this story, let’s call him Vitaly – because that’s his real name.

Trading Clichés – Fact or Fantasy?

One of the joys of learning to trade is wading through so many diverse opinions about the markets, how they work and how you can trade them. In this article, we’ll look at 5 common trading clichés and try to figure out which are facts and which are fantasy.

daytradr 3.2.2.0, Jigsaw 2022 Product & Group Therapy Plans

Today I am writing to you from a little detox resort in Samui where fat people go to be reborn into skinnies again. Like many, I experienced a little ‘depression’ of sorts during covid and ate the entire contents of the refrigerator every day.  I gained 23 kg and the wife said that this was “a bit too much Pete”, so she sent me here where I am on day 31 of a 37-day juice fast and about 13 kg lighter.

Much of the weight seems to have been lost from between my ears – and so I have not been replying to emails much or booking meetings. Normal service will resume after 11th April. 

Till then – you haven’t been forgotten if you think you have!

Today, we are releasing daytradr 3.2.20. It’s a maintenance patch and the list of issues resolved are below. This is a mandatory release as we’ve changed the way we distribute the charting licenses (the ones we pay for, not the ones you pay for). You won’t notice a difference, but charts will stop working on older versions on April 1st. 

We’ve been quiet in the past 12 months as we’ve been ramping up our development capabilities considerably. That included a brand-new development office. We still have staff in Thailand, India, Spain, Portugal, and Brazil, so not all developers are in the new office – but we needed a core group of smart people in one place and all new developers we hire will be there too

Volatility and Its Role In Your Downfall

Volatility can make or break you as a trader.  For many traders, it is causing unnecessarily high rates of losing trades. To understand the role of volatility, we’ll take a look at a couple of trading myths that make a lot of sense when you first hear them. As they are myths, they obviously don’t work in practice. Understanding why these 2 myths don’t work in practice, gives us some insights into a key factor of trading success. In fact, taking into account this one factor could absolutely make the difference between your success and failure as a trader.  

Trading on the Side of Strength

It’s natural to approach the markets with a “them vs. me” mentality; to see the market as one thing and yourself as another.  The reality is that a “me vs. me” scenario is closer to the truth; The markets are better viewed as a collection of people just like yourself all trying to squeeze money out of the markets. 

Feature in Focus: Improve your order flow reading with Momentum Tails

In this video we take a look at momentum tails. For many, this tool is the “trainer wheels” for reading momentum, they use it at first and let go of it later. Others like to just keep it on as it is a neat tool and means that reading momentum takes a lot less energy. We’ll explain the feature in terms of how to use it in trading and how to set it up. It’s the first of our “Feature in Focus Videos, where we look at lesser known features in the product and how to use them”. Partly this is because it might not be obvious and partly because the manual doesn’t go into depth on the “why” of the feature.

Front Running or Fading Absorption ? Dom Trading Setup That Works

A long time ago (OK, 2010), the DOM and Order Flow were barely discussed in trading. Most platforms had a DOM, but they were featureless skeletal creatures with very little meat on them. Educators like John Grady at NO BS were amongst a handful of players that took a lead in teaching people the DOM, and we played our own part starting 2012 bringing in features that made reading the DOM more accessible to those of us with Goldfish-like memories.

Surviving Day Trading In These Wild Markets

We are living in interesting times and the market has responded to the current war in Ukraine with a huge dose of volatility. In this article, we’ll look at how you can adjust to this. 

It’s time to talk about the ES/S&P500 Futures and Sucking

This has been a recurring question of late. Newer traders asking “Is the ES always like this?” and it’s time to discuss openly. 

The S&P500 Futures suck right now.

There – I said it.

People are struggling – especially newer traders. Those that didn’t experience a ‘normal’ S&P500 Futures yet!

How to Become a Full-Time Day Trader

This topic always reminds me of a trip I took to a prop firm in London. It was my first time meeting their CEO – we had a quick chat then off for lunch. As we got to the lift there was a shout of “hold the lift” and two young traders walked in. One of them said “Are you Peter Davies?” and my answer (obviously) was “Why?”. It turns out that the two traders had gotten their start in Order Flow trading from the lessons at Jigsaw and they ended up trading similar techniques for the firm. This isn’t the norm but just one of many ways people end up becoming a full time day trader.

Big End of Year Discounts! 100 Coupons Ends 3rd Jan.

It’s the end of the year and just like Black Friday, the bargain hunters are out in force again. This time looking for a January sale. So here we go – these are our best deals ever and we have no plans for another major sale till next Thanksgiving – and even then – we’ll try our best to avoid it!

Our New Year Gift – The All New Order Flow Foundation Course

Our New Year Gift to Jigsaw customers is now ready to be opened. It’s something we’ve had in the making since the start of 2021. A completely new, vastly improved “Order Flow Foundation Course”.  It’s available to all existing Jigsaw daytradr users Free Of Charge.

It’s also going to be made available to all new Jigsaw daytradr customers!

Jigsaw is often referred to as the “Gold Standard” in Order Flow Education. Specifically – our “ground up” “Order Flow Foundation” course, launched back in 2014. It takes you from zero knowledge to fully understanding the “what’s” and “why’s” of Order Flow, without resorting to a lot of confusing terminology.

That’s why if you go onto online trading forums and Facebook trading groups asking “what’s the best way to learn order flow?” – you’ll be pointed in our direction.  

Not only that –  a number of prop firms use it (with our blessing) to initiate their interns in Order Flow concepts when they first join. One trader told us “I went on a professional course run by B******* that my firm paid $14k for, and it didn’t cover the topic with this depth and clarity”.

Futures Trading Strategies Professional Day Traders Use.

This article will go over the main strategies day traders use that I’ve been exposed to. Each strategy or style has pros and cons. What I’ll leave out are strategies you couldn’t do from home. For example, I know of one firm that ran an open outcry FX desk for USD/THB – and FX market-making firm that on a busy day could push through a billion dollars – but, unless you know of a dozen banks to have on the line all day – I’d say that’s not something you can do from home. Here are a few futures trading strategies that day traders use!

Taming The Risk (& Reward) Tiger – Recording.

In this session, we looked at 3 scenarios traders commonly face where the outcome is usually the worst possible one.

This is sort of understandable when the risk or reward component of a scenario is cold-hard-cash. But even when the reward is a self-set non-monetary target, we see the same behaviours as with cash targets. We brought along John Hoagland from Topstep for his interesting perspectives on this – he’s a 30-year market veteran prop/floor trader who coaches Topstep traders. And managed to squeeze Topstep for a free Trading combine for new customers (or coaching session for existing Topstep customers) – which you can apply for here.

Trading Group Therapy, Yellow Belt Session

We had another great session with Sune on Dec 1st. In this session, we had a look at where he was now, for a trading plan, and then figure out how to move forward. The key here was not getting Sune to start again but to do a couple of things…

Building Trading Muscles You Didn’t Know You Needed Yet! (Thu 12pm)

Introducing or increasing risk to your trading usually has a number of unforeseen effects that appear to come out of the blue. Many traders think this is unique to them but the reality is – it’s almost all traders. It’s just that most find out about the issues and their impact when it hits their live account.

Trading on SIM has zero risk – so for most –  their entry and exit strategies improve but their trading skillset remains undeveloped. They go live and these underdeveloped trading muscles become their weakness.

This Thursday, at 12 pm central, Trading veteran John Hoagland will be joining us in an open discussion where we’ll be discussing these issues in detail. Click here to register.

We’ll take the 3 most damaging symptoms one by one and we’ll give our perspectives and invite you to give yours. We’ll then look at ways to help ensure you encounter these issues in a safe, controlled environment.

Trading Group Therapy, White Belt Session

We had a great session last week with Sune – who is new to Order Flow and comes to us as more of an “open book” than many of the people we talk to in Group Therapy.  For those earlier in the journey – this should be a useful series for you. Hat’s off to Sune too for doing this! 

Don’t Miss Out! Jigsaw Black Friday Sale.

Bigger Discounts. More Products.

Just like a new trader changing from a 50 to a 49 moving average to get an edge over the competition. Everyone and their dog is doing Black Friday sales 2 weeks before Black Friday. So this is our 49 MA. The difference is, you’ll be getting the edge over other traders with these deals.

