Any huge size stock day traders out there?

Discussion in 'Stocks' started by newguyintown, Jan 6, 2011.

  1. Quick question. I'm an ES day trader that trades decent size (up to 100+ lots) and will be trading much bigger size soon (1000+ lots) when I start managing investor money other than my own.

    I'm looking to broaden out my scope and expand my repertoire by also day trading stocks, which is something I feel my natural style could gel well with, and also to have a different income stream from pure ES trading when the indices are dead and choppy like they have been so often of late.

    My question for any big size stock day traders out there is what are the liquidity and scalability constraints in the world of stock day trading (assuming the most liquid and volatile stocks)?

    Trading a 1000 lot in the ES with a 2 point stop means $100,000 of risk in just one trade. While I know that kind of risk is not likely feasible in intraday trading in a given stock, I just want to have an idea of the number of shares one can trade pretty readily intraday in some of the most tradable stocks (like GOOG, APPL and so on) while keeping slippage under control and not eroding ones edge. Specificity and detail would be much appreciated, and keep in mind I am not a scalper. I would be looking to get in for the larger intraday swings.

    Of course I know that there would be a learning curve and I would first naturally start out with very small size, but I am asking to know if it could be a lucrative thing to add to my ES trading. If huge size is not really feasible it might not be worth my time and effort to get into the stock trading learning curve.

    Thanks.
     
  2. lindq

    lindq

    Not a direct answer to your question...but when the indices are 'dead and choppy' you aren't going to find nirvana trading stocks.
     
  3. hajimow

    hajimow

    My 2 cents:

    Even if you increase your account size by 100 folds, AAPL by itself can swallow you in seconds. So the answer is that there are many stocks which are liquid. You can find them by checking the average daily volume. You can buy 40,000 shares of apple and in a minute, AAPL can swing $3 and that would give you $120,000 gain or loss. You can even find some stocks which have over one billion shares traded in a day (not always).

    If I had a huge account, I would manipulate some small stocks rather than playing big stocks.
     
  4. and i will george soros someday. comedy central around here.
     
  5. Unless you're gonna stick with mega caps, I think you'd have a very hard time pulling off comparable returns daytrading stocks as you do in index futures - just my hunch, given your experience. So much volume nowadays is just bs programs feeding off each other; you're only going to get filled when you don't want to.
     
  6. syrre

    syrre

    The liquidity and the easy executions is one of the main arguments for trading futures. If your plan is turning some goog or aapl you will be fine, but you are limited to the biggest ones if you dont want to give up some edge. Add company risk and I think you might will make a switch to the negative.

    Quick Q back to you:
    Why dont you look into the big SP?
    5 times bigger contract, you dont need to trade in thousands, plus you get better (smaller) increments (spelling?).
     
  7. why would a big swinging dick have to ask a question easily answered by simple observation?
     
  8. jokepie

    jokepie

    +1 :cool:
     
  9. JPope

    JPope

    I think it's a valid question, even for a real player, but probably a terrible place to seek guidance. How does OP not have peers or know of anyone trading equal size in stocks? Unless he's being honest, really trading hundred lots but trading a trust acct to which he recently gained access to. In which case, he's got much bigger problems to worry about.
     
  10. I do not trade stocks intraday to make profit segments.

    To maintain efficiency and effectiveness I do consider size as an important consideration.

    Because I wish to have a high money velocity I do not consider trading large cap stocks as some have referenced in their replies.

    My intraday adding or leaving positions limit is 100,000 shares. My Universe for trading is 3 beta or better and the move duration for crossing over is 100 turns a year. (A 10% net/turn). In terms of market capacity, I trade at 10% of intraday cummulative using the prevailing block size for partial fills.

    As you will, I sweep surplus profits from indexes to position trading stocks; surpluses from position trading go to sector rotation.

    Since the advent of eminis, I switched to them from the original contracts. Liquidity was rge opportunity. I trade ar five times the emini capacity, strategivally. The trade is two step: a gross harmonic portioning followed by sequencng the portions and observing the partial fill quantity in each portion. This involves 20 to 40 turns a day so my profit segments are 2 to 4 bars per segment (5 min timeframe)
     
    #10     Jan 6, 2011