PriceSquawk with Jigsaw Quick Start Guide › downloads › PriceSquawk Quick… · License name...

PriceSquawk with Jigsaw

Quick Start Guide

PriceSquawk Quick Start Guide 2 of 22

Copyright 2015, PriceSquawk Audible Market Technology NSW, Australia [email protected]

Contents Introduction ............................................................................................................................................ 2

Licensing .................................................................................................................................................. 2

How to Open PriceSquawk ..................................................................................................................... 3

How to Use PriceSquawk ........................................................................................................................ 4

Using PriceSquawk as an Audible Time & Sales .................................................................................. 5

Using PriceSquawk Professional Features .......................................................................................... 7

Activating Professional Features ..................................................................................................... 7

New Bid/Ask Alerts ......................................................................................................................... 9

Listening to Volume at Price ......................................................................................................... 10

Listening to Volume in Time ......................................................................................................... 12

Trading with Volume in Time ........................................................................................................ 14

Find Ideal Settings for Volume in Time ......................................................................................... 15

Using Multiple PriceSquawks ............................................................................................................ 17

PriceSquawk Quick Reference .............................................................................................................. 20

Introduction This guide is intended to assist Jigsaw Trading Tool users in getting familiar with the new

PriceSquawk option available from within the Reconstructed Tape. The ‘How to Use PriceSquawk’

section walks you thru the various PriceSquawk features, and shows how you can apply them to

your trading setup. There is also a quick reference guide at the end of this manual which

summarizes each of the PriceSquawk features, and if you are not sure how to access PriceSquawk,

step by step instructions are below.

Licensing Lite and Professional licences are available with PriceSquawk. When you open PriceSquawk for the

first time you automatically activate a 2 week free trial of PriceSquawk in ‘Lite’ mode. This is

intentional, so that you can become familiar with what features are available in the Lite version (the

Pro features are greyed out). You can then trial the full featured Professional version by following

the instructions here.

mailto:[email protected]



How to Open PriceSquawk 1. Add the Jigsaw Reconstructed Tape to a chart in NinjaTrader or OEC Trader

2. Open PriceSquawk by clicking on the musical note icon within the Recon Tape menu




How to Use PriceSquawk The following sections walk you thru the various features of PriceSquawk so you can make the most

of your trial period, and experience the extra dimension PriceSquawk adds to the Jigsaw Trading

tools. It is recommended to approach each of the sections discussed below in different trading

sessions, allowing yourself time to get familiar with each PriceSquawk mode before moving onto the

next.

For those not familiar with PriceSquawk – It is an audible tool that lets you listen to the buying and

selling activity real-time in the markets. This is useful for a number of reasons, some of them being:

You will be less likely to miss key market events when listening to the market as

PriceSquawk constantly transmits audible market information to you such as volume

trading, buyer / seller aggressiveness and the resulting price action, no matter where your

eyes are looking

Constant exposure to the market can accelerate your market learning curve and help

develop your market intuition. PriceSquawk plugs you directly into a continuous stream of

audible market information.

You are kept focused on up to date market information when listening to the tape, and are

thus more responsive to changes in the market. PriceSquawk will keep you constantly alert

to trading activity and the pace of the tape, changes in price action and volume flowing

through the market, which can keep you ahead of the herd.

You can often detect patterns in buying and selling activity with more ease when listening

to the sounds of the market. One of the reasons for this is that we have an inbuilt

mechanism called echoic memory which automatically stores audible information until it can

be attended to, greatly assisting in pattern recognition. We also can hear information at a

much greater resolution than our sight allows (we can detect and respond to sounds within

microseconds vs the much slower visual response time).

Each feature of PriceSquawk can be used by itself for detecting certain order flow events, or in

combination with other PriceSquawk modes for a comprehensive audible perspective of market

conditions.




Using PriceSquawk as an Audible Time & Sales This is the default mode for use with the Reconstructed Tape. After a short time of using this mode

you will be able to distinguish the mood of the market by just listening and can trade your plan

accordingly. PriceSquawk can also be used to generate discrete alerts for specific market conditions

such as large orders.

