FAQ

 

Over the years most of the routine questions we get have been in the form of who, what, when, where, why, and how interrogatives. Below is a list of questions asked by traders evaluating whether or not DTG membership would be a good fit for them.  Over the next several pages are questions and answers about DTG membership.

 

I see you offer order flow education, may i have more details?

We aren’t trading educators in a traditional sense and offer no courses teaching the reading of orderflow or other topics. Much of the community interactions are rooted in discussions of key topics contained in several detailed whitepapers located in the member forum. The whitepapers are dense and can be read in an hour or two, though most members end up reading them multiple times or referring back to them as they progress.  DTG’s focus is not solely focused on order flow, but rather the community assists traders in improving all aspects of their trading. We discuss order flow, price action, market structure, volatility, volume profiles, risk/bankroll management, and many other subjects critical in successful short term trading. We encourage our members to take the key components presented and build their own specific methodologies that fit their personalities (which often is much different that what a member believes it will be when they join). We encourage our members to journal their process development and progress in the member forum, which provides us with an avenue for identifying issues and addressing them either in the forum, or through live interactive discussions (which are often recorded as member only videos) in our chat room. The member journals enable our members to learn not only from the founders, but also from other members. Our chat room is not a live, trade calling room, but rather a place for DTG members to interact among themselves and the DTG founders during the trading day.  Since 2010, DTG has built a large repository of trading knowledge in our member forum and videos. A list of current videos can be found here (some are public; most are member-only):

 

 

We offer one membership called the DTG Platinum Membership which provides access to everything DTG.offers. The DTG chat-room is not a separate service. If you’re interested in a trade calling chat-room, then we recommend the MrTopStep IMPro room.  Some traders join DTG and check us out for a month, quit and move on. We have other traders that have been members for years and the DTG dojo is a part of their everyday trading life.

 

Can you confirm that you teach a successful orderflow trading methodology?

Orderflow is a tool and much like any technical indicator, it can be used as a component of a complete trading methodology. DTG does not provide a specific methodology, rather the community itself provides mentorship to help members build personalized methodologies. No discretionary trading methodology is going to work for you unless you understand the intersection of risk and bankroll management to the entry/exit criteria, know the whys, and believe it will work for you. Can I (NJ) confirm that I use orderflow as part of a successful trading methodology? Yes. However, what works for me personally may not work for you.  My discretionary decisions will most likely be very different than yours. Thus DTG is about helping our members discover what works for them.

DTG presents several frameworks across a range of periodicties from scalping to swinging to spreading and position trading, many based on the trading concepts of market structure, price action and order flow. Under the community guidance, DTG members take those components, decide on risk models, develop their own methodologies, adjust and tweek until they have a personalized process they know inside and out. That’s our process as well and as such, we do not teach a predefined, ‘one size fits all’ order flow methodology. No such animal exists.

 

Can the concepts of your trading philosophy be applied to crude oil and currency futures markets?

As long as a market has volume data (which oil and currency futures do), then volume at price can be displayed and order flow can be evaluated as another tool for making trading decisions. There are a few DTG members in the past trading crude and currencies (some use currency futures volume data to trade FOREX). Each market has it’s own personality and a big edge we’re focused on is trading from support and resistance where stops can be kept small. Over time one can get the feel for S/R respect in various volatility conditions and can use that to your trading advantage.

 

Please tell me about your performance report. Is it a day trading or overnight trading?

By “performance report”, I assume you mean a track record of one methodology.  We’re not teaching a specific rigid rules based methodology at DTG, but rather we mentor traders with a focus on market structure, price action and order-flow based discretionary trading. We help traders develop methodologies and risk-models that fit their trading personalities.  We are not a trade calling service and each of our members have different results. A few have become consistently profitable and several are now professionals (one teaches other traders at a prop firm). DTG’s focus is on short term futures trading.

 

Is there any trial available before I join?

Our service is a small monthly price, so we do not offer a trial. You’ll know within a month or two whether or not you want to make the commitment to be a discretionary trader. It can take years of work, much like earning a black-belt in a martial art or becoming a professional in any sport…

 

Do you have any prior examples of content that is provided to members daily?

DTG daily information includes a daily trade plan worksheet for the e-mini ES and a daily example trade using DTG trading concepts.  The daily trade plan worksheet is posted on the website for the public 2 or 3 days after it’s posted for members.  For examples of the daily example trade, see these posts on MrTopStep.com which should give you a good idea of the style of material you’ll find inside our member’s area:

 

 

There is also a member chat room which is captured and posted each day.  Additionally, accomplished traders post journals for others to learn from.  DTG provides a whitepaper trading framework and helps members work through their individual trading methodologies, time-frames, and risk management to evolve a methodology that fits the individual member.  But it takes work on the member’s part.  No one is going to learn how to day-trade just by reading information or watching videos.  It’s a process of planning, executing, adjusting, executing more, improving; and process should never stop as markets are always changing.  DTG uses member journals for this interaction which are archived so all current and future members can benefit from the posts.

 

I have a life time license with Ninja. Is there a way to make an orderflow chart that is comparable to the MarketDelta or IRT DeltaPrint charts that you use on the blog?

Google “Ninja footprint charts”. AMS Trading Group DeltaPrint, fin-alg.com Final MarketBalance, and Rancho Dinero Volume Impression are three plugins that are available.

