PriMiX includes Cockpit and PryPri, which are essentials for minuting.
Cockpit
Cockpit reads the tape and tells what is happening relevant to minuting. Cockpit belongs on the main minuting chart.
Setup
Cockpit includes the symbol and chart interval.
For easy reading, raise the status line font size for the chart with Cockpit on it. The Charter font looks clean onscreen.
Stake
You want to enter under the radar: not drawing attention to your sizable order. An entry moving the market prompts an adverse reaction that spoils your chance of profiting.
Cockpit tells a safe stake, in shares and (thousands of) dollars, for the stock at the present time. The stake is rounded to 100 shares. Safe stake is based upon order book depth and volume. The stake shown is conservative, so taking that full stake is safe.
Safe stake text is nominally white. It turns orange when the stake has declined, and red when it has dropped severely. It turns magenta, overriding the other colors, when liquidity or order book churn is bad, as a warning against entry.
Volume
Recent volume is shown as a measure of flow intensity. Recent volume is color coded relative to its average, with the % shown in brackets: warmer colors higher, cooler colors lower, with green near 100%. Volume is colored magenta if volume is exceedingly low compared to its average.
Movement
The movement signal tells directional price movement. If inside the range of the high and low of the last 2 bars, the signal is a silver “0 c”. If outside the range, the movement is shown in cents, and the colors are usually green for up and red for down.
But if the order book shows an opposite direction from price movement, the colors are: turquoise up, marigold down. Conflict between price movement and the order book is a warning against entry and a signal to exit if a position is opened.
This movement signal is an instant tell of whether a stock is stuck in chop or is breaking out and taking a step. Frequent flipping between 0 and up and/or down values indicates random movement. The movement signal flashes a magenta R (for Random) when price movement becomes random. That Random signal may warn of impending chop.
Tape Speed
Seconds per bar is a temporal measure of minuteability. Green is ideal for minuting. Gold is fast. Orange is blazing and red is ballistic. Whereas blue is slow, magenta denotes sloth. Seconds per bar is an average calibrated to be responsive but not jittery.
Order Book
The stock market is a continuous auction. The order book is the ledger of resting orders: sellers’ asks above, buyers’ bids below. There are 4 signals related to the order book: liquidity, churn, flow, and balance. Liquidity and churn may be a warning against entry. Flow and balance may be leading signals for entry.
Liquidity
The liquidity signal states whether the resting book is thick or thin.
Green Q: deep: the book is thick, with more depth than normal.
Blue Q:O: depth is normal.
Red Q: bad: the book is thin. A large stake may face trouble.
In reading the live order book, the liquidity signal is quite reactive.
Churn
The order book churns when it rewrites itself in place: quotes turning over while no trade prints. The churn signal catches disturbance the tape cannot show.
Green C:O: the book is orderly.
Gold C: vex: modest agitation.
Red C: bad: the book is churning. As to trading, hesitate: look to the liquidity and flow signals for confirmation before committing an entry order.
Flow
Flow tells whether the tape is tilting in the same way that the book already leans.
The typical condition is F:O, which means no strong leaning in the tape or book. Treat this condition as uninformative.
A bias is shown as either up (F: up) or down (F: down). The force is with you when the book and tape are flowing your way.
If the tape runs contrary to the book, a # sign is prefixed and the colors are different from flow unity: up (F: #up) or down (F: #down). The direction given relies upon the tape rather than the book, as the book is spoofable.
When not F:O, flow is a leading indicator.
Balance
Price moves when the order book becomes unbalanced and the thin side is not being refilled at the current price. The book signal tells whether and how strongly the order book indicates impending price movement. It is a leading indicator.
B:O – Gray means the book is balanced: no commitment either way. This is the resting state, what you’ll see most of the time.
B: up – Teal indicates moderate upward pressure. The bid side is heavier and the ask is thinning.
B: up – Green means a decisive up lean. The ask is emptying and not refilling. The book tells of upward price pressure.
B: down – Marigold indicates moderate downward pressure. The ask side is heavier and the bid is thinning.
B: down – Red means a decisive down lean. The bid is emptying and not refilling. The book is showing downward commitment.
This signal stays gray unless one side of the book is both outnumbered and failing to replenish. A book that is momentarily lopsided is not necessarily predictive. The order book signal only colors when the thin side is giving way, which is the moment price is most likely to move. The signal stays quiet until the book proves itself, then speaks in color.
Trade with the color. Treat gray as no signal. A dark gray represents a break in the data feed.
State
State reports the current condition. The label is not a description. It is instead a verdict: whether to wait, enter, or exit. Most states tell you to do nothing, and that is the point. The minuteer’s edge is abstention. The states exist to mark the few moments when the tape suggests a certainty window, perfect for an ambush, and to signify that no such window exists. State has the advantage of statistically measuring what you can only intuit. Therein lies a catch: the skill of minuting is intuition. If you wait for the state to be declared by Cockpit, you are likely running behind. So, the state signal should confirm what you have already intuited, and perhaps have already acted on by the time the Cockpit state is declared.
Continuation regimes are the green-light states. You strike in the direction the regime is already moving.
