Your Trading Roadmap: Cutting Through the Noise
A while ago—years really—I decided we’d put enough information out there on how to trade. Our Group Therapy sessions tailed off as I felt we’d said all we could or should say. On the one hand, it’s great for people to be immersed in trading and be fed information constantly. The flip side though, is that it gives people the impression there’s always more to learn, that there’s always one more thing that will push them over the edge into success.
There isn’t.
To an extent, aspiring traders are a rebellious bunch. They are independent thinkers, they want to break free from the constraints of month-to-month salaried living. They are willing to commit their precious time to the skill – yet they are trading blindfolded. It’s not a physical blindfold like a barrier, it’s more like a million distracting shiny diamonds distracting you from the right path.
Some of those reading this already have the knowledge to trade, but they aren’t successful. Why? Because trading isn’t a knowledge game—it’s a game of skill development and applied practice. And you know what reinforces the belief that it’s all about knowledge? Constantly being bombarded with more information.
But why teach anything? Why not just sell the platform and leave it at that?
Jigsaw started because I couldn’t make sense of how traders used Time & Sales and the DOM side by side. Well – I could make sense of it – I just couldn’t read it. Professional traders used these tools without charts, I knew how theoretically – but I just couldn’t read them. In the end, I had a programmer jerry-rig a set of tools for me. When I shared the tools with friends, they said, “You should sell this.” and that’s how Jigsaw started – as a hobby.
When I shared the tools, I had to explain how to use them. I wasn’t being generous—it was just that people’s eyes glazed over without guidance. Like selling a car with no driving lessons. This stuff was not widely used back then. That ‘teaching’ became a habit.
I saw flaws in how trading platforms evolve too. They appeared to be adding stuff for no reason other than that it’s “shiny”. I’ve always believed that a trading platform company must truly understand professional trading and only include features that truly help traders. Not because I’m special – but because that’s how software development is supposed to work. You focus on a process, you write software to make that process faster, sleeker, more reliable, and easier to learn. But if you don’t understand the process you are trying to support – you are going to just cram in everything you can because you can’t discern between what’s legit and what’s not.
Trading success comes from understanding how markets react to big, obvious events – things that many can observe and react to —things that by their very nature – can’t be a secret. Whether it’s news, a technical setup, or an order flow signal, if it impacts the market, it’s because enough traders are observing and reacting to it. Big, obvious setups work.
If trading were like learning an instrument, professional traders would be like someone joining a firm, getting structured guidance, and improving steadily until they can “play” after 12 months. In contrast, many retail traders do the equivalent of jumping switching instruments every month —spending just as much time and effort but never mastering anything.
To help you avoid the common pitfalls and save months (if not years) of your trading career trying things that we know do not work, we created The Trading Manifesto.
If you’re new to trading, the Manifesto keeps things simple, cutting through the noise and showing you exactly where to focus first. For seasoned traders, it sharpens your edge by bringing focus back to the fundamentals that move markets.
Jigsaw’s platform reflects this philosophy. It’s designed to help you focus on what works—avoiding distractions and unnecessary features. Tools to support a specific process of Trader Improvement – and no distracting gimmicks.
The manifesto and the Jigsaw tools work hand in hand: while the manifesto provides the roadmap for skill-building, our platform gives you the tools to apply those insights in real-time AND after the trading day is done – for example, Journalytix lets you track your progress and refine your approach, ensuring every trade aligns with what truly moves markets. Helping you understand which activities work and which don’t so you can do more of one and less of the other.
The Trading Manifesto is our first step back into creating educational resources that resonate, but with a key difference: it doesn’t foster the misconception that more knowledge is better. Instead, it focuses on helping you identify the big, obvious market signals and build the skills to respond effectively.
For example, focusing solely on just how the “Non Farm Payrolls” (a US monthly macro-economic release) impact the market each month would make you more money than trying to learn every candle pattern or trading every day guessing what “THEY” are doing in the market and trying to trade it.
The manifesto is your roadmap—keeping you focused on the skills and decisions that drive results while avoiding unnecessary detours. Think of it like a trading GPS: you decide where to stop and what to explore, but it keeps you on track and prevents you from heading into a raging river that drowns you and your account.
It’s a lofty goal, but I believe we’re well on our way. And this is just the beginning—the manifesto will evolve based on your feedback. It’s free, but it has a job to do. I think it’s already doing it well, and I can’t wait to hear what you think so we can make it even better.