Jigsaw Advisory Panel/Inner Circle – Kick Off

With the launch of the latest version of daytradr with Discord Integration – we are ready to kick-off activities for the Jigsaw Advisory Panel. From this point on, we’ll refer to is as he “Inner Circle” – because it’s a much cooler name.

Jigsaw Trading Affiliate Program

We recently hired a new Marketing Manager (Jay) and as part of his review of our processes, he took a look at the Affiliate program and the “refer-a-friend” scheme. Both programs help you earn a commission by referring people to Jigsaw. He found that both were in need of an update, so here’s the changes for both existing referrers and those looking to jump on board and start getting paid by Jigsaw.

Jigsaw daytradr 3.2.0.0

We are happy to announce the release of Jigsaw daytradr 3.2.0.0 – with Discord Integration.

Jigsaw Discord Community

An overhaul to the way we bring Jigsaw users together is long overdue and with the release of daytradr 3.2.0.0, we now have our own Discord Server.

Can you really improve your trading by doing less?

Yesterday, we spent an hour in a group therapy session with Marcos, a trader that recently overcame one of the most common problems in trading – sticking to the plan. In his case, the plan was 50 pages long when we met and is just 2 pages now. Something that enabled consistency. That consistency landed him 2 funded accounts at an online prop firm. 

This is an interview-style group therapy, where we look a the changes made in his trading, to get back on track.

Jigsaw Support Changes

I’d like to let you all know about changes we are making to the Jigsaw Product Support Processes. Partly this is to keep you in the loop on the things we are doing right now but also we’ll be referring to this post in support cases because one of the things we are doing might seem a little aggressive if left without explanation.

Market Making Manual – Update

A quick update on Gary Norden’s Market Maker Manual and related live webinar sessions.

We have had numerous inquiries about the availability of the manual for new customers. Gary has decided to stop selling the Market Maker Manual and it is no longer available through Jigsaw Trading’s website. 
 
This development has raised an issue for existing users of the material and continuing access to the manual. The manual remains accessible for existing users through the normal access portal on Jigsaws members only site. Gary has requested Jigsaw remove the manual from the members pages on January 14th, 2022.

Regarding the live webinar sessions.  Gary has informed us he won’t be returning to do any Q&A sessions.

Trading Group Therapy – The 11 Year Glitch

Imagine selling your business to trade and sitting there 11 years later, still not profitable. There are a few questions that come to mind when you hear this. Some assumptions you might make too. I had a lot of assumptions and even some possible conclusions before going into this discussion with CB (alias name to keep his identity anonymous)

SIM Trading or Bleeding Money? Experience Capped Risk

I’d like to go over what I consider a big value to traders in services like Topstep Trader that isn’t discussed much but for many, is a way to get out of the destructive SIM reset cycle without losing your savings.  

Join The “Jigsaw Advisory Panel” – Shaping Jigsaw Together

As Jigsaw continues to grow, we feel it’s time to get more engaged with the user base as we roll out new products and want to validate “off the wall ideas”. In our view – the best way to get the product roadmap right and shape the future – is to blend our plans with the feedback and requests of a working group that is both friendly and outside of our own control. 

Trading Group Therapy – Chuck Berry – Thu, 12PM EST

It’s time for us to move into the next phase of group therapy – where we will look at specific trader’s issues. If you remember, earlier this year we said that we don’t want to be a part of the narrative that “trading is an endless quest for knowledge” or “I just need that one last thing”.  Teaching more and more is unhelpful if you already have enough and the answer is to get good at that. After, all – it was REFUSING to sell more education to this guy  that was his turning point. 

The Trading Education Paradox

If there’s one topic that’s guaranteed to cause a heated debate in the trading world, it’s Trading Education. Usually, the discussion revolves not so much about which education products are best but about the motivations of the seller. The most common arguments together, create a paradox, which indicates anyone who teaches can’t trade. 

In this article, we’ll look at the arguments and offer a flip side to them. Not a counter-argument specifically but a look at how this works in other industries. 

As we sell trading education, we are not going to talk about ourselves in this article or it’ll just be seen as a sales pitch.

Trend vs Chop

We’ve had a slight change of heart about the Group Therapy recording for Part 2 of the “Keeping It Simple” special. We have decided to make it public. Admittedly, this is partly because Camtasia kept crashing my PC as I tried to edit the video that I’d recorded in 4k mode. 

Webinar: Using Market Shape To Find Bigger Trades. Register To Win $1,500 Cash.

We are excited to announce we’ve been invited to present at July’s Wealth365 Summit. This time, we’ll be discussing the use of “Market Shape” to identify day trades that have above average potential. For those who register, you will get the chance to win up to $1,500 in cash. The event runs from 12th to 17th July and our spot will be on Thursday, July 15th at 10 a.m. ET. Click here to register. As usual – emails will not be shared with any 3rd party. W365 will get your email and there is an opt out that will be honored. 
 
What is “Market Shape”? 
 
In a recent group therapy session, I mentioned a number of techniques I wasn’t on-board with and someone in the audience said “But your partner Axia Futures uses that”. Well – how embarassing! On the one hand, I wasn’t a believer but on the other hand, I know Axia well enough to pique my interest. And I went to see if they’d explain. 
 
Over a number of (heated) Sunday morning sessions, Alex (the CEO of Axia) and I discussed this. The biggest proponents of “Market Shape” are some of the biggest traders at Axia. I was intrigued. Still, until I had a solid “why”, I wasn’t convinced. To prevent Alex and I killing each other on the phone, Richard stepped in and the penny finally dropped, when he gave me a different angle that made all what Alex said make sense..

Well – that escalated quickly!

It seems we’ve generated some disappointment with some of our valued customers due to the event at LKS yesterday. The gist is they feel that LKS are not an honest operator and that we are a dying company that is in a last ditch attempt to make some cash before we disappear completely. Some are calling for a boycott and say they will destroy us. You know – typical Friday.

daytradr 3.1.1.4 – Out Today

Today we are releasing version 3.1.1.4 of daytradr, the manual for charting is now complete. This will be the last release before charts are “officially launched” over the next week or two. The team is already working on the next projects with a portion of the team remaining on charting while the rest work on new features outside the area of charting. 

Flash Sale – Up to $200 off! 50 people only – ends Monday

We did say that we’d reduce the number of “Flash Sales” – but it’s now been almost 6 months – and this time, we are giving a massive $200 discount on the Institutional packages.

You can receive a $100 discount off ANY Jigsaw product and $200 off the Institutional Package. Note – the Only 1 discount per customer (yes, we do check) and the first 50 customers to apply get the discount. This offer ends on May 24th, 2021. Just use coupon code “FS100″ or “FS200”, on the payment page to get the discount.

Wanted – Jigsaw Marketing Lead/Community Manager

Jigsaw is hiring again. This time. it’s to help us with marketing and customer outreach. The ideal target will be English speaking and in Asia or Europe. Europe would be most convenient from a time zone perspective. We are looking for someone that has done a similar role, so this is not for someone that “wants to give it a try”, it’s for someone that brings skills we don’t currently have. 

Retail vs Pro Day Trading 1 – Tunnel Vision

In this series, we’ll take a look at the differences between retail and professional trading. In each post, we’ll focus on one aspect where we see a major difference between the two groups. In this first one, we’ll look at the scope of decisions made to enter trades.

daytradr 3.1.1.3, Last Weekend for $1000 Cash Prize

Today we are releasing version 3.1.1.3 of daytradr, we’ve gotten to the end of the issue list (from our perspective). We are of course ready for any more issues but we think we reached stability at this point. A big thanks to all who helped testing. And a bit of extra thanks to Christian V. for his efforts.

NEW Eurex Micros. Win $1000 Cash Survey Prize. daytradr 3.1.1.1

If you are just here for the $1000 – go to the end. 

For the rest….

Yesterday, Eurex launched 2 new Micro Contracts – presumably this means a “micro war” between the exchanges. This would be great for newer traders looking to cut their teeth on live accounts. 

We are also releasing daytradr 3.1.1.1 – which is needed to support these contracts and fixes the NT8/MT5 issues with the last version as well as a couple of minor issues. We are also still running the survey with a $1000 prize for the winner we’ll draw out of a (virtual) hat at the end of the month. More at the end.