To get started listening to the market:

Open PriceSquawk within your trading platform

From the Sound Menu, make sure Trade Sounds is enabled, and select Volume Control (a

tick will be next to it)

Click on the Config Tab and try changing the Bid and Ask sounds to distinctly different

sounds that you like, or leave them with the Bid set to the Electric Piano and Ask to the

Trumpet. Trades that occur at the bid will sound like the Bid sound, and trades that occur

at the Ask will sound like the Ask sound. Refer to the User Manual for information on the

other features for now.

In the Audio Volume Control section set different Minimum, Middle and Maximum values.

The loudness of sounds will be determined by these settings. If you have no idea what values

to use look at a Time & Sales to see what size trades are occurring and have a guess at some

useful values. You can always tweak them as you see fit.

In the instance below we will hear all trades less than 5 contracts in size at the minimum

sound level. Trades greater than 5 contracts and less than 20 at the middle sound level, and

trades greater than 20 contracts at the maximum sound level.


http://downloads.pricesquawk.com/PriceSquawk_User_Manual.pdf



Make sure your speakers and sounds are at a comfortable level. Now make sure you are

connected to a live data feed in a market that is active, and listen to the ebb and flow of the

market. Traders using the Jigsaw Reconstructed Tape can watch the Time & Sales and get a

feel for how the audio adds an extra dimension the tape. Make sure you give yourself some

time to adjust to this new perspective

Observe how the market sounds when it speeds up and slows down

Observe how the loudness changes when bigger traders are getting involved in the market

Observe the difference between aggressive market activity and passive market activity

From the Misc menu you can control the equalizer visualizations. In this example trades at

the Bid (Sellers) are Red, and trades at the Ask (Buyers) are green. You can also have the

equalizer bar color faded to represent the loudness of sounds

The ladder also provides one click price alerts via the checkboxes you see in the above image and

you can set up Hotkeys (from the Misc menu -> Hotkeys) to acknowledge these alerts, as well as

center individual, or all PriceSquawk displays and sounds.

The tape is a powerful tool for understanding the Order Flow so try listening for a few hours with

just these basic settings to get a feel for how your market sounds. In the next section we will

introduce you to the Professional features of PriceSquawk.


http://www.jigsawtrading.com/order-flow-software/



Using PriceSquawk Professional Features In this section I will discuss some of the Advanced Features and how they can be of use to you. To

activate the advanced features you need to input your PriceSquawk license key into the licensing

database. We have it set up this way so that the default features available when you install the trial

show you what is available with a PriceSquawk Lite license, so please make sure you are familiar

with what is available in the Lite version before activating the Professional features of PriceSquawk.

Activating Professional Features

1. By default PriceSquawk installs with a Lite trial. Please get familiar with what features are

included with the Lite license. You can then trial or activate the Professional license as

follows:

a. Select License from the Misc Menu

b. Click the Copy button




c. Visit www.pricesquawk.com/professional-trial/ and fill in the form:

Note: We do not share your details with any 3rd parties and you are free to unsubscribe from the trial

mailing list at any time.


http://www.pricesquawk.com/professional-trial/



d. Check your email to confirm your Professional Trial has been activated. You will

receive a confirmation email once it is active instructing you to restart NinjaTrader

/ S5.

2. Confirm PriceSquawk license is activated.

License name will display your provided name License type will display as ‘Professional’ or ‘Lite’ Your personal License Key (use this for managing your subscription) License expiry will show when trial and subscription licenses expire

New Bid/Ask Alerts

Select New Bid/Ask Alert mode from the Sound menu (make sure there is a tick next to it). This

mode was born out of the need to closely monitor the state of the inside market in thicker

markets. When watching multiple DOMs it is very easy to miss the games being played on the Bid

and Offer which can be a good give away for moves about to transpire. An example from my own

trading is that I have previously found in the US Treasuries that a move in the T-note can be

preceded by the Offers or Bids pulling in the much thicker 2 year market. Since I can only look at

one bit of information at a time I would often miss this key bit of information. Now PriceSquawk

monitors it for me.

