Method
Reading order flow
Price is the result. Order flow is the cause.
Every day, institutions move size no individual can reach: funds, bank treasuries, foreign investors. That money leaves a trail: in volume, in derivatives, in positioning, in the term structure. Reading order flow means following that trail and asking: who has to buy? Who has to sell? What has price not shown yet?
Reading order flow is reading a current, not a crystal ball. A sailor who knows the current does not guess the sea, but does not drift in it either.
The process, step by step
- 01
I map the positioning
Who is on which side, in what size and with which instrument. Options and futures reveal intent before price reacts.
- 02
I test it against the consensus
When the dominant narrative and actual positioning disagree, there is asymmetry. That is where the reading becomes a thesis.
- 03
I show the math
Every assumption is on display, with a number. If you disagree with one of them, you know exactly where our readings part ways.
- 04
I put it on the record and revisit it
The thesis stays published, with a date. On Friday, in Week Recap, I come back to it: what happened, what I got right and what I got wrong.
Principles
Five rules that do not change
- Data before opinion. If I cannot show it, I do not claim it.
- The math shown. The assumption stays in plain sight, to be challenged.
- Mistakes published. Review is part of the method.
- Risk always named. Every thesis has a side that can go wrong, and it is said out loud.
- Respect for the reader’s capital. On the other side of the text there is someone deciding with real money, their own objectives and a moment in life that is not mine. Writing with respect means writing for that person, with no manufactured urgency and no shortcut sold as a method.