Which Trading Education is Best For Me?

Published on: February 18, 2020

At Jigsaw, we pride ourselves in offering a range of education options along with our software, something to suit every trader. From the free training you get with daytradr Independent to our Institutional package, it’s not always clear which education option is best for you. 

Whether it’s a Jigsaw Course or some other educator, there’s an important question to ask yourself before you take on any additional trading education –  Am I looking for a fresh start or to supplement what I am doing?

At Jigsaw, we meet traders at all stages of development:

1. Some have been looking at trading for more than a decade and have never found anything that works.
2. Others have compiled a ‘method’ based around things they have heard from trusted names in the industry – but that doesn’t work for them.
3. Some are almost there and feel a little refinement will get them to profit.
4. Some are profitable and looking for additional edge.
5. Some have heard about Order Flow and just want to give it a try.
6. Some are well into profit and just want better execution tools.

It really helps to do an honest inventory of where you are with your trading. Then you can match yourself with the most appropriate education offering. Is what you do working? Do you understand why it should work if it isn’t? Have you just jammed together a bunch of stuff without knowing if each component works? Be honest with yourself. A lot of people have taken a bunch of techniques from ‘gurus’ and put them together to form a system that doesn’t work at all. It’s quite common and very frustrating. 

If you are profitable or nearly profitable and want to refine what you do, then the daytradr Independent or Professional is for you. We do NOT want you to throw away all your hard work if you are nearly there. Your focus should be on supplementing your existing knowledge and skills with trade confirmation, price refinement, trade management and more over time.

Our Independent package contains modules 0-2 of our course (with 0 being the intro/guidelines) and the Professional package contains modules 0-4.

Independent starts off by explaining how to develop as a trader and how to turn the knowledge in our material into action. It gives you 10 hours of education along with 3 sets of drills, so you can take your first steps with Order Flow. The subsequent videos take a look at various ways you can use Order Flow (and the Jigsaw tools) that go way beyond just improving your trade entries.

Professional supplements this adding in another 7 hours of education on specialized topics such as Trade Management, Scalping Techniques, Slow Market Techniques, Volume Profile Analysis and Market Reversals. This is material you will want to keep coming back to as you develop as trader. It’s cheaper to buy the Professional version with all 5 modules when you  sign up but you can add it later on. Feedback from traders is generally that they are amazed at the amount and quality of content for such a low price.

If you are not profitable, you are frustrated and ‘nothing works’ or you just want a fresh start, then Institutional package is for you. This gives you the modules above PLUS a course from our London based Proprietary firm partner. This is the same education they use to teach their intern traders. You first do module 0 and the drills in module 2. This gives you a baseline of understanding and interacting with Order Flow. Then you move on to the Institutional Course. This teaches you 4 different market states, different conditions of the market that are caused by different levels of Institutional participation (each market state has to be traded differently). Then there are 19 trade setups along with guidelines on which market state to use each setup. Additional drills are given which utilize the Jigsaw platform in a Replay environment so that you can take the trade setups on specific days picked out by the trading professionals. This course covers various trade types, including getting into positions that have a good chance of running to a longer term day trade. 

You can’t really make the wrong choice!

Don’t worry though – whichever you choose, you can always upgrade to another version later. So, if you are simply new to Order Flow and want to give it a try – go for Independent. 

For more information on each course, click on the link:

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.