I’ve had an overwhelming amount of positive feedback about the DOM trading course and as a result, I am putting together a series of live webinars, where I’ll be talking through the action in real-time and mentoring a small group of people.

• During the European Open – Bund/Bobl/Shatz or FESX/DAX
• Recordings will be available for those in different timezones that might be interested
• Ask any trading related questions you might have
• Identify potential setups and understand how to trade the open
• Advanced setups
• Focus on reading the orderbook
• Spot the buyers and sellers in real time
• Identifying good risk and reward opportunities
• Managing risk and your own expectations
• How to prepare for the market before the open
• Reviewing your trading and focusing on constant improvement

If you feel that you might be interested in the month-long live weekly mentoring then please add your email below and I’ll be in touch with more details.

Good news.

I’m releasing a video series all about DOM trading and best of all it’s completely free.

I’ve been asked hundreds of times for a trading course and video training – however I really don’t like the idea of selling a course.

So I thought I would put some videos together and release them all for free.

Simply head over to: Trading Course

• Volume Profile
• Trading the Open
• Levels
• Trade Setups

I’ve had a few people recently tell me that even after they went through the bootcamp, they still didn’t have a trading plan put together.

So I wanted to change that today and help you get started with yours right away.

A trading plan is basic fundamental and simply can’t be ignored.

While it’s great to experiment as you do trading drills and get a feel for trading, as you grow and improve, we need an objective way of measuring just how successful our attempts have been.

Hence the plan.

So what I want everyone to do, is to make sure they are able to clearly outline and quantify a few key areas:

1. Why are you trading?
2. What are your trading goals? Daily and longer term.
3. Outline your daily routine.
4. What’s your daily stop loss – the maximum you lose in a day before you switch off the screens.
5. Build a timeline for your success.
6. And of course… outlining your trade setups.

Usually it’s the last one of those that people are most interested in, but they all need to work together.

Becoming a profitable trader is a process and you need to continue to set goals, improve and then reset them once again. It’s always on-going.

Only when we know what we are hoping to achieve can we outline our setups.

So hopefully you’ve all been through my bootcamp – if not you can start with week 1.

From there we have a pretty good outline of what might be our first profitable trading setup.

This is how I would outline it in my trading plan.

Range Play

Scenario – A Market Profile range has developed and we have a clearly defined, ‘ledge’ in place. The ledge is at least 5 ticks away from the sessions high or low. And we see size printing into the area around the ledge and the bid or offer holding.

Stop Loss – 3 ticks – scratch if it comes back to you after being +3.

Profit Target – Ideally 5-6+ ticks, but we can accept a minimum of 3. Our target should be the highest level of volume profile, or the opposite side of the MP range. But we trade until price is printing in the opposite direction.

Comments – Avoid entering close to the current high or low of the session as there is a good chance of price testing those levels, especially if there is volume around. We ideally want our correlated markets to be confirming the direction of our trade.

This is an actual trade that you can go out and start using.

It’s what we’ve developed through the bootcamp exercises and should form the foundation of your trading.

But it’s important to just not use this example.

You need to go through the planning yourself and write down your setups, for your markets, in your own words.

As always, please don’t hesitate to get in touch if there’s anything I can help you with.

Good Trading.

Rowan.

Welcome back to week 4 of my futures trading bootcamp.

If you haven’t already, you can read week 1, week 2 and week 3, and start building your DOM trading skills.

This week we are focusing on the less glamorous, but no less important topic of setting stops.

There’s a saying that you’d all know, “A dollar saved, is a dollar earned”.

I like to translate this into trading speak and say, “A tick saved, is a tick earned.”

And there’s no better way of illustrating this than with setting stops.

Conventional wisdom suggests that if you have a set stop loss, you simply use a market order and exit.

However when we’re using a DOM we need to use a little more finesse.

Because the truth of the matter is that when we reach our stop level, we have a few considerations that we need to take into account:

1. How liquid is our market?
2. How urgent do we need exit?
3. Where is our exit order likely to be in the queue?

So let’s address these.

In terms of liquidity, if you’re trading a very thin market like the DAX, then your only option might be to exit with a market order.

If you don’t you risk your position going 20 ticks offside and that single trade destroying your day, week or even month.

If however, you’re trading a slow moving bond, then you are likely going to have every chance to simple work a limit order and save that extra tick.

This is also affected by the urgency in which we need to exit.

If it’s a news based move, for example something has occurred by coincidence and not related to our initial trade idea, then we might want to exit immediately.

If the position has simple ground against us slowly and our setup is now, “void”, so to speak, then we can likely work an exit.

Finally we need to use our DOM skills to access to likelihood of getting a fill if we use a limit order to exit.

If the market is thick and slow moving, but there is a lot of volume going through each of the price levels, then you should really consider working an exit.

If you’re stuck at the back of the queue and you’re unlikely to get a fill, then you might need to consider exiting at market.

The reality of the situation is that this is a bit of a look and feel process.

It’s going to be up to you to access your market firstly, then the reason behind the stop being triggered. And finally the likelihood of a fill.

Again practice makes perfect.

Exercise

Continue with our exercise on spotting setups using order flow, volume ledges and now correlations.

But this week put a real focus on setting stops.

You want to really set a level that you feel comfortable with.

I personally use a set level, in something like the ZN.

So that might be 3-4 ticks.

But that might change with market conditions and your personality.

Stop size will have a direct correlation with the amount of winning trades we have.

As a general rule I like to be right around 2/3rds of the time.

So we need to have a level that lets our trades breath, but not so much that they are costing us too much on the losers.

So practice and try different levels and focus on trying to exit at that level using a limit order if you can.

It’s a good idea now even in practice to record every trade, even on a simulator.

Make an excel document and record the reason for the setup, the exit level etc and start to build an objective measure of your winging and losing trades, so it becomes clear where your strengths and weakness are.

From there you can start to refine and build on your setups and exits.

Remember, “A tick saved, is a tick earned.”