Trading Support at Jigsaw

At Jigsaw, we are somewhat unusual in that we don’t just offer support for our tools – but we are here to help with trading issues too. We don’t charge for this and so far, the volume has been very manageable and we’ve got as much from doing it as the people asking the questions.

News: Happiness is a Decision

CEO Peter Davies was recently quoted in an article on investing, order flow trading, and the volatility of the stock market and economy in general.

daytradr Charting Beta Ending. $1000 Survey Prize

We are happy to announce what we hope is the final or penultimate beta release for charting. Since the last release, we have focused on fixing reported beta issues and releasing interim versions to those that have specific issues. We also re-factored a number of areas of code – both our own and 3rd party code, to maximize performance. 

News: Investing During The Pandemic

CEO Peter Davies was recently quoted in an article on investing during the pandemic; what should I do with my money considering all of the volatility and uncertainty today.

News: Trading Futures

CEO Peter Davies was recently quoted in U.S. News & World Report on trading futures;

Beat the Price Increase – Save $678. Inertia Wins, So 2 More Days

I recently sent out a blog post about the upcoming price increase of the Axia Price Ladder Course at Jigsaw. The increase was to be in place on 5th March but I got sidetracked with some other issues and I didn’t make the increase. So I just told Axia about it and asked them – you want me to do it or can I give people 2 more days?  And Alex at Axia is such a gent, he ok’d it.  So you benefit from my inertia. 

The price of the Axia Price Ladder course has been static for years. Axia are frequently adding content (and value) to the course, usually without a price increase. In November, they added 6 carefully crafted drills that help you hone your tape reading skills. They plan to add more content later this year. They felt, that at some point the price needed to reflect all the extra value and so they put in place an increase that justified their continued additions.

Then forgot to tell me about it!

As mentioned, we ‘missed’ the recent price increase on the Axia Price Ladder course – one of the key components of our Institutional package. The price at Axia is now £1,200/US$1,678.

Keeping It Simple

It’s quite easy to say “Just keep it simple” about any task but that means picking some things and discarding others – but which ones? 

Short Sellers – Evil or Not?

Like many, I’ve been watching the shenanigans over trading in the stocks of GameStop with interest. I’d meant to pen an article on short selling for a while – but what better time than now?

2020 Trading Group Therapy Plans

We are planning to do something different for our Group Therapy sessions in 2020. . One of the reasons for this is that there’s only so much to be said about trading, we’ll start to get repetitive if we go over the same topics again. The plan is to focus on customer issues rather than us choosing the topics

Success Factors & Side Gigs

Here’s the recording of Decembers group therapy session. In this event, we went over my own story and then took a look at how much was luck and how much was good judgement. This is done in order for us all to reflect on what random events caused us to get to this point in our trading and consider if some of our beliefs might be holding us back.

Chop & Trend – Spot Changing States Early to Maximize Returns

We are excited to announce a new webinar we’ll be showing at the upcoming Wealth365 “Best of the Best” January 2021 Summit. We’ll be presenting on 21st Jan at 10am . Click here to register. Your email will not be shared.

For those that register – send us your confirmation email from Wealth365 (to “[email protected]”) and we’ll add you to our prize draw with prizes every 3 days. Prizes in the first week will be a $500 voucher and every 3 days we’ll announce the winners. In the last week, we’ll have cash prizes too!  The earlier you register, the more prize draws you’ll take part in!

Jigsaw New Year’s Sale – Up to $150 off! 50 people only – ends Jan. 5, 2021.

Our Black Friday Sale was so popular, we are doing it again for the New Year!

You can receive a $100 discount off ANY Jigsaw product and $150 off the Institutional and Market Maker Packages. Note – the Only 1 discount per customer (yes, we do check) and the first 50 customers to apply get the discount. This offer ends on Jan. 5, 2021. Just use coupon code “NYE100″ or “NYE150”, on the payment page to get the discount.

Day Trading Setups, Which Ones Actually Work?

For those that don’t know what the DOM is – it’s the Depth of Market. Before we proceed, it’s important to point out that not all DOM’s are equal. Some are too basic to be of any practical use and some freeze up when you need them most – when the markets get really busy.

Jigsaw Black Friday Sale – Up to $150 off! 50 people only – ends Sunday.

To celebrate Thanksgiving, we are giving away some fantastic discounts to 50 lucky customers. The rules are simple – it’s a $100 discount off ANY Jigsaw product and $150 off the Institutional and Market Maker Packages. Note – the Only 1 discount per customer (yes, we do check) and the first 50 customers to apply get the discount. This offer ends on Sunday. Just use coupon code “BF100″ or “BF150”, on the payment page to get the discount.

Is Order Flow Trading Overrated?

This question was posed to me yesterday by a customer. Rather than answer his question directly, I thought I’d put out a blog post.

daytradr Charts Beta 7 – FootPrints

We are happy to announce that FootPrint charts are now ready in Beta 7 of daytradr charting. We did plan a presentation on it today but we’ve spent the day ironing out the remaining issues. So the webinar will be on 29th at 12pm EST. It would be tomorrow but for the many of you that are friends with me on Facebook – you’ll note that it is my daughters birthday. My wife pointed this out tonight and I mentioned the webinar I was going to do tomorrow. She didn’t say a word, but the look she gave me told me that a change of date would be a wonderful idea.

Order Flow First Steps – Follow Up Session Recording

 

 

This webinar was another interactive session. It was following up on the meeting we had on Monday which was basically telling people the first steps they should take with order flow, to get them ready for the FootPrint lessons this week. We did invite our whole list so it was well attended and we got a good range of questions.

Order Flow – First Steps

We recently did a webinar at Wealth365, where we discussed FootPrint charts – the pro’s and cons. For those that wanted to take that further, we started a 7-week course.

daytradr Charts – Approach & Philosophy

In this article, we’ll take a look at how Jigsaw charting is put together and our philosophy when it comes to charting. Where we will go and where we won’t. How we’ll be different. What you can expect from us.

daytradr Charts Beta 6

We now have Beta 6 of daytradr charts released. In this release we have fixes for the following issues:

daytradr Charts Beta 4 – CSI, Memory Improvements

All, it’s time for another release of the charts. In this version we have CSI that we first introduced as an indicator for NinjaTrader 7 way back in 2015. This is being released as a chart type, not an indicator/study. It’s just easier to use that way.

Jigsaw is Hiring!

Hi All

Just a short note to let you know we are hiring for both developer roles and customer support roles. The Job Descriptions are below:

Trading Data Delays – What To Do?

There’s been lot’s of reports of massive data lags this week and we thought we’d take some time to explain why this is and what to do when you see future lags. 

daytradr Charts Beta 1

Today, we are releasing daytradr charts Beta 1. The purpose of a Beta trial is to have the software running on a wider range of machines, configurations and usage patterns than our QA can replicate. The aim is to find new issues. If this process didn’t find issues, there would be no point in having a beta. So we actively encourage you to report anything you see that does not make sense to you.

Jigsaw Charts & NT8/MT5

We announced the charting beta last week and got lots of replies about our support for NinjaTrader 8 and MT5. Our initial thoughts on this were that when you bridge to another charting platform, you wouldn’t need that bridge to pass data for our charting as you already have charts.  This brought up many questions and I’ll try to answer them here:

Prize Winners Announced!

In the past month we had 2 opportunities for people in the Jigsaw Community to win some amazing prizes.

Jigsaw Charting Beta

Next week, we plan to release the first beta of the Jigsaw Charting Module. It’s built into the existing application and for existing users, there’s no additional charge to use these charts. We are doing this as many of our users have a second charting application open alongside our tools and that incurs data fees.

Independence Day Sale – Up to $100-$150 off everything! 50 coupons only!

Lot’s of people have emailed asking for an Independence Day discount. Many of them that aren’t even from the US….  We have decided to give away some fantastic discounts to 50 lucky customers. Also – we have buy in from Gary & Axia, so for the first time we are giving discounts on 100% 3rd party products.

Icebergs, Stop Runs & Balance of Outright Traders

In this months group therapy, we took a look at icebergs, stop runs and the balance of outright traders. The latter being important as many traders presume that all of the activity we are looking at relates to traders with outright positions (e.g. buy low, sell higher).

