【How to Track the Footprints of Institutional Traders】—— Secondary Market Trading Analysis

Institutions and traders have funding levels dozens of times larger than yours, strong teams, and rich information channels; you are not their match. The news is often just a smokescreen. One day there’s bullish news, and the next day there’s a bearish report, with only one purpose—leading retail investors by the nose. Therefore, merely knowing that institutions exist won't prevent you from being taken advantage of; you need to learn to see through their layouts!

Retail investors like to focus on patterns, so institutions create patterns; retail investors watch indicators, so institutions generate signals.

Moving averages represent the average price over a certain period, MACD is based on EMA, and RSI calculates the rise and fall over past periods. These are all calculations based on historical data and cannot reflect current market changes in real-time; they are all “second-hand information” and are inevitably lagging.

✅ However, trading volume does not lie; it is the most authentic language of the market! It is immediate and can show current capital flow. The market does not rise or fall for no reason; everything is driven by funds. The news is just a play, and the only thing that won’t lie is the trading volume! The true “hunters”—institutions and traders—what do they look at? They focus not on indicators or candlestick patterns, but on the volume-price structure.

Every transaction is the result of both buyers and sellers reaching a consensus at a certain price point. Only by combining volume and price can we see the true strength of the game. Patterns can be disguised, indicators can become dull, but trading volume will not be falsified. Is it a breakout with increasing volume or a rise with decreasing volume? Once institutions start offloading, abnormal changes in trading volume are often the earliest warning signals.

Trading Volume × Price = Institutional Money

So how can we use volume and price to find traces of institutions?

✅ How much capital have they invested?

✅ What is their average cost of entry?

✅ What is their target profit?

✅ When do they plan to offload?

Combining our institutional trading model, refer to the pinned “1+3” tutorial on the homepage, which is a trading system developed from Simmons' trading mindset, integrating the perspective of institutions. Its core is to avoid the lagging nature of traditional technical analysis indicators by using a single candlestick to determine in real-time whether institutions are entering the market and accurately tracking their actions. In simple terms, it means finding potential targets that may surge at the first opportunity, while institutions feast, we sip the soup, and safely exit before the harvest.