Jaymes Rosenthal - Leaning thoughts/breakdown

*What I see it as..

- fronting size in an order book to gain entry to a long/short position using said order as support/resistance and also as a stop loss/exit.

*Why viable?

- when a market gains awareness of size on the bid or the offer, it may move price in the opposite direction to try and gain a more favorable price rather than fill that order where they want.

*Why not?

- that order may be placed at a "bad" or incorrect price so the market may consume that order due to it not implying that actual perceived true value of the product.  Also it may not be a "real" order and it may not be large enough to really "matter" given volume/liquidity in said market among many other things.

*What do I consider when deciding to enter into a lean trade?

- Size of order relevant to other orders in market book and where it is located
- "Realness" of size/order... does it want a fill?  Will it move?  Is it spoofing?
- Based on my knowledge base and experience, how often does similar size/situation cause a bounce/turn in the market?
- What technical levels are helping/hurting/relevant?
- Is this lean with or against the short/medium/long term trend?
- How has this market been acting/flowing in previous sessions?  Is it strong? Trending? Oscillating? Tiny rang w/chop?
- Do I have any fundamental bias leading into this trading session?  Has anything changed?
- How are correlated markets acting/responding?
- What is the order book structure/build in back months or calendars... are those helping or hurting the cause?
- With success, how will we plan on taking winners and where/why?
- With failure, what is our risk/exit strategy?  Where will stop loss occur and if using size what is expected pay up?
- How has the market approached the size? (fast and unaware of orders? Slow but with awareness?)
- Will other traders in/out of house be executing a similar trade?  How will that affect me and the results?
- How much mental attention will this trade require?  (Especially relevant if I'm in many other positions)

*My general MENTALITY on leaning..

It's funny, when you are first introduced to trading, at least for me, leaning seems super attractive and "easy" with generally low risk. In theory it's simple and straight forward.  What I learned was that blindly leaning was super -EV and eventually I stopped doing it all together outside of largely volatile situations where markets reacted well toward the strategy.

After 6 years of trading I believe leaning is one of the harder trades/strategies to implement in general.  In order to build a story for a good lean I need plenty of reasons to do so... and they need to far outweigh the downsides.  One reason I still like them to this day is the ability to do all my mental framework before I execute.  Once in a trade I pretty much know most of all outcomes and am mentally OK with all of them.

As a momentum trader, my confidence benefits greatly from even small/medium wins while leaning yet when it doesn't "work" my momentum isn't really shaken.  I believe in the ones I make as being plus EV and they usually have a downside that is reasonable/acceptable (to me).

A lean to me is sometimes just the best way to execute a trade in an overall story I have about the direction of a market. It may present itself and it may not. The nuance of finding the good ones takes a good outlook and intuition.

*My Struggle(s) with Leaning

I still may "overtrade" some lean spots as I often can project too much good reasoning for a given trade even if everything isn't necessarily correct or understood well.

I understand that there are more things to consider when building my story.

I'm not at all sure how to quantify what size to use in each given situation.  I often get too "comfortable" in this regard.

My entry/exit efficiency is generally scattered and inconsistent.  I can catch myself reaching due to various reasons such as FOMO or emotional reactions toward the market's reaction.  Along with the entry my exit strat can vary without much thought.  I may scale out for no other reason than to lock up profit or due to minute changes in the scene.

I'd love to hear some thoughts on all of these^ to hopefully add to my arsenal of thought and help shift my paradigm.

*Some other questions I'd like to hear other perspective on...

- When do you tend to find your most favorable/profitable leaning opportunities?
- What about your worst?
- Do you "set it and forget it" with stops or do you prefer actively managing your trades once in them?
- Do you let each situation dictate size/risk or does that alter based on your current momentum/results?
- What are your OVERALL thoughts on leaning?  Good? Bad? Ugly?

Cheers, Jaymes Rosenthal