Trading in the biggest losers' market
Retail traders prefer NQ over ES for the bigger moves, faster acceleration and the 'excitement'.
With institutions leaning more into ES for hedging, NQ is thinner relative to its volatility, creating the violent, fast-paced moves it's known for.
So, while there's the appeal of trading the other side of retail, anyone who's watched the depth, spread, and pace in real-time knows there's also the algorithmic component that dominates.
I want to be on the same field but playing a different game - otherwise I'm as vulnerable as all the others - and that comes down to taking advantage of three things:
There's often an intraday relationship between Nasdaq and AUDUSD futures (6A) that's invisible without a framework for how 6A behaves.
There are multiple points of evidence most traders aren't aware of (they wouldn't be effective if they were).
Custom tools to make sense of an otherwise too erratic and too quick market most traders don't have access to.
One of those tools is SentinelLiquidty.
Playing fields - where to trade and where not to trade - are identified during game planning and automatically plotted on other views, including SentinelLiqudity
Its colour tells you what the environment is above it.
Notice the red band of liquidity and numerous micro failures by price to move above it. All of those micro failures are valuable intel, yet you can't see them on price charts - this is a bid/offer view.
The bids and offers are aggregates of minimum price increments - turning otherwise incomprehensible erratic behaviour into something you can act on.
Knowing the playing fields were identified hours earlier, you can see how what is occurring in real-time via SentinelLiquidity aligns with other aspects of the trading framework.
Putting it altogether
In the screenshot from SentinelLiquidty below, you can see two large genuine resting orders. Knowing they're genuine comes down to skill.
Notice how these orders align with the framework identified hours earlier.
6A breaks a key anchor.
Resting liquidity, 6A/NQ relationship, framework and multiple points of evidence combine to provide the trades shown below.
"You're competing against yourself."
It's the go-to rebuttal for those peddling trading services that don't work - putting it back on you and your psychology.
Competition in trading is real. The majority lose because they're competing in areas where they're outgunned.
The goal is to choose a field where competition in the game you're playing is thinner.
What I've outlined above creates exactly that.