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Microstructural phenomenons: option strikesThere's no such thing as round levels , instead: 1) You open the option chain of given vehicle; 2) You notice the step between the strikes that have significantly higher volume/OI than the other ones; 3) for example on ES dem would be xx50.00 and xx00.00; Without further analytics of the option chain, the very general rule is that these levels usually stop & repel the sharp jumps in prices, and allow the average activity to pass through em with a little stuck around em. Again the reason is microstructural, some of are hedging current & anticipated option positions on good prices. Usually market allows to do it right after economic releases. About the example, if you have any platform that offers a liquidity heatmap, try to find that reversal on ES & correlated assets, that moment in time that I market with a circle, you might be surprised.
CME_MINI:ES1!Education
by gorx1
Imaginary levels: fair price aka valueIntro So called "value" or fair price is like limits in math, can be infinitely approached but never reached. We can model it, anticipate it, imagine it , but it doesn't make it real. In double/dual auctions fair price is an idea. We can surely say that some prices are too cheap and too expensive, these are real levels that can proved with evidence. The only thing we can surely say about value is that it's somewhere in middle between these 2, everything else ain't better than just making projections or extrapolations. Neither time nor volume profile won't magically calculate you a fair price buy finding mode of the distribution, it's not better (and probably worse) than just taking an average. None can prove a price to be fair for both buyers and sellers. It cannot even consistently exist due to the nature of double/dual auction. We have bid & asks, not just bids. A simple illustration is GE futures, that can trade at 2 neighboring ticks for ages, in order for a fair price to even appear for a second, bid should move one tick down or ask should move one tick up, so a free space will be created, only at this point a fair price starts to exist. But guess what? You can't make a trade at this price while it's fair, because in in order for a trade to happen there some1 should place a bid or ask at this free space, at this point the fair price disappears. You're automatically quoting CL futures at 19:00 Chicago time, BBO is 89.56-89.57. An imaginary fair price of 89.565 can't neither exist nor be traded due to tick size of 0.01. There's a buy action and a sell action, there's no action in the middle. You can place either bid or ask, the're no "in the middle". We can go for ages logically proving that fair price is always imaginary, but what we know 2 things: it's in the middle between cheap & expensive, and it appears when there's widening of prices. The same principle applies to all the resolutions due to the fact that recorded trading activity is quasi-fractal (quasi because fractals go infinitely in both directions, it's not our case exactly). Howto After an exhaustion/overexertion a wave should stop and produce another wave in the opposite direction, whatever the size. Sometimes due to other factors it does not happen, and an already overextended/exhausted wave continues to go much further. This wave can be called an overridden wave because this kind of event happens due to an exogenous (not in the data analyzed) event. This event "overrides" the exhausted wave and fuels it to continue. In every overridden wave, its middle aka fair price aka value is an imaginary level that can be used. A wave that started at 337.89 became overextended/exhausted in both price and time when it reached ~450. After hitting 450 it didn't stop but continued and went really far. It has finally stopped in year 2000 and a sell wave emerged. Knowing that we witness an overridden wave, we start to consider value as a temporary legit level. Imaginary, but still a level, ain't no options aye? And again, we use imaginary levels when there's nothing else, but a decision has to be made. Statistically, overridden waves are the structural breaks. A serious change. Fair price is supposed to become new cheap or new expensive.
SP:SPXEducation
by gorx1
Imaginary levels: wave exhaustion priceCan't explain this 4 real until I explain how to properly locate levels & distinguish buying & selling waves. I KNOW I'M MESSING UP WITH ORDER OF INFO SUPPLY, SORRY. Still... Pretty soon you'll understand that 3393.52 and 2191.86 are the levels, and there's one buying wave between em. Point 1 is the wave start. Point 2 is the wave end. When 3393.52 get cleared, another buying wave starts originating @ 3393.52 & point 2. All the details & questions will be explained & answered later. Now just focus on the wave exhaustion prices. Every wave becomes exhausted in terms of price when it's range exceeds the range of the previous wave in the same direction. Not a lil bit before, exclusively past the threshold value. So after getting past this level and considering the other conditions that would be explained later the current wave becomes prone to end and consequent start of another wave in the opposite direction. Just as with partition levels (that are imaginary as well), these levels don't make much use any more when the real price activity start to emerge there. Imaginary levels are used when there's no alternative, but a decision has to be made.
SP:SPXEducation
by gorx1
Imaginary levels: partitionsImaginary levels are used when there’s no alternative, but a decision has to be made. We need something to "snap" to. No, these are not the binary levels like 512, 8912 or 65536 that I'm sure a lot of funny people are hiding or present as super secret, lol no. When there's truly nothing else and just the empty medium, we take partition function, give her all the integers, and get the levels around which the long-term order flow might change direction. Dem are already calculated, called Sequence A000041 , more info there . That's the natural way how to find level in the emptiness. After having the real trading activity at these levels we can forget dem partition levels, ain't no reason to use em anymore. Since the start of 20th century, mainstream text book science seem to forget about the concept of aether (tldr the emptiness is an object itself, and it's not uniform, 'everything' exists in a medium including waves & light, totally obvious if you use your own head for thinking). As usually, the lovely market, as a sub-universe in our universe, is the same, teaching the real stuff & proving fakies wrong.
SP:SPXEducation
by gorx1