With the advent of MBO, people are getting excited about using some of the new information in their trading. In this webinar, we took a few steps back and examined the underlying activity of Order Flow to ensure we put icebergs and stop run info in the right context.

Jigsaw Swing Charts Webinar with a $500 cash prize!

We’ve always been a fan of Swing charts as they provide a unique insight into market activity. Interestingly, it’s not because they show more information but because they filter out a lot of noise and focus on 2 main data points – where did the market react? and which side of the market was trading more aggressively? In turn, this helps you understand if the market is going to continue or if it’s done in the old direction and a new trend is in place. It’s great for bias, it’s great for trading pullbacks. We’ll show you how to use them and for the first time, we’ll be showing the new Jigsaw Charts, which will be beta release in July.

Improved Support System at Jigsaw

This is a quick video to show you around the new support system at Jigsaw. We’ve implemented this new system so we can better support you and in many cases, get you an instant response from our growing knowledge base.

Dinosaurs & Market Bubbles for Day Traders

No doubt most of our readers will have heard of the “Hubble Space Telescope”, it orbits the earth taking breathtaking pictures from space. Fewer people know about the sister project “Bubble Space Telescope”, which was sent out to the edges of the Galaxy hoping to shed new light on how so many aggressive, strong and fearless dinosaur species went extinct at the same time, without warning and leaving little trace.
Just days ago, Bubble came across a previously undiscovered blue and oxygen-rich planet. It’s not been named but is known in scientific circles as “Dotcom2001”, a place where seemingly indestructible beasts were roaming the planet just a few decades ago. Beasts such as “BuyTheDiplodocus”, “Robinhood-osaurus”, “NoStopLossoraptor”, “BetterThanBuffet-e-titan” and the apex predator “DayTrade-o-Saurus-Rex”

Jigsaw Support of New GAIN/OEC API

GAIN Capital (aka OEC) have implemented a new API that will replace their existing API next month. We are supporting this in Jigsaw daytradr V 2.1.0.5 out today.

Discretionary Trading Rules

In this month’s group therapy session, we discussed discretionary trading rules. The recording of the event is below:

Trading Group Therapy – Discretionary Trading Rules – 11th May, 12pm EST

In this month’s group therapy session, we’ll discuss discretionary trading rules. Most traders split trading into 2 categories – mechanical and discretionary. Mechanical trading is where most start out – looking for a ‘hard set’ of rules to follow, usually based on technical analysis with rules like “buy when indicator A crosses indicator B”. Mechanical systems also have the allure that they can be automated and that this automation saves you from your own psychological flaws.

The downside of mechanical trading as most traders find out – is that it doesn’t actually work for the individual trader. There are too many external, unconsidered factors outside of their rules for it to work.

Mechanical systems are often also called “Rules-based systems”. So many end up thinking that that discretionary trading must be trading without rules, that it’s just “trading instinctively”, “shooting from the hip”, “trading your gut feel”. Many traders do attempt to do exactly that, with disastrous results.

In this group session, we consider what rules-based discretionary trading should look like. Where you start out and where you should end up.

– Pure instinctive trading, why it fails, where you will end up entering the market, why you will lose.
-Understanding the benefits of discretionary trading & leveraging them.
– Creating a safety net – protecting yourself from yourself.
– What a discretionary rule should look like.
– What your rules should cover. Factors to add to your trading & when to add them.
– How to ensure your trading improves over time.
The end game. What your trading should evolve into.

The last point is intended to give you an idea of what discretionary trading looks like for an advanced trader, where you are headed and how different your trading will look as you progress.

To register for the event (or the recording), click here

MBO – The new Holy Grail or A Gimmick for Retail Traders?

There’s building chatter and excitement in the retail trading world about “MBO”. or “Market By Order”. In this article, we’ll take a look at what MBO is and the potential ramifications for the retail trader. Note that a lot of the discussions I had with professionals about MBO were taking place after it was announced/before it was released. It all sounded very familiar…

Interactive Brokers Data for US Stocks

Many customers have asked which market data subscriptions they need for trading US stocks. It’s not 100% clear and the stock feeds are quite different from Futures. After all, Futures all trade on a single exchange and any individual stock trades on many of them. NASDAQ is not a single exchange but a collection of exchanges. NYSE is an exchange but their stocks also trade on NASDAQ.

Jigsaw Pricing Explained

In this article, we’ll explain the Jigsaw Pricing Model – how it works & why we feel it presents exceptional value. As you read this, bear in mind that 23% of our users trade full time. It’ll be clear why that’s important shortly.

Jigsaw daytradr 2.1.0.3 – 64 Bit

Today we are releasing daytradr 2.1.0.3. It will be released in 64 bit  version only. We’d been releasing 32 bit because one of the APIs we support was only available in 32 bit (XTrader API). It’s been phased out now, so we are releasing 64 bit. The downside of 32 bit apps is that they can only use a very limited amount of memory, so if you peak temporarily above a certain level – it won’t be happy about it.

Developing a Game Plan by John Grady

Earlier this week, we were luck to have Tradovate sponsor a with John Grady as speaker. If you don’t know John he is the founder of No BS Day Trading. John is an ex-proprietary trader who now trades his own account.  We like to try and get as many people from the professional trading to speak at Jigsaw, even though you might not trade like them right now – their insights are always helpful.

The Eternal Quest For The Market Bottom!

It goes without saying that as of writing, the markets are extremely volatile. The long-term picture is one of moving upwards for years with just a couple of significant pullbacks. Now we can see the supply chain being hit by hard Coronavirus fears and the markets have sold off hard.

But, not that hard!

We’ve really just taken back the gains since October 2019 in a 10 year bull run. 4 months of gains. If you consider that we moved up from 666 to 3400 on the S&P 500 Futures with only 1 major correction in 10 years, then going back to October 2019 prices doesn’t sound that bad.

Which Trading Education is Best For Me?

At Jigsaw, we pride ourselves in offering a range of education options along with our software, something to suit every trader. From the free training you get with daytradr Independent to our Institutional package, it’s not always clear which education option is best for you. 

Jigsaw Customer Video – Steve Leigh – The Road To Profit

On 29th January at 12pm EST, we had very special guest to come along and talk about his trading journey. Many of you will know Steve from the Jigsaw chat room and will have seen him post his trade results over and over again. Steve has no professional trading background, he sits at home and trades like most retail traders. Well – with the exception that he does well at it.  He is primarily a scalper, taking small bites out of the market. In the webinar he discussed:

January Group Therapy – Special Guest – Steve Leigh – The Road To Profit

On 29th January at 12pm EST, we have a very special guest to come along and talk about his trading journey. Many of you will know Steve from the Jigsaw chat room and will have seen him post his trade results over and over again. Steve has no professional trading background, he sits at home and trades like most retail traders. Well – with the exception that he does well at it. 
Click here to join this Jigsaw hosted event.

Trading in 2020 – The Plan & The Perils

First of all – Happy New Year. I don’t consider it New Year for trading till well into week 2 as it’s often low on volume (and I also like an excuse to extend the vacation). January is typically a tight month where a lot of people are paying for the Christmas and New Year excess but it’s also a month to which many people attach a lot of hope. Setting a New Years Resolution and then somehow blowing that out the window with a single point of failure and then back to the old bad habits. 

UK Election – Traders Guide

Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you’ll know it’s the UK election tomorrow. An interesting election at that which is going to have some huge ramifications depending on who wins. Now, when I say ‘huge ramifications’ – I mean for the markets. I’m not making any assumptions that any party will follow through on any promises.

Order Flow Boot Camp – Webinar Recording

This is a recording of our recent Order Flow Bootcamp, where we gave you an introduction to the art of Order Flow – the single most important set of data used by professional day traders. As so many people are jumping on the bandwaggon with Order Flow, we take you back to the basics we’ve been teaching since 2011. The REALITY of Order Flow, how to learn and what the pitfalls are:

Making Improvements In All The Right Places

There’s an interesting couple of lessons I’d like to share from Nathan, a trade mentorship student. About where he found the answers to really improving. Like a lot of traders, Nathan was stuck in a rut with his trading. His story is common. He’s been looking at trading for about 7 years. He did what most people do at the start – get ripped off by a shady education outfit. Then he started studying chart patterns and price action but nothing was consistent & there were way too many variables. He finally found John Grady at No BS Day Trading who introduced him to Jigsaw. He felt he was in the right place but couldn’t get himself past a number of issues, so he signed up for a trade mentorship. Here’s his own words about his issues:

Do futures traders do better than currency traders?