Download the Trading Manifesto today and start building a trading journey that stays on track. Let’s see where it takes you.
FREE BONUS: Take a look into the decision-making process of professional traders with this video training series that helps you make smarter trading decisions. (Article continues below)
Order Flow itself is simply information. Just like charts, it can be used in a number of ways, some good and some bad. But let's first break down order flow into it's components so we all agree what we are talking about:
Order Executions/Tape Reading - This aspect is the real flow of orders. It's the information we see in Time & Sales, Footprint Charts, Cumulative Delta. It is looking at market orders, either as they execute or historically. I guess this is the "true order flow". Every trade is a buy and a sell. We look at market orders because we consider them to be more aggressive. When someone trades with a market orders, they are giving up a price to get an instant fill. Limit orders on the other hand just lazily sit there waiting for a market order to hit them. Often these are market makers with no directional conviction. So we see market orders as being more significant.
But we don't use these in isolation.
Volume Profile/Positions - The tape reading part helps us assess various things like momentum, traders getting stuck, balance of trade BUT the volume profile helps us understand where people are positioned and likely to get stopped out. I sometimes call this "Order Flew". It's important to know when trades will be "washed out" - for example - if we have a volume cluster on the S&P500 Futures and the market moves up 100 points and back down to it, it's unlikely short term traders on either side that were positioned there will still be there. But recent, nearby volume helps us assess areas of positions.
Market Depth - The bids and offers, the lazy passive orders waiting to be hit. This is part of the story but in terms of overall importance, I'd put it at around 20% at most. For example - if you return to the high of the day on any market, the offers will be quite large directly above the high. It means nothing at all. It's just a quirk of the market. It does not help you tell if a price will hold. On the other hand, if you see large depth and as we approach it, we see more added to the depth in front of that price, it means others are front running that depth and that is a useful bit of information.
This is the key - it is all just information. Just like price charts are information. When people look at Order Flow, they consider it to be a technique more than a set of information. They look for things like iceberg orders and decide to make a one rule trading system to fade every iceberg, For these people - yes, order flow trading is overrated because they are trying to ignore everything else going on in the markets and construct a trading system a chimp could execute.
For those looking to improve a decent trading approach, the best thing to focus on in Order Flow is momentum. Once you can read momentum you can:
- Avoid getting into positions when momentum is against you.
- Confirm trades are working after entry when momentum goes your way.
- Exit trades in profit when momentum fades.
That's perhaps the easiest way to use order flow because momentum is easier to read. It's about the market continuing to do what it's already doing. On the other hand, reading a turn in the market with order flow takes a higher level of skill and a little longer to learn.
Order flow can't put lipstick on a pig. It won't help you 'improve' something that doesn't work anyway, which is why whenever someone calls me, the first thing I ask is what they are currently doing and we discuss whether they need a reset or whether it will actually help.
When Jigsaw started back in 2011 - we were one of the first in the space and certainly had the best education. It was always going to attract the underbelly of the trading education/tools world and now we see stuff out there that is so complex but so impressive and futuristic that new traders are drawn to it like moths to a flame.
So here's my advice when looking at Order Flow
- Order Flow can't improve something that doesn't work.
- Order Flow can be used on it's own, without charts to enter and exit the market but you also have to be able to recognize different market states that need different/altered setups. There is nothing magical about this.
- Don't start jumping at shadows and take 50 trades an hour in your first week looking at Order Flow, be selective. It can be exciting to see cause and effect play out in front of you for the first time but don't overtrade.
- Do drills to learn how to read it before you trade it.
- Markets can only go up and down. Don't overcomplicate it. If you have too many Order Flow tools on your screen - you will not be able to make consistent decisions. Less is more.
- Take time to choose a market with a pace you like. Interest rates might send you to sleep, the DAX might give you a heart attack.
It is hard to see how a set of information could be overrated. It is true that some methods of presenting this information are better than others. It is also true that some people simply get on better with different tools (e.g. Footprint vs DOM).
There's a middle ground between complexity and simplicity that will leave you making consistent decisions where you improve over time. For those people, Order Flow will be way underrated because they will be the one's getting the most out of it.
Those that jump in with both feet on day one and those that have 100 different tools up, for those, it's a painful experience.
Keep it simple and manageable. Start with momentum reading and build from there. You will never look back.
0 Comments