Breakout Up / Breakout Down
A breakout is the first thrust out of a congestion shelf, the moment compression releases into directional travel. This is the most explosive regime named and the one with the most profit potential available.
Enter in the stated direction as the shelf gives way. This is the aggressive attack, taken at the release.
In setting a limit, give the most room of any state. A clean breakout travels farthest, so the target sits wide and you are in no hurry to close. Stay alert: a breakout that snaps back into the shelf becomes a Failed Break, which is a signal to get out.
Trend Up / Trend Down
A trend is an established directional move with momentum behind it, past the breakout and running. Trending is the cleanest and most reliable environment for minuting.
Enter as stated. Conviction is high. This is the regime you most want to be working.
Ride toward a generous target. The move has fuel, so do not rush the exit. Watch for the trend to roll into Exhausted Trend, which marks the fuel running out.
Pullback Up / Pullback Down
A pullback is a counter-move inside a trend that has not turned into a reversal. Price steps back before the trend resumes.
Strike in the trend’s direction, not the direction of the retrace. Pullback Up is a dip inside an uptrend, so you buy it. Pullback Down is a bounce inside a downtrend, so you sell it. This can be a quality continuation entry, because you are getting in at a better price than chasing the move outright.
If you were in on the trend, exit when the pullback starts. Riding a pullback out is risky, as you never know how deep it goes.
Drift Up / Drift Down
Drift is a vectored bias without the force of a trend. Drift is the weakest of the directional regimes.
A drift entry can be fraught. Drift often stalls or settles into balance rather than committing. Consider the context of the drift.
For exit, take the measured move and do not overstay. The lean can fade as easily as it can build.
The warning regimes mark a move that promised direction and is now reneging. Such states are not entries in the direction of the arrow. They are cues to exit or fade.
Exhausted Trend Up / Exhausted Trend Down
A trend loses its mojo in exhaustion. The arrow indicates the direction of the death crawl.
Exhaustion is not an entry state. If you are in, now is the time to close into strength rather than wait for more.
Failed Break Up / Failed Break Down
A failed break is a breakout that promised direction and then collapsed back into the shelf it came from: a fakeout. The direction marks the break that failed, so Failed Break Up is a failed upside break.
From an entry perspective, a failed break is a wait; in a larger context, possibly a fade. The bias runs against the direction: a failed up-break (Up) favors the short, a failed down-break (Down) favors the long.
Exit if caught in a failed break.
Most of the session lives in states to stand aside. These states have no clean ambush. Recognizing them as having no edge is what keeps a dancer’s powder dry.
Balance
Balance signifies an orderly shelf, price holding tight. The balance state is a coil, the rest between moves. Just the word “Balance” is displayed if balance favors neither side. That said, a consolidation of a trend can take the balance state. “Up” or “Down” is displayed if a statistical bias in breakout direction exists.
If considering entry, the disciplined play is to wait for breakout; especially with a volatile stock, up or down may tilt the entry decision. If in an open position, either wait or exit, depending on the state before entering the balance, which tells whether continuation looks likely.
Chop
Chop is tape without structure. From a minuting perspective, chop is passive state, and the most common reason to do nothing. Chop is just noise that punishes the impatient. If you are caught holding when the tape turns to chop, exit.
Knowing the state is necessary but not sufficient. The state alone does justify a strike. A green-light state on a tape that is too slow, too thin, too quiet, or that offers too little profit is still not an entry point. State names the opportunity. The tape behind the state confirms whether entry is merited. Enter only when state and tape agree.
Much of any session is chop and balance. Profit comes from patience and the precision to enter only when the regime looks right.
Signal Integrity
Data feed interruptions can reset signals in Cockpit, especially those signals that are especially sensitive to real-time data, such as with the order book panel, and those that depend heavily upon context, such as the treachery signal. Everything possible has been done to maintain signal integrity, including accepting the limitations of the data-feed environment.
PryPri
PryPri comprises Visage and VoX: overlays which turn candles into a leading indicator.
Visage
Visage shows vigor: price movement potential. Visage paints a bar as choppy, drifting, or having trend propulsion. Whereas warm colored bars are bearish (close lower than open), cool colored bars are bullish (close higher than open).
Visage only works on minuting charts.
Forming Bar Colors
Visage only paints bars after they have finished forming. To complete the Visage effect, customize the colors of developing candlesticks.
Color developing bull bars lime. Color developing bear bars magenta.
VoX
That volume precedes price is a widely held principle. Volume reflects money flow, which is synonymous with demand. Demand determines price.
VoX is a volume pressure oscillator, telling how volume affected price. VoX is a colored dot above or below its candle: pushing price up or down. The greater the pressure, the more likely price will vector as VoX indicates.
For proper display in TradeStation, VoX needs the WingDings font installed.
Setup
For VoX to work, set the chart’s Volume to “Trade Volume”.
VoX only works on the main minuting chart. Large share/tick charts mostly show low VoX, as there is so much mixed movement encapsulated in large bars. Conversely, VoX tends toward overstatement with tiny share/tick charts.