Over the years, we’ve answered thousands of traders’ questions. We’ve decided to make the answers public, so that everyone can benefit from them. This question is from someone considering Jigsaw:

Seven Most Effective Trading Setups

We are happy to announce that we’ll be presenting a webinar “The Seven Most Effective Trading Setups” at 4:30pm EST on Thursday 17th October. In this session we’ll take a look at what makes a good trading setup, then we’ll look at my personal favorite 7 trading setups. Click here to sign up for the webinar.

Learn to Trade with Situational Awareness

 

Developing situational awareness is a key discipline for professional traders as they learn to trade. But is it something that you at home should concern yourself with? Let’s consider 2 extreme scenarios:

The Headfake & the ‘News Addicted’ Market – Trade Entry

 

There’s been a lot of focus in the press/blogs recently about increased volatility in the markets. Trump Tweets, China Trade, Interest Rate speculation, Brexit and just a few days ago – Saudi Oil disruption. What’s not been mentioned much is what happens when the news subsides. Has this volatility killed off another side of the market? Going back a few years, we’d get very healthy speculative moves on the S&P Futures with 3-4 intraday moves of 10-15 point. We’d often end the day exactly where we started. The market giving the impression that a lot of trading went on but everyone that got in, also got out and we ended up back at the starting point. Right now, on days where we don’t have Geo-Political news, there’s a real lack of volatility.

Video – When a Breakout Trade Fails (swimming with the sharks)

 

The Breakout trade is one of the most popular setups around. For that, and a number of other reasons, this also makes it an area where large players can nudge the market around. Typically that involves pushing the market so that the breakout trade sets up and then sitting on the other side of the market absorbing the trading before finally pushing people out of position. If you consider the typical intraday range – it’s typically a non-directional market at a slow time. Contracts build up and so does impatience to get into the market. This lack of large money participating plus the impatience in smaller traders means it’s relatively safe and rewarding to nudge the market around a bit.

When Technicals say Yes, but Order Flow says No! by Axia Futures

 

One of the most beneficial uses of Order Flow is using for trade confirmation and often that means to  not get into the market. Of course, lot’s of traders are so focused on getting into trades, they only want trade confirmation to tell them to get into a trade. Sometimes, though – the best thing to do is stand aside.

Effective Trader Education. When Markets go ‘vague’, Scaling into Trades & Trading when Employed

As part of our ongoing commitment to Effective Trader Education, we had 2 great webinars last week and as requested, here are including the recordings and the slides for both. In the first video, we have the Group Therapy session for May. For those that don’t know, these are informal “high participation” events where we go back & forward discussing the topics at hand. Topics are chosen ahead of time and a short intro-presentation done to give the Jigsaw perspective on these topics & we then opened the floor for discussion.

CME Micro Futures Contracts – Upsides, Downsides & Trade Entry Signals

Unless you’ve had your head buried in the sand the past few weeks, you’ll know the CME recently launched 4 new Micro Futures markets for traders. In this article we take a look at these contracts, scenarios where they might be useful and scenarios where I feel they are best avoided. We’ll also look at how the Micro Futures are trading and where to look for trade entry signals.

“May Madness 50” – Flash Sale at Jigsaw & Journalytix!

It’s been a busy year so far at Jigsaw and we’ve not run a sale since Christmas. So, as it’s almost the start of summer (except in the UK, where Summer is cancelled this year), we have decided to give away some fantastic discounts to 50 lucky customers.

Trading Index Future Divergences (DAX & STOXX) – Video

As anyone that’s been following Jigsaw for a while will tell you – we love correlations. Correlations exist in markets because of arbitrage trading that simultaneously buys and sells correlated markets to make a profit when they come back in line.

Strong vs Weak Action on a Breakout

In this video from Axia Futures, Richard leads discusses the two potential breakouts. The first was a failure to the downside after breaking the 28 level in the German Bund, the second was a successful breakout to the upside when the 47 level was broken.

Good Action vs Bad Action by John Grady

This month, we had a special guest along for our monthly group therapy session. In this session, professional trader John Grady discusses “Good Action vs Bad Action” – or how to spot if your market is really giving you opportunities or if it’s the sort of action that will drain your account.

eMini S&P500 – State of Play – February 2019

The crazy volatility we saw at the end of 2018 in the US Index Futures appears to be behind us. The China Trade War drums aren’t beating so hard and we’ve become (almost) immune to the daily ups and downs of Brexit news.

January Group Therapy Recording – Confidence & Confirmation in Trading

Many traders struggle with indecision immediately after entering a trade. Getting shaken out of good trades and staying in bad trades. They know their setup well but once they are in, there’s few rules for staying in. We’ll be discussed this in our January Group Therapy Session on 29th Jan.

Jigsaw Price Ladder Trading Course – Improved & Updated

We are happy to announce that the Jigsaw Price Ladder Training & Order Flow Strategies course has been radically updated. As you know, the course was created by our Education Partner ‘Axia Futures’ – a proprietary trading firm with trading floors in UK and Poland. This is the single best resource for Price Ladder training anywhere. The course is evolving with the markets and with the traders on Axia’s London and Wroclaw trading floors. Not only is this course taught to all of their graduate recruits, it benefits from the combined experiences of the traders on their trading floor.

Trading 2019 – Market Conditions & Go-Forward Plan

Before I start – this article is not about making New Years resolutions. I only break those anyway and after you break one? Back to normal, isn’t it?  What this is – is a consideration of where the markets are right now and whether a shift of focus may be required. Looking back at my own trading, I was way down in terms of trade volume (actual positions) on the US index futures in 2018, compared to 2017. The reason for that was simple. The index futures had become really volatile and I’d made the decision to watch the start of each day but take a pass when it was really volatile. Which was a lot of days in the last quarter.

Big Black Friday Discounts at Jigsaw! First 50 people only – ends Sunday.

To celebrate Thanksgiving, we are giving away some fantastic discounts to 50 lucky customers. The rules are simple – it’s a $100 discount off ANY Jigsaw product. Only 1 discount per customer (yes, we do check) and the first 50 customers to apply get the discount. This offer ends on Sunday. Just use coupon code “BLACKFRIDAY” on the payment page to get the discount.

Volatility – Moving Your Stops is Not Always The Answer

It’s time to discuss the volatility…

Lot’s of traders are suffering at the moment and it is NOT just retail traders. There’s quite a few professional traders licking their wounds right now. Yes, that’s right – word from the prop managers I know is this current volatility is causing issues for many of their traders too.

Adapting to differences in price action. High probability or coin flip? by John Grady

Here’s the recording from Wednesday’s webinar from John Gradry. It’s a great presentation and very much along the lines of the discussions we recently had in our recent break out sessions on assessing your strategy. That whatever you do – the market will make it not work if you don’t stay flexible. If you are playing every day the same way or expecting profits to be a steady curve, this is really worth a watch.

Jigsaw Leaderboard June and July Results – A superscalper in our midst?

The leaderboard contest rates traders based on our proprietary trading algorithm. Today, we’ll take a look at our outstanding performers for June and July. Typically slow months in the market (especially July), conditions have been more “stop-start” which has provided an additional layer of challenge. Note that you can now scroll through the months/weeks performance on the https://www.jigsawtrading.com/leaderboard/public leaderboard, which was previously disabled!

It’s back – Jigsaw Leaderboard & May Results

It’s been a while since we announced Jigsaw leaderboard results. We noticed in May that a number of traders had tried to ‘game’ the system. They did this by getting into positions and not closing them out till they came back onside OR scaling into massive positions to get to break even.

Recording – Pro Trader Merritt Black/SMB Futures- “Context + Order Flow = Success”

Here at Jigsaw, we think it’s important that traders are exposed to different perspectives on trading. Obviously – as long as those perspectives come from real traders. In this webinar, we hear from Merritt Black discuss his views on context and order flow in trading. Merrit is a seasoned ex-Merrill Lynch trader who is now head of Trading at SMB Futures.