 

Would you recommend me to subscribe to DTG if I don’t have a PnF or footprint type chart yet?

You can certainly do a lot of reading and learning without PnF charts. In fact, some of our members do not use PnF charts or footprint type charts. Footprint type charts are used to visualize volume data at each price and read order flow but it’s just one tool of many in discretionary day trading. I do recommend studying, building a trading plan and then simulation or paper trading before committing real money to futures day trading.  Because of the leverage in futures, real money introduces psychological issues not present for most when simulation trading, so it’s best first to build confidence and profitability in your simulation day trading before committing an initial small amount of capital to it. It’s kind of like learning a martial art. You’re going to need knowledge and practice to take on black belts and the markets are full of black belts…

 

I’m based in the UK and trade predominantly EuroStoxx50 and the Bund. i was wondering if a) you cover any of these markets (b) even if you don’t would it make sense to subscribe to your service?

We use the S&P 500 e-mini futures (ES) as our “anchor” market in which to demonstrate trading concepts. Thus the market structure information and educational examples we publish each day are always based on the ES.  That said, our trading concepts are not limited to the ES and may be adapted to any liquid market. We have members that post trades in many other  markets. Currencies and energy seem to be popular currently.

Our chat room doesn’t focus on any one specific market. It is also not the main focus of learning in the community and just an adjunct to what goes on in the member forums. You will likely benefit most over time from creating a personal journal in the member forum, sharing your methodology, posting your trades daily and soliciting feedback from the founders and other members. We’ll help you work through identifying and correcting issues. Our service is one of passion, a place that allows us to talk shop with other passionate traders; obviously the minimal “skin in the game of $149/month is most likely very cheap compared to what’s made or loss on individual trades for most aspiring traders.

 

Found your website while googling. Please send more info about your Live Trading Room, e.g. room hours, video or chat, trades called out in R/T, trial, cost?

The DTG chat room is simply an adjunct to our trader mentoring environment which is accomplished in a forum format. The trading room a place where members can interact with each other during the trading day. The room is monitored by a DTG founder generally from about 8:30am EST to 4:00pm EST. The room is primarily text based, although occasionally we will use voice chat and may share live charts for educational purposes. DTG is NOT a trade calling service.

The chat room is included with DTG Platinum membership which is $149/30 days. We do not have a trial. If you are looking for a live trade room with live charts and professional traders calling out trades during the US trading session, then I would recommend the MrTopStep ImPro trading room:

 

IMPro Trading Room

 

What is really the best approach for maximizing my understanding of your site?

The members who get the most out of DTG are the ones who journal in our forum.  This allows us to mentor and provide daily feedback. We have a methodology whitepaper in the forum which is the place to start. Then I would suggest reading through a few months of example trades, the active journals and viewing any member videos which have topics that might interest you. If you have InvestorRT, you can automatically display our key market structures/levels on your charts. The daily trade plan worksheet commentary points out where the key price areas within the levels reside.

 

If join your chat room do you guys run charts live for like crude and ES etc and do you offer education w the room or is that separate?

We have a chat room, but it’s primarily for member communication and for members to ask questions. We are not displaying live charts on a daily basis, but use them from time to time for teaching purposes. If you want live charts, MrTopStep’s IMPRO room would be a better choice.

The DTG service is primarily forum based, supplemented by very detailed recorded webinars.  Our focus is intraday trading focused on market structure, price action, order flow, along with the critical intersection of risk and bankroll management considerations. We help our members work through developing their OWN trading methodologies. Currently the ES is our primary example market though the concepts can be applied to any market. We publish ES level areas of interest each morning with comments suggesting where and how to look for potential entries and exits. Each day a potential trade is selected as an effective educational example candidate and annotated in great detail highlighting key points of potential interests to those developing various processes. We have many years of daily educational example content which can be reviewed, replayed live, etc.

 

Please do you offer help with trading?  I lost a lot of money.

Yes, the community offers help with an understanding of important trading concepts. However, I’ll tell you right now that discretionary day-trading futures is not for most people. Its one of the most difficult endeavors you’ll ever take on because many ongoing trading issues are often hidden and psychological. Also, futures are highly leveraged instruments, so losses can add up very quickly, especially for an under-capitalized account. Our most successful members usually have had several years of experience behind them before working with DTG and are looking ways to reach consistent profitability. Success takes a good amount of screen time and a strong commitment.

Your losses are gone, an expensive education. Don’t throw good money after bad. If you’re going to continue learning and trading, do so using paper or simulation accounts. After all, if you can’t make money paper trading; what makes you think you make money trading real money?

 

I am using GOMI Volume Profile with Ninjatrader, is it OK or that do I need MarketDelta or Investor R/T and AMS DeltaPrint?

Charting software does not matter; any volume profile tool can give you the needed insights related to market structure activity. For reading order flow (i.e. using a footprint type volume at bid vs offer chart), there are now many charting packages which provide the exact same information. I’ve personally moved from NinjaTrader charting many years ago to MarketDelta Charts (which was built on Investor R/T prior to Dec 2016) and have never really looked at or evaluated other charting software footprint capabilities.  Investor R/T is a superior charting package, but it’s pricey so I can understand the need for cheaper alternatives.

 

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 Posted by at 1:45 pm