{"id":16808,"date":"2012-01-30T22:13:19","date_gmt":"2012-01-31T03:13:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.smbtraining.com\/blog\/?p=16808"},"modified":"2023-04-13T09:14:42","modified_gmt":"2023-04-13T13:14:42","slug":"a-tape-trade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.smbtraining.com\/blog\/a-tape-trade","title":{"rendered":"A Tape Trade"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>One of the questions I receive most often is regarding trades based strictly on the tape. These occur far less frequently than in years past because of the masking of buyers\/sellers by the HFTs but they still do occur from time to time. This morning I was trading AMLN on the Open as it was In Play due to an FDA approval.<\/p>\n<p>It was gapping higher but had begun a pre-market downtrend so I was leaning short . I identified a seller at 14 and got short in the 13.90s. \u00a0It then proceeded to move up and down in a 20 cent range for a few minutes. With each passing minute I felt the likelihood of a profitable short trade\u00a0diminished. As the 14 seller lifted I got long and was prepared for a move to 14.50-15.<\/p>\n<p>For the next 10 minutes it continued to gyrate higher and lower. Finally at 9:50 I saw something that caught my attention. The bid was getting pounded at 14.05 and would not drop. I called this out to the desk and added to my long position. I placed a stop below 14.05 and waited. I was rewarded with about 50 cents of upside during the next 20 minutes. Not bad for a trade where I was risking a few cents \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: center;\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.smbtraining.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/amln-tape-buyer.png\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-16812\" title=\"amln tape buyer\" src=\"http:\/\/www.smbtraining.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/amln-tape-buyer.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"562\" height=\"337\" srcset=\"\/\/www.smbtraining.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/amln-tape-buyer.png 878w, \/\/www.smbtraining.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/amln-tape-buyer-300x179.png 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 562px) 100vw, 562px\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/sspencer_smb\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/twitter-badges.s3.amazonaws.com\/follow_me-c.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/a><\/p>\n<p><em>Steven Spencer is the co-founder of SMB Capital and SMB Training and has traded professionally for over 15 years. His email is sspencer@smbcap.com. For more information on SMB&#8217;s comprehensive tape reading program click <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smbtraining.com\/blog\/tape\">HERE<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>No relevant positions<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>*live trades discussed in this post took place in T3 Trading Group, LLC a CBSX broker dealer<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>One of the questions I receive most often is regarding trades based strictly on the tape. These occur far less frequently than in years past because of the masking of buyers\/sellers by the HFTs but they still do occur from time to time. This morning I was trading AMLN on the Open as it was In Play due to an &#8230; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.smbtraining.com\/blog\/a-tape-trade\" class=\"more-link\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":143,"featured_media":16812,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,8],"tags":[341,653,1906],"class_list":["post-16808","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-reading_the_tape","category-steven_spencer_steves_blogs","tag-tape-reading","tag-trader-training","tag-trading-tools"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v26.1.1 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<title>A Tape Trade | SMB Training<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.smbtraining.com\/blog\/a-tape-trade\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"A Tape Trade | SMB Training\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"One of the questions I receive most often is regarding trades based strictly on the tape. These occur far less frequently than in years past because of the masking of buyers\/sellers by the HFTs but they still do occur from time to time. This morning I was trading AMLN on the Open as it was In Play due to an ... Read More\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.smbtraining.com\/blog\/a-tape-trade\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"SMB Training Blog\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/smbcap\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2012-01-31T03:13:19+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2023-04-13T13:14:42+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/www.smbtraining.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2012\/01\/amln-tape-buyer.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"878\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"526\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"sspencer\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:creator\" content=\"@smbcapital\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:site\" content=\"@smbcapital\" \/>\n<meta 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