PriceSquawk will play 3 different alerts depending on what is happening in the inside market. If a

new price goes Bid, which means the Offers have either traded out or been pulled, and someone has




placed a Bid at this new higher price, then you will hear a quick upwards sequence of notes. Likewise

if the Bids have been taken out and someone places an Offer at this new lower place a quick

downwards sequence of notes is played. In reality this can all happen much quicker than the eye can

see and the Bid / Ask can flutter back and forth many times, even though to the eye it looks like solid

Bids and Offers. In this case PriceSquawk plays a quick up and down sequence of notes to signify that

something is going on with the inside market that is worth knowing about.

Listening to Volume at Price

Absorption at the Bid or Offer is one of the key indications that either a move is culminating or one is

about to begin. Professional traders learn from many hours at the screens to quickly calculate

differences in the Volume Profile in order to decipher how much has actually traded at prices. The

exact number is actually not so important, but figuring out if a reasonable or large amount of

volume was just absorbed at the Bid or Offer is normally on the mental checklist when anticipating

a market move and before placing orders in the DOM. PriceSquawk lets you hear the absorption

through its ‘Volume at Price’ and ‘Smart Volume’ modes. Volume at Price will accumulate the

number of contracts that trade at a single price and control the loudness of sounds accordingly. To

enable Volume at Price select Volume Control from the Sound Menu and click the Volume At Price

check-box in the Advanced window.




Set the Minimum, Middle and Maximum values appropriately for your market. If you have

no idea what values to use, start with smaller numbers and tweak them as you get used to

your market. This process will also help you understand how much generally trades at prices

in different phases of the market (accumulation / distribution, trending etc).

You can use the Minimum value, as in the example above, to filter out trading activity until

a minimum amount of absorption has occurred. As per the above settings we will hear

Electric Piano notes once 500 contracts have been absorbed at the Bid, these notes will get

louder once 1000 contracts have been absorbed and then the maximum volume level will be

reached once 2000 contracts have been absorbed.

The accumulated value will reset when a new price trades. In markets like the E-mini where

the Bid and Ask are constantly being hit with market orders Volume At Price can still be

useful at the end of moves where trading is predominantly occurring into the Bid Or Offer, in

which case you will still hear the absorption with PriceSquawk, though it won't be as

consistent. Smart Trade Volume overcomes this issue by accumulating the volume traded

at both the Bid and Offer price. Please read the User Manual Smart Trade Volume section

by clicking here to completely understand this feature, as it has more benefits than just

hearing absorption at the Bid and Offer.

When following multiple markets such as in the treasuries you may want to set one of the

correlated markets to use Volume at Price or Smart Volume. This can tip you off if some

absorption is occurring that may or may not be in favor of your bias. For instance you may

be busy working longs in the T-note, however hear that absorption is occurring at the

Offer in the 30-year. This may not be a good sign for your longs.

While Volume at Price and Smart Volume can both be used to detect absorption, I prefer

Volume at Price in thicker markets where market orders are usually one sided i.e. primarily

trading into the Bid or Offer. If the accumulated volume resets when a new price trades I

can hear this and get a better feel for how the buyers and sellers are behaving.

Watch PriceSquawk Demonstration Video


http://downloads.pricesquawk.com/PriceSquawk_User_Manual.pdf#page=23

https://glover-graham.wistia.com/medias/bsk8nrh97y

https://glover-graham.wistia.com/medias/bsk8nrh97y



The above video demonstrates the concepts discussed. Try setting up Volume at Price in your

market/s for a few sessions and notice how obvious absorption becomes when large traders are

managing their positions. These large traders are who we usually want to be on side with.

In the next section we will look into the Volume in Time feature which brings the order flow to life as

you literally hear the volume increasing and decreasing as market participants get excited.

Listening to Volume in Time

The PriceSquawk Volume in Time mode is an advanced feature that lets you hear the flow of volume

trading in the market over time. It is common knowledge that the volume trading increases during

market moves and reversals as market participants get excited, and big traders are getting more

aggressive. The market can usually be volatile around these areas so it is useful to take snapshots of

the volume accumulated over a time window instead of counting contracts absorbed at particular

prices. Volume in Time mode keeps track of how much volume has traded in the last X seconds (X

being settable within PriceSquawk).