All new Market Balance Gauge

In this video, we’ll look at the new market balance indicator on the pace of tape gauge. The pace of tape gauge us a very easy way to view the pace of trade across a number of markets. At the bottom  we can see the Dow, Nasdaq, S&P500 and Russell 2000. So at a glance we can see if the markets are all experiencing highs and lows of volume at the same time which gives us a feel for how likely any moves will follow through.

Jigsaw Leaderboard – New Kid On The Block! Focus, focus, focus…

It’s time to review the leaderboard results again. In fact – it’s a month late! So here’s the breakdown of how traders fared in March and April. Well done again to MrGekko for winning in March. I’ve had a lot of questions about MrGekko and one person almost changing their approach because if his statistics. Which are:

Jigsaw is 7 Years Old Today!

It’s our 7th Birthday and it’s time to celebrate with a big discount for customers and non-customers alike.

Pace of Tape Gauge Excess at End of a Move

In this video, we take a look at some interesting action we are seeing now in the equities markets which are really volatile with the whole “US vs China” trade war in the news.

Jigsaw Trade Simulator – Refine your Edge with Accurate Fill and Slippage Simulation

We are happy to announce the release of the Jigsaw Trade Simulator. A trading simulator built into the Jigsaw daytrader™ platform with realistic fills on all order types. Supporting all dayradr™ order types, including volume stops, the simulator accurately simulates slippage on stop/market orders and fills on limit orders (based on estimated queue position).

S&P500 Volatility – The Return to Normality?

As we head into a new week, it’s worth taking pause to consider how the markets may behave in over the next few days. On the 5th Feb, the markets took a huge dive, and since that time have been extremely volatile.

Price Ladder Trading & Trading Psychology – Bund ECB Sources

As well as the mechanics of the Price Ladder, a major part of learning to trade is understanding trading psychology – peoples’ motivation behind a trade, what their expectations are and where they will exit a trade should it not play out in line with expectations.

Follow the Depth – Trading Drill

In the video below, we introduce the “Follow the Depth” trading drill. A drill that is performed on a live market with a demo/sim trading account.There’s 2 goals of this drill…

“NIFTY30” Flash Sale at Jigsaw Trading!

We’ve had a lot of requests to run our December special again. Mostly from traders that didn’t want to spend money ahead of Christmas. I guess people are too shy to say they want to buy it as a Valentines gift.

How to trade these volatile markets

It’s been an interesting few days in the financial press. No-one’s able to predict anything there but they sure do like to point out the ’causes after the fact.

$1,000 in cash prizes with the Jigsaw Trading Survey

At Jigsaw, we aren’t afraid of giving away cash prizes. In fact, as all of our customers are traders, it’s the best way to get their attention. After all – what kind of trader would you be if you just did things for free?

Iceberg Orders by Axia Futures

If there’s one topic that comes up again and again in customer emails/discussions – it’s Iceberg Orders. In fact, it came up in yesterdays December Open House session. There are different types of iceberg orders, some easier to see than others.

December Open House – Q&A Session

Yesterday, we held an “open house” session. This is an open format Q&A Session. Prior to the session, we ask people to send in questions and then we cover those first. Lot’s of great topics covered – some on the tools, most on the topic of trading in general.

“December 50” – Discounts Back by Popular Demand!

Last week we announced the “December 50”, a big discount for 50 people that we thought would last to the end of the year. Well – it seems like a lot more people read our blog that we thought and it lasted just 3 days, so we added on a few more coupons for those that registered late.

“December 50” – Big End of Year Discounts at Jigsaw!

To celebrate the end of the year, we are giving away some fantastic discounts to 50 lucky customers. The rules are simple – it’s a $100 discount off ANY Jigsaw product. Only 1 discount per customer (yes, we do check) and the first 50 customers to apply get the discount.

daytradr™ for GAIN Capital (OEC) Data Feed now in Beta

Today we are happy to announce the release of Jigsaw daytradr™ 1.1.0.8 with support for the GAIN Capital (OEC) data feed. This gives you all the daytradr™ functionality, including access to the leaderboard, the latest version of Auction Vista™ and the Jigsaw Analytics™ for trades on your GAIN Capital account.

Jigsaw Analytics™ P&L Calendar

We are happy to announce the addition of a P&L Calendar to the Jigsaw Analytics™ web site. The calendar gives you a way to scroll through months of trading history in seconds, looking for patterns in the P&L, then allowing you to quickly zoom into weeks and days to see details of how you performed on any day.

OCE Beta Release

Today we are announcing the launch of the Beta Trial for Jigsaw daytradr for the Gain Capital (OEC) Feed.

Well done Mr Gekko! Consistency Pays – $500 for Winning the October Trader Leaderboard Contest

At the start of October we launched the first of our Monthly trader leaderboard contests. The winner is Laszlo from Hungary AKA Mr Gekko. Laszlo is a trader I’ve spoken to on many occasions and he’s a very level-headed trader that takes his trading very seriously. We’ll look at his results in a second but first, I have to share the chat log with you because he didn’t actually believe there was a prize when I contacted him about it….

Trading all conditions? Money Maker or Account Taker?

Is trading all conditions a realistic goal? It’s certainly an idea that is planted in the heads of many aspiring traders. You’ve probably seen it, those “magic beans” systems for sale that work in all markets, on all timeframes, in all conditions. It’s a great sales pitch because it basically covers everything. It’s not very realistic and every professional trader I’ve ever met specializes in certain areas, so there is no precedent for it in the real world of trading.

Order Flow Crude Reversal/Breakout Using Momentum

I had two customers in the past few days ask me related questions. Although they are different questions, the answer is similar, I decided to highlight this with the Order Flow Crude Oil trades in the video below.

Mr Topstep Open House – $9 for a full week of training!

Jigsaw have been invited to present at Mr Topsteps October Open House. This is a week long session where you get access to Mr Topsteps IM Pro Trading room (a forum for traders to congregate and collaborate on equities, futures, ETFs and options trades), as well as a number of educational webinars throughout the week. The cost is just $19 for the week but we have a coupon code for $10 making it just $9! Click here to join

Turning Japanese…

I had a few customers contact me earlier this week about the new Japanese markets AMP is supporting. We already have people trading the Mini-Nikkei and now we have the full size Nikkei and 4 other markets on line.

Jigsaw Leaderboard off to a Flying Start – Well done Mr Gekko

The Jigsaw Leaderboard competition officially started on October 1st. All traders are eligible and the winner gets a $500 cash prize at the end of the month. Traders are rated using similar metrics to the “”go live” statistics used to rate traders in prop firms. We are now into week 2, so we can take a look back at the highlights of the first week. In terms of profitability, the best days from last week were:

daytrader 1.0.0.3 Release

We are rolling out version 1.0.0.3 of daytradr today. A video explaining the changes is below.We’ve made some huge improvements to memory utilization. You’ll see around a 80-90% reduction in memory usage for the platform and performance improvements at startup.

daytradr: A look inside – 4:30pm October 19th

On  October 19th at 4:30, we’ll be presenting a webinar “daytradr. A look inside”. We’ll be taking a look at the various components of the daytradr platform – what they do, whey they exist, how to get the most from them. Click here to register for the webinar.

Current lack of volatility in the markets – What to do!

Since we came out of the traditional Summer Slowdown in the markets (which ends after the US Labor Day holidays), the markets have been acting unusually. Unusually slow and choppy for the time of year. We’ve had 2 presidents threatening to nuke each other – and the markets barely reacted. We’ve made all time highs, which were met with a yawn.

October Leaderboard Prize – $500 in cash

Those of you keeping up with the news at Jigsaw will know that we’ve promised monthly prizes for leaderboard winners. We are starting that in October with a $500 cash prize. Not a coupon, not a voucher – just cold hard cash…

Jigsaw Trader Dashboard

Collecting trade data is a pain and crunching that date into meaningful statistics would be a nightmare.

Self-Sabotage in Trading. What Exactly is it? How do we Overcome it?

As most traders quickly learn, trading is guaranteed to connect you with all of those ‘emotional skeletons’ residing deep in the depths of your unconscious mind waiting to be activated. These emotional skeletons in the closet are like ‘sleeper’ secret agents waiting to be triggered by some event or emotion. In this post we are going to explore how these ‘sleepers’ contribute to a common trading behaviour pattern that usually losses you money and that is definitely psychological in nature; this is the behaviour pattern we call ‘self-sabotage’!

