Separating observation from interpretation.
Takeaway
We are conditioned to seek novelty. The new method, the latest indicator or the next edge is always more attractive than the familiar. Nowhere is this more evident than in trading.
It's common to see a trader's chart almost disappear beneath moving averages, trend lines, support and resistance levels, oscillators and countless other overlays. More recently, order flow has become the latest attraction. "See the big orders. Follow the institutions. Big money is buying."
It's an appealing narrative. If billion-dollar firms are buying, surely the sensible approach is to follow them.
The problem is that the story often contains more assumptions than evidence.
Every trade requires both a buyer and a seller. A large transaction at 1440 tells us that a significant amount of business was completed at that price. It does not tell us why either party traded, whether the buyer intends to hold or hedge, whether the seller has finished selling, or whether either participant was "right".
Method
Compare these two statements:
"A large transaction took place at 1440."
"Huge institutional buyers entered at 1440 and are now pushing price towards 1500."
The first describes an observable event.
The second adds a narrative that cannot be verified from the trade itself.
Implication
Indicators can be useful. They organise information and help us view price through different lenses. But they remain derivatives of price. Even volume, and the many indicators built from it, exist because price has already traded.
A common belief is that strong moves require high volume. Yet markets regularly challenge simple rules. The New York open often produces violent two-way movement on enormous volume. Overnight sessions can produce equally significant price moves on only a handful of contracts. If an overnight move costs you 200 ticks, it's difficult to argue that low volume made it unimportant.
Apply this
The lesson isn't that indicators are useless. Far from it. Used well, they provide structure and context.
The mistake is allowing the indicator to become more important than the market itself.
Price is where value is negotiated. Markets move because buyers and sellers agree—or fail to agree—on value. Indicators can help describe that process, but they should never replace it.
Use indicators to organise the market, not to replace it. Keep returning to price, value, and where two-sided transactions are taking place—or where they aren't.