To enable Volume in Time mode, make sure Volume Control is selected from the Sound menu, and

then select Volume in Time from the Advanced settings area.

In the above image we can see the relevant settings to Volume in Time mode. Note that Volume in

Time is selected and the time window is set to 30 seconds. In this scenario we will hear all trades at

the minimum sound level because Minimum is set to zero (trade volume accumulated over the last

30 seconds must be greater than zero to hear trade sounds). We will hear the trade sound volume

increase when we pass the 1000 threshold. That is, 1000 contracts have traded over the last 30

seconds. Then the maximum loudness will represent the excitement of over 2000 contracts trading

in the last 30 seconds. The time window is moving, meaning that as each tick comes in PriceSquawk

calculates how much volume has traded in the preceding 30 seconds including the present tick

volume. This makes PriceSquawk much more responsive to changes in the order flow than waiting

30 seconds to determine if more volume is trading. The time window can be pushed out as far as

300 seconds (5 minutes) however I recommend keeping it at the default of 30 seconds, as this time

window has worked well over the last few years for hearing changes in the market in time to take

action.

Configuring the Minimum, Middle and Maximum Thresholds

These values are what will determine the loudness of PriceSquawk sounds in the Volume Control

modes. If you are familiar with your market you probably have an idea of how much volume

generally flows through it at key levels and during strong moves. In this case I suggest entering




values at the lower end of your estimates, and tweaking them upwards to filter for different market

conditions.

Alternatively you can follow the advice in a webinar I presented which you can watch here. I

demonstrate how you can use a one minute chart to observe how much volume flows through at

pivot levels and breakouts. The basic approach is as follows:

1. Open a one minute chart for your market with a Volume study added to it

2. Eyeball at least 10 previous market areas where volume spiked and write down a midpoint

of these spiked volume values

3. Eyeball how much volume is generally trading during choppy price action and write down a

value which would filter the chop out

4. Halve these values you have written down if using the default 30 second time window

5. Set Minimum to the chop value observed in step 3 (halved), to filter out most of the slow /

sideways movement

6. Set Maximum value to what you observed in step 2 (halved)

7. Set Middle value to either halfway between these, or use a similar eyeball approach to find a

meaningful in-between volume threshold

You can alternatively set Minimum to zero to hear all trading activity, Middle to hear when more

than the general 'chop' is trading, and Maximum to hear when volume is peaking. Do not try and be

too precise when selecting your settings - the goal is to be able to hear volume increasing and

decreasing over time and ensure important action is noticeably louder. Following is a random

example of finding some useful values using a chart:


http://youtu.be/0hCqp75Je6I?t=31m20s



Trading with Volume in Time

Hearing the volume flow is one of the most powerful features of PriceSquawk for discretionary

traders. Volume in Time should not be used to blindly enter trades, but rather as a trigger for you to

pay closer attention to the DOM or Tape, as a filter for ideal market conditions.

I prefer to use Volume in Time in my primary market - which is either the T-note or the Bund, and to

listen to all sounds (Minimum = 0) to get a continuous stream of market information. I use the

Middle and Maximum settings to hear when conditions are picking up. This allows me to relax more

during the chop, simply relying on my hearing for monitoring the various market participants and

conditions. It becomes quite obvious with Volume in Time when market activity is picking up

(loudness increases), when a majority of shorter term market participants are being pulled into the

market (maximum loudness is heard) and when exhaustion of a move has occurred (a sudden drop

off of volume and decrease in frequency of sounds). Try listening out for the following when using

Volume in Time:

A sudden increase in buying pressure (a sudden increase in PriceSquawk audio volume for

trades occurring at the Ask)

The frequency of trade sounds increasing (this represents volatility and usually goes hand in

hand with the loudness of sounds)

Trading activity suddenly decreasing as steps in the profile are approached (it is very

interesting to hear the anticipation before a move takes place)

The increase in trading activity when a step in the profile is broken and stops are hit

(sometimes followed by a sweep of prices)