The Path to Trading Consistency…

It goes without saying that trading consistency is the key to longevity as a trader. What exactly does ‘trading consistency’ mean? How can you tell month after month that you are becoming more consistent instead of less consistent?

Summer Time Trading Opportunities – why and how.

Summertime trading time again! For many newer traders, that means huge losses as they try to trade the same system in different market conditions. There’s no doubt that traders need to change their approach for these markets – and there are many benefits to taking a shorter term approach to your trades.

Using Order Flow for Trading Success

Peter Davies of Jigsaw Trading was recently interviewed by Les Meehan at Right Mind Trader in an interview entitled “Using order flow for trading success”. The interview focuses very much on the mental aspect of the game rather than trade entry techniques. This gives some key insights into aspects of learning to trade that are essential to trading success.

Sharks vs Sharks: Banks, funds, market makers, prop trading

Interested in prop trading and other institutional trading? On Tuesday, July 18th, 2017 at 4:30pm EDT. John Grady of NO BS DayTrading will be presenting a webinar entitled “Sharks vs Sharks – Facts & Myths w/John Grady ” to the futures.io community.
Click Here to join the event.

The all new Jigsaw Trading Chat Room – with video!

The Jigsaw Trading Chat room has been an integral feature for many years at Jigsaw. It’s a great place for like minded traders to meet and chat about what they are seeing in the market. It’s also nice to have other traders to chat to during the trading day as it can be a little boring, especially in periods of low volatility.trade chat room

Professional Trader Q&A Session – Gary Norden

It’s rare for retail traders to get access to a professional trader, let alone get the chance to ask them questions. On Wednesday, 24th May, we gave you the opportunity to do just that, with someone who was a professional trader at just 18 years old!

Learn to Trade. Profits – Now, or Never???

Imagine trying to learn to trade for 20 years but still not getting it right. At that point do you carry on or quit?  I think we can all agree what you’d need to do something different. But that assumes you will know you are doing something wrong in the first place. You’ve worked hard, you’ve put long hours in, so where are the profits? What about those of you with 5 years? Are you ready for 15 more years of the same thing?

Futures io (aka Big Mike Trading Forum) review

Trading forums tend to be a bit of a mixed-bag in terms of quality, although I think the futures io forum deserves a little credit for pushing that side of the industry in a new direction. In this review, we’ll take a look at how they differentiate themselves.

Spotting reversals with high volume nodes (Crude)

High volume nodes (also know as volume clusters) are the key to catching market reversals early. Not all reversals are identified by high volume nodes but a high percentage of them are. If you aren’t currently looking at high volume node in trading, then you really should start.

‘One Tick’ Trading Drills

In a previous post, we took a look at trading drills to accelerate your progress as a trader. In the earlier article, we looked at the “Cut and Reverse” Drill. In this video below we look at how to take your trading progress through another quantum leap with the “1 tick trade” drill.

Análise de Fluxo de Ordens com Jigsaw Auction Vista Heatmap

A equipe da academia Day Trader Pro, pioneira na divulgaçao de moderna analise de fluxo de ordens no Brasil, preparou uma aula especial dando uma visao geral das principais funcionalidades e da utilizaçao da ferramenta Jigsaw Auction Vista Heatmap.

Looking beyond price – Finding ‘reaction points’ with Order Flow

When a market is moving sideways, it’s often better to just quit trading for the day. Markets will typically have high activity at their ‘open’ time where institutional traders are most active. After that, it’s a game of speculation, most markets will put in swings with decent momentum (for that market) one way and the other as speculators jump on moves, then take profits and then jump on the counter move. Days where we put in a one way move are the exception, not the rule.

Cut and Reverse Drill (Crude – with video)

The Cut and Reverse drill is used in proprietary trading firms as part of their training program for new traders. It has one purpose and one purpose only – to make better traders. It’s something anybody can do and you can start right after reading this article.

Hedging an Outright Futures Position with Options

As part of our effort to give traders as wide a knowledge of professional trading as possible, On Wednesday, 9th November at 4:30 PM Eastern, we’ll be hosted a webinar “Hedging Futures Day Trading Strategies with Options” by Carley Garner.

Pre-breakout & Pullback Trades

Here’s a trade video showing 2 trades on the eMini S&P500. This is after a short period of increased volatility and the first trade reflects adjusting to an expectation of higher volatility.

Open Trade on the S&P500 Futures

A customer asked a couple of days ago if we had any sample videos of the pullback trades we discuss in our webinars. I was pretty sure there were some on the site but when I looked, the cupboard was bare!

Jigsaw Tools 5.3 Beta 5

This video is to show the features of the fifth beta release of Jigsaw Tools with auction vista. This version will be released on Monday, 11th April

Auction Vista and Crude Oil Futures

In this video, I’m going to take a look at using the Jigsaw tools on thinner markets like Crude Oil, Gold and DAX futures. As many of you know, I personally prefer to trade more liquid markets like the index futures, but the same concepts apply in all markets. What tends to happen in thinner markets like crude is that you see the same things but often occurring over a series of prices instead of one.

Day Trading the Open – Video

In this video we discuss day trading the open. Not the opening range but the open itself. Not the first 90 minutes but the first few minutes. In some cases, taking trades within the first couple of minutes of the market opening. As with any trading opportunity, there’s more than one way to approach it in terms of trade management and we’ll discuss that too. But the opportunity itself is often available within seconds of the open.

The Institutional Trading Day

Have you ever wondered how Institutional Traders organize their day? After all, many people consider Institutional Traders to be “the opposition”, whilst others claim to be following in their footsteps.

All Bets Are Off!

2015-12-15_4-50-49

We got hit with some major volatility yesterday with a 19.5 point move up in 2 minutes (but only 53k contracts traded) and then a 1 minute 16 point drop, again with just 26k contracts traded. Big swings with relatively low volume means that the liquidity disappeared. Just after that, a fellow trader sent me a link to this article….

The Market Has Just Gone Nuts | Zero Hedge

The upshot being that there’s US$1.1 trillion in S&P500 options expiring Friday with a lot of them being puts just below where the market is.

Now – a couple of things to consider there.

1 – People tend to overblow the numbers when they talk about derivatives. The nominal value of a single emini S&P500 contract is a little over $100k but obviously when you trade a contract, you are not risking $100. So when people report numbers, they tend to do so in the most newsworthy manner. So there is a tendency to pump up the numbers to the highest one that fits.

2 – Regardless of the fact the market is overweight puts, there were buyers and sellers of those puts. So there’s people on both sides of that trade, people that will benefit if it goes down, people that will benefit if it goes up.

3 – Many of the puts will not have been speculative trades but hedges, so some of the holders wont care what the market does.

But still – that’s a lot of money on the line and we can’t expect either side to just sit by the sidelines and wait it out.

Tennis is not considered a dangerous sport, but it becomes dangerous when playing in a court full of elephants. In my opinion, that’s what we have today. We have a potential FED rate hike (or not) and we have a lot of people that stand to benefit and lose based on where price ends up on Friday. So it could get interesting.

My own method of looking at the market is to look for areas I think speculators might jump on board and then joining when they do. I don’t think this is that type of market. That presumes that speculators are the main players and that liquidity providers are doing their job in a fairly safe environment.

I think the market conditions – will cause liquidity providers to be extra cautious (i.e. missing) and for speculators like myself to be less significant. There is the potential for the markets to get pushed around.

In short, it’s more dangerous to trade right now and in addition, my own method of analyzing the market is based on a set of presumptions that cannot be relied on from here till Friday.

That doesn’t mean you can’t trade it. I will watch it and see and possibly try to scale into a trade if the market puts in a run. If liquidity disappears, I won’t even try that.

Jigsaw Licensing Mandatory Upgrade

On Friday, 9th October the licensing server we use to validate your access to Jigsaw went down. Or rather, the issue was that a very specific URL was used to validate the license and the hosting company moved the server to another rack and that caused the licensing validation to not be able to find the server.

Jigsaw at Futex

Always nice to see Jigsaw Tools being used in a professional trading environment!

