Tools of the Trade

Click on Chart to enlarge

 

Now let's get down to details. Charts! 
I put the minimum amount of information I need on my charts. Anything that is on a chart will distract you.  So, the distraction MUST give you valuable information or it just takes away your attention from trading or puts doubts in your head. Remember, we are trading the order flow so that is the information we need to capture on a live real time basis. The charts above are what I trade from. Range Bar chart on the left, Market Profile on the right.

The cyan lines on the Market Profile chart are the support and resistance lines I draw in every day before trading begins. Th ese are the areas where I expect to put  on or take off trades. 

On the Range Bar chart, the dotted yellow lines of the Keltner Channel around the price provide a "normal" channel, so I notice abnormal vertical movement. There are two exponential moving averages through price so I can see the centre of value. Below that is an indicator that shows me where we are in the trading sequence. It is based on the now famous CCI. I started using it in about 1981 when Don Lambert made it available to CompuTrac, a technical analysis group I was a member of.  Below that are the two indicators I use to show me order flow. The first one is a volume breakdown. The lowest one is the cumulative average of that volume breakdown. Are the balance of traders buying or selling. That's all you need.