There is just as much information in hearing a lack of sound as an increase in sound. After market

activity has noticeably increased over a few minutes, sudden gaps in the sounds (and slowing down

of sounds) often represents caution and uncertainty in the market before a shift in the market. It is

useful to watch the Volume Profile (in your DOM / Chart or via the PriceSquawk Ladder) to get a feel

for how PriceSquawk sounds as the market approaches steps in the profile or traders are working

through thicker profile areas (e.g. the VPOC). I prefer to hear a lot of the above listed points playing

out before working orders. One of my mental checklists is generally hearing a group of traders get

'played' by the professionals before I start working orders in the DOM. Of course your trading

strategy will dictate whether you get in before, during, or after these audible market conditions.

Some PriceSquawk users prefer to use the Volume in Time feature as a discrete alert for new

volume entering the market. For instance they may set the Minimum value for 500 contracts in Oil

so they know that a big trader has certainly entered the market and an opportunity may exist to

jump on the move. One customer uses 15 PriceSquawks in Volume in Time mode for monitoring 15

different futures markets during after-hours trading for opportunities (and uses these tips to listen

to PriceSquawk remotely during the after-hours).

Naturally market conditions can change from day to day. I generally get away with using the same

Volume in Time settings most trading days. On high volume trading days you can bump up the

Minimum, Middle and Maximum values to suit the conditions, but generally these sorts of days the


http://www.pricesquawk.com/mobile-day-trading/



order flow is more difficult to judge anyway. Likewise on very low volume days the settings may

need to be adjusted to suit conditions. It helps to identify 3 groups of settings for low volume,

normal and high volume trading activity. PriceSquawk actually becomes a good gauge for what

type of trading day it is in reference to the normal settings, as you notice that is a very quiet day

(literally) or a very loud day, or that the market if flowing normally based on how it sounds. You can

easily save various PriceSquawk settings from the Config tab.

In the next section we will discuss using the various PriceSquawk features together for one or

multiple markets.

Find Ideal Settings for Volume in Time

The Volume in Time feature hopefully made it clear how PriceSquawk adds another dimension to

the order flow. Volume in Time is an all-round useful way to stay tuned to the order flow by

listening to the increasing and decreasing volume flow in a market. With Volume in Time you can

hear:

New buyers / sellers entering the market as buy and sell trade sounds increase in volume

Absorption at the Bid or Offer when the sell or buy sounds are not effecting price (pitch of

sounds)

The aggressiveness (or passiveness) of buying and selling from the pace and rhythm of

trading sounds

Anticipation of market participants when volume suddenly drops off at important market

milestones. These milestones may be levels, numbers or sudden news. PriceSquawk keeps

you alert to all changes around these events with or without foreknowledge of them.

For useful Volume in Time settings I have created a NinjaTrader indicator that calculates ideal

settings based on historical data. This indicator looks at the quantity of volume that usually trades

for each bar in the trading session, and derives what is considered low volume, normal volume and




high volume values for your Minimum, Middle and Maximum settings. You can download the

Volume in Time indicator from the blog post here.


http://www.pricesquawk.com/increased-volume-detection/



Using Multiple PriceSquawks Volume at Price and Smart Volume are important reminders for what is occurring at the inside Bid

and Ask. They can be used to add another layer to the Volume in Time mode, allowing you to

configure unique sounds for identifying 'iceberg' orders (refreshing orders that keep absorbing at the

Bid or Offer) and the large traders behind them, as well as the patterns of absorption and aggression

of traders. For example you can hear the aggressiveness of the sellers hitting into the Bids, and the

persistence of buyers absorbing these market orders, then either finally giving out (especially when

using New Bid/Ask Alerts) or even pulling their bids than attacking the new limit orders placed at the

offer i.e. You can hear how a particular battle plays out, which can be a common market fingerprint

you learn to recognize.

Using both Volume at Price and Volume in Time together is as simple as opening two PriceSquawk

windows for the same instrument. With different Bid/Ask sounds for each PriceSquawk you can use

up to seven different PriceSquawks simultaneously. With Bid and Ask trade sounds identical for each

PriceSquawk you can use up to 15 at one time (PriceSquawk is currently limited to 15 simultaneous

trade sound effects). PriceSquawk is very resource friendly, so using multiple PriceSquawks in the

background for monitoring multiple market conditions is an easy way to ensure you are on top of all

market developments in your particular trading setup.




