Member Review: Paras’ Tape Reading Course – A Game-Changer for Traders

Dear Traders,

I’m thrilled to share an outstanding review we recently received from one of our valued members, Jeff, also known as Triple J. Jeff took part in Paras’ tape reading course and graciously expressed his thoughts on the experience. We couldn’t be more excited to relay his feedback to all of you. — Andrew

Hi Thor,

I would like to provide this very positive review of Paras’ tape reading course. For me, this course truly has the potential to live up to its title as a game-changer!

After some overview of basics/fundamentals, the meat of the course consists of two main sections- Order Flow /Time & Sales concepts and Level 2 concepts. The Order Flow concepts include Held Bids and Held Asks, prints below the bid and above the ask and prints between bid/ask (he codes these as white prints, I code these as yellow which likely came from either you or Carlos); Print Size and Behavior, Volume at Price and Speed of Tape.

For me, the Held Bid and Held Offer concepts were especially valuable, as to this point I had not truly understood their significance. The strength of the entire course, including these concepts, is Paras provides real-time examples of the T&S to support the explanations.

Just as you teach the importance of the “ladder” in Level 2 when looking for trades, the Level 2 section of this course includes similar emphasis on this, although Paras never uses the term “ladder”. It also includes the concept of Stacked Bids and Stacked Offers, which until now I had thought of as merely a different way of describing a strong Ladder. In Paras’ world, these are large bids or asks from multiple market-makers at the Immediate Bid or Immediate Ask. When there’s stacking at the bid this is a bullish signal and when there’s stacking at the offer this is a bearish signal. Totally new concept for me.

The course then proceeds to provide examples of how different strategies can be executed using the tape- he gives specific real-time examples of Breakouts, Reversals, Pullbacks and Ranges. What’s nice is that even though Paras is not a Cam trader, the examples he provides are easily applicable to how we trade using Cams.

In a nutshell, this course is a terrific education in understanding the “When” of a trade. As you know, the challenge/frustration for so many newer traders is to have a correct thesis, i.e. “let’s go Long when it sells down to S3 and reverses” but the timing of entry is incorrect.

For me, this course is providing a new dimension to my trading. Until now, I’ve relied primarily on Level 2 and VPA, without knowing how to read the tape well. I’ve gotten pretty good at “textbook” Level 2 entries with an obvious ladder, but when these do not present themselves often on some days I find myself forcing trades. I’m starting to see trades now that I’ve missed before where the Ladder is not as obvious but the tape tells a story. I will need to give this some time to master (and Paras urges this in the course). I’ve experienced a tendency to “think” I see a tape signal and overlook the other crucial elements such as Volume and VPA. So I’m going to practice this all in sim for next couple weeks.

I’m quite confident that this course will end up helping me improve my hit rate and RVR significantly. I hope to be able to provide some metrics to confirm this in a month or two. For now, an enthusiastic ‘Thumbs Up’ from me on this course!

Regards,
Jeff aka Triple J