Order Flow on a Thinner ES – Review of a Reversal

This video was sent to me by a customer that is new to the tools. It shows some of the action from the 25th September. At this point the eMini S&P500 Futures has been extremely thin and volatile and that does somewhat change the way you read the order flow.

Order Flow – Keeping it Simple, Practical & Effective

In this video, we discuss some of the benefits of using order flow in trading and what I look for personally when trading with the Jigsaw tools. I’ll try to keep this light on trading jargon and terminology. For those that don’t understand some of the terminology I do use today and want to learn more, then the please take a look at the free “Order Flow Foundation” course on the Jigsaw Trading web site. I’d prefer to hold questions till the end as things should clear up as we move along.

Extreme Volatility and Your Trading

Well – here we are again almost two weeks into another major shift in volatility, both in Crude Oil and in the US Indices. For those of you new to trading, you may well be wondering how long it will last and what you can do about it.

Summertime Slowdown

Well, it’s that time of year again, when the markets start to slow down and we get a lot of trading ranges to trade.

Customer Trade Videos – ZB & ES

I met Arthur a couple of weeks ago in Bangkok where ‘meet for lunch’ turned into ten people for dinner, covering 3 generations…

Swing Charts – Trading On The Side of Strength

Swing Charts are seldom discussed in trading but are a powerful tool in assessing both the state of the market (trending vs ranging), the strength of a trend and the likely turn around point in a pullback.

Обзор профессионального рыночного стакана Jigsaw

В сравнении с Jigsaw, обычный рыночный стакан NinjaTrader 7 обладает скудным функционалом. В Jigsaw я использую для анализа все колонки, начиная от профайла. Разделенные накопленные и текущие объемы помогают понять ситуацию, заметить резкую смену настроения трейдеров, скрытую игру, ловушки.

Trading Choppy Markets

On 22nd August, 2014 we presented a Webinar on the Topstep Trader Squawk Radio Broadcast entited “Trading The Summertime Chop”

Stephen Kelly’s Setup

All I’ve had a number of emails asking to share Stephen Kelly’s Depth & Sales setup. The template is used by Stephen every day in the Jigsaw Live Trade room. His setup is a bit more “subtle” than mine and looks like this:

Recording: Trading the Summer Time Chop

As many of you will have experienced, volatility and volume takes a dive during the US Summer Time. For those in your first year of trading, you may not even know what is about to happen but the sort of low range days we have seen so far in July should have given you a taste of things to come.

Live Crude Trade with an Obvious Stall – Using Jigsaw to Trade Thinner Markets

Here is an excellent video from Chris, a Jigsaw customer. He discusses what he looks for when trading Crude and he then takes a live trade. What is cool about this video is the way the market stalls and Chris’s reaction to that stall. There’s many traders that would stick around in that scenario “just in case” and in this case, missing that opportunity to exit would have cost them dearly.

Trading without charts? Live volume profile analysis.

There’s often talk on trading forums about day trading without charts. The volume profile shows you where traders are positioned as well as which prices traded. A lot of information can be taken from the volume profile and we discussed this live as it was playing out.

Jigsaw Trading V5.2 – Order Flow Software Powers Ahead

We are happy to announce that today we have released V5.2 of the Jigsaw Tools. In this release we have an exciting new set of features we are calling the “Power Meters”. Rather than giving you a long written description of what they do, here’s a short video showing the features:

ES Trade with a Shake-Out!

I got emailed the link to a new YouTube channel last week whilst I was on vacation and I took a look around today.

Jakobs Ladder

I first met Jakob a few months ago, he Skyped me and we had a chat about trading.  He’d been struggling with trying to get something out of technical analysis before he came across Jigsaw Trading and No BS DayTrading.

Give me strength! Live ES Trade

We’ve gotten into the habit of giving sneak previews of new features to members of our Skype room. This helps us refine new features before they go out to all users.

Buying on the bid.

I got the following through on an email today and I figured the reply might benefit a few people:

No BS DayTrading – Is scalping legit?

Here’s a great video from John Grady at No BS DayTrading about scalping and the successful traders that do it.

If you are wondering if scalping is legit, if scalping is still relevant nowadays or if large traders are really scalping, this is a thought-provoking video

If at first, you don’t succeed…

We recently blogged about a trader “profiletrader7” who managed to pass the TopstepTrader Trading Combine after many attempts. That blog post is here

NinjaTrader & Jigsaw Webinar – Depth of Market Manipulation

On the 28th August, NinjaTrader hosted a webinar where we discussed how many traders believe the depth of market is useless because it is full of fake orders, which is true; however you can learn to read and use fake order to your advantage! The ability to ‘fake’ the market takes very large accounts and risk.

Congratulations “profiletrader7”

I’m really happy to hear that yet another Jigsaw Customer has passed the Topstep trading Combine and is on his way to being a funded trader there.

Explosive DAX Breakout Trade

Here’s another customer trade video. This time of an explosive DAX breakout trade. There’s no sound but there is cool music and subtitles explaining what is going on and why the trade was taken.

Live Trader Interview

A little over a month ago,  we posted a video on Order Flow Analysis on Thinner Markets.

The Best Part

One of the most rewarding things about being involved with Jigsaw is when a customer takes the time to get in touch and share their results.

May 13th – ES Short Trade

A Short Trade just after the open on a fairly slow moving day. We had a push up and then someone stepped in and absorbed the buying which was my cue to enter. After that it was a bit of a grind. The exit was on a push down before the news – we had a relatively nice, fast push down.

Cut & Reverse Drill

I stumbled upon this youtube video today. It’s from Guy Bowers Youtube page which is associated with the Aussie prop firm Propex.

May 6th – Long Trade with Commentary

I did commit to putting more trade videos out there. We start out just after the market open and I talk through what I see on the order flow and the reasons for entering a trade. You can see that I entered just as the offers failed. I then talk about why I think the move is over and why I should exit the trade based on the location and the order flow.

A Lovely Trap

Here’s a video of traders getting themselves trapped from the mysterious Akira Kobayashi…

Finessing An Entry

I thought I’d put some notes together on entries. Not so much on where to enter but rather on how to finesse your way into a position so that more often than not, you are a tick up pretty much straight away. In some circumstances, this will also gain you one extra tick profit. This is something that in my opinion is quite specific to the thicker markets I trade).

Those slow, churny, narrow range days

I recently added a new chapter to the “The ES – When To Enter” course. The title was “High Liquididy ‘2 sided’ Days/Summetime Chop“.

Customer Video Review

One of the Jigsaw customers asked if I could review a video of some action on the 6E.

Beginning of a Range?

First – I’d like to give credit where it’s due. The person that opened my eyes to something that was right in front of them all the time was Kam Dadwhar at L2ST who, over the course of what seemed like a very long weekend laid out his method of analyzing the markets to me. Not that it wasn’t a delight to hear him speak but when you are sitting in Bangkok and listening to a guy in London do a webinar at 3am, you get through a lot of coffee.

When Markets Get Too Thick

In the past few weeks, the ES has been in a really narrow range. It did show signs yesterday of behaving a little better and I expect it to be “business as usual” over the next few weeks.

Nice review

I stumbled across a nice review of Jigsaw today.

Friday 25th January Webinar. Introducing Order Flow Analysis to your trading (Topstep Trader)

This is the third of three webinars hosted by Topstep Trader. In this webinar, we look specifically at how you can start to apply Order Flow techniques to your trading. We will take an honest look at the learning process and how to start making changes without negatively impact your existing trading results. We will take a look at specific Order Flow event’s you should look for such as Iceberg orders, Stop Hunts, Flipping and ‘thickening up’ as well as buying/selling pressure. We will also discuss other resources available for continued education in Order Flow analysis.

Friday 18th January Webinar – Practical Application of Order Flow (Topstep Trader)

This is the second of three webinars hosted by Topstep Trader. In this webinar, we will look at the different ways in which Order Flow information is most commonly used. We will discuss the use of Order Flow in prop shops as well as how they get their trainees up to speed on reading the Order Book. We will look at how the application of Order Flow information differs in more/less liquid markets. We will discuss the ‘eternal quest for reversal trades’ and how you can use Order Flow to become less aggressive in your countertrend trading so that you don’t get run over as often. We will then take a look at the Order Book live and discuss the components of the Order Book and how and when the information should be used.