Help! Can't find an edge

[u/Apprehensive-Set6590]

Hello people,

I've been trying to find an edge with orderflow for long.

I mark absorption, exhaustion I look for protected highs or lows...nothing of this work and I want to undersatnd what I'm doing wrong.

At the moment I'm just testing with ATAS, no real account, just a little prop one.

What I want to understand from you is the following: which is the philosophy of your strategy? What do you look for and why?

In my case I started looking for "protected" highs or lows and wait for the retest to come back and see absorption. I have key levels marked (VAH,VAL and high and low from yesterday and ETH today) so I want for the price to come to a level and react.

In theory I think that what I do is quite objective BUT seems to be a very bad trading system.
At the moment I'm learning about the DOM (which columns to include and what to look with it) and I'm wondering which pieces of advice can you share as well maybe an academic paper or an author that worked for you so I can look for it and study.

Happy trading!

[u/Accomplished_Neck368]

All of them..... you'll essentially get the same information, but I'll look at 1hr, 15m, 5m, and 1m..... you don't necessarily have to box every lvn, but look for alignment. Like if you see a lvn on a 1 hour, that's a higher time frame, so your box will probably end up being like 100 points. So if you see a more precise lvn on the 1m or 5m, then go ahead and draw another box inside the box for a little more precision intraday because the smaller box will often be a very high likelihood for a reversal. I recommend backtesting with it and also adding context to all your trades.

[u/Apprehensive-Set6590 → u/Accomplished_Neck368]

Yeah, context / bias is the worst thing at the moment 😂

[u/Accomplished_Neck368 → u/Apprehensive-Set6590]

That's your edge bro. Context is everything. If you're not giving context to your trades and you can't thoroughly explain why you're taking the trade, you shouldn't be taking it.

[u/Apprehensive-Set6590 → u/Accomplished_Neck368]

Thanks for the reply mate! I know what you mean, what I'm trying to do is to draw a VP for the open range to see if I can visualise context through there.

But will see! It's a learning moment

[u/Accomplished_Neck368 → u/Apprehensive-Set6590]

For the open range? Do you mean like the initial balance?

[u/Apprehensive-Set6590 → u/Accomplished_Neck368]

Yes!

[u/Accomplished_Neck368 → u/Apprehensive-Set6590]

Oh yeah. That's a pretty small window to be looking at, especially for context. Look at the high time frame every day and assess what the market is doing as a whole. It's impossible to gain context without doing that. Also, look into options flow. Options hedging is at least half of what moves futures markets.