The Nature Of Code

Add: What is technical analysis? News, macro, positioning, liquidity, sentiment, ... are inputs into the auction and we see it in the OrderFlow. Technical analysis is mostly an interpretation of the output itself - price. You are analyzing structure, levels, trends, ranges, volume profiles, etc. that were created by previous trading activity. Technical analysis = a framework for interpreting that output. There is one nuance: TA can become an input indirectly because traders act on the same levels. If enough participants see the same breakout level, support, VWAP, VAH, trendline, etc., their orders can influence the next auction. But conceptually, I would not put TA in the same bucket as news or macro. It is primarily a way of reading what price has already expressed. This is also why technical analysis alone does not tell us the whole story on the lower time frame. TA helps us understand the structure created by previous price action: levels, ranges, trends, areas of acceptance and rejection. But on the LTF, we also want to understand what is happening inside that structure right now. That is where OrderFlow comes in. TA = framework and location. (context) Order flow = real-time input. (effort) Price = real-time output. (result) On higher timeframes, the underlying auction gets increasingly aggregated into price. HTF → the auction is summarized by price. LTF → we zoom inside price to see the auction.

Price is the ultimate validation. Everything else is simply an input. This is one of the most important concepts to understand in trading! News is an input. Macro data is an input. Positioning is an input. Liquidity is an input. Sentiment is an input. ... All of these factors ultimately get bundled together and expressed through orders being placed, cancelled, or executed in the market - what we visualize as "OrderFlow. It shows us what participants are doing and how they are interacting with available liquidity. OrderFlow itself is still an input. Price is the output. And ultimately, the most valuable information comes from comparing the two: What are the inputs telling us, and how is price actually responding? Effort vs. Result! A bearish headline comes out? The headline itself is not the signal. The question is: Does price actually go lower? Heavy market selling comes into the tape? The selling itself is not enough. The question is: Are sellers actually getting rewarded with lower prices? Short positioning continues to build? Again, that alone tells us very little. The question is: Can those shorts push price lower, or are they becoming increasingly vulnerable while price refuses to respond? This is where trading becomes much more interesting. If we see significant selling pressure and price moves lower with ease, the effort is being rewarded. The market is confirming the sellers. But if we see significant selling pressure and price refuses to move lower, we have a divergence between the input and the output. Something is absorbing that selling. The same applies to news. A market receives objectively bearish information and yet refuses to trade lower. That reaction can tell you much more about the state of the auction than the headline ever could. This is also why OrderFlow should not be treated as a trading system. OrderFlow is simply a visualization of the auction. It helps us understand effort: who is aggressive, where participants are positioned, ... Then we can compare the result - what price is doing: whether that effort is producing a result, and where potential vulnerabilities may exist. You do not need to know exactly why every order was placed. You do not need to predict the next headline. What matters is understanding the information entering the auction and then observing how price responds to it. Inputs create expectations. Price provides validation. That distinction is what turns information into something actually useful for trading! @PeterLBrandt is right. Price is above everything! It really shouldn’t even be a discussion...