If you have been through any of the No BS Day Trading or Jigsaw Trading courses you understand the

importance of following the order flow for day trading, and have been lucky enough to get insight to

how actual professionals earn their living day trading. Making decisions off the order flow is a skill

that primarily involves:

Observing the sort of size that large traders operate with, tipping off their expectations of

short term market moves

Watching for games that are played in the Bids and Offers by the professionals for

orchestrating moves

Learning the motion of price action that results by the pull and tug of size trading in the

markets by big traders and their games

These components are often evident across multiple correlated markets to the market you are

trading (e.g in the 30 year and 5 year when trading the T-note) and thus relevant to your trading

decisions. This requires a broad focus for getting trade cues that may only flash up for an instant,

across one of multiple information sources on your screens.

PriceSquawk has been developed, and continues to evolve to make the task of monitoring these

order flow components across multiple markets easier, to increase trading performance by ensuring

you do not miss key market events, and to enhance mental performance by using the dimension of

sound for communicating market behaviour in a simplified and convenient medium. With the

market constantly projected through sound I believe PriceSquawk helps accelerate your learning


http://www.nobsdaytrading.com/

http://www.jigsawtrading.com/learn-to-trade/free-order-flow-analysis-lessons/



curve and improves market intuition due to the constant exposure to the markets fingerprint and

order flow components you receive.

The Professional version of PriceSquawk is available on subscription or as a lifetime purchase. The

Lite license allows you to benefit from the basic features of PriceSquawk and Audible Markets. The

basic Volume Control, which turns PriceSquawk into an audible Time & Sales adds another

dimension to the tape and will give you the benefit of constant exposure to the flow of various trade

sizes and the pace of trading, especially when used as an extension to Jigsaw Trading's

Reconstructed Tape.

Please don't hesitate to contact me should you have any questions on using PriceSquawk.

For further information on using PriceSquawk please download the full User Manual here.




mailto:[email protected]?subject=PriceSquawk%20Introduction%20Series

http://downloads.pricesquawk.com/PriceSquawk_User_Manual.pdf



PriceSquawk Quick Reference Below is a brief overview of the various PriceSquawk features available.

Ladder View

Options, Hotkeys and License control can be found under the Misc Menu. Alert price checkboxes. Select config tab for sound control options. Animated Bid / Ask equalizer bars and highlighted last trade. Trade information is displayed on status bar.




Configuration View

Enable / Disable Trade Sounds and other modes from the Sound Menu. Save your Settings here independent of the workspace. Select from over 100 instruments. Try selecting different Bid and Ask Sounds. Auto Center Alert can be played every time price moves X number of minimum price increments. Audio Volume Control settings configure how loud sounds play when these thresholds are reached. Volume at Price controls loudness with Volume At Price (Support / Resistance Meter). Volume in Time controls loudness as volume increases over a time window (Order Flow Meter). Smart Trade Volume (Bid Ask Strength Meter).




Options Window – Visual Settings

Options menu lets you configure display settings such as colors, row height and font size. Set the number of least significant price digits to display. Equalizer color can be selected for trades at Bid vs Ask.

Options Window – Volume Profile

Volume Intensity fades equalizer bar colors to reflect the loudness of sounds at Bid and Ask. Acknowledge alerts using hotkeys so that alert sounds stop playing temporarily. Acknowledge Timeout controls how long each alert is inhibited. Short term volume profile can be enabled. The volume profile is reset using Hotkey configurations and / or right clicking on ladder and selecting from context menu. VP Increments can be set to change VP bar size every X increments in volume at price. Zero means VP bars are all relevant to maximum VP bar (or short VPOC).

For support, enquiries or suggestions email: [email protected]


mailto:[email protected]?subject=PriceSquawk%20Beta

PriceSquawk with Jigsaw Quick Start Guide › downloads › PriceSquawk Quick… · License name...

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