It is not volatility per se that I find to have changed significantly, it is the randomness factor. I totally agree volatility is needed to make money, but clearly there must be order to the volatility, or else it's just playing craps any way you look at it. The randomness has definitely gone way up in the last year, probably due to all the automation and program trades running the world now. Spikes, slop, swift kick in the ass reversals, and huge slippage seem the norm now, and I find that in all size stocks now, small and big. So tradingmonkey- do you really know TONS of very successful intraday stock traders? If so, what techniques are they (and/or YOU) using? Of the several stock daytraders that I've known over the past 5 years, I'm the single only one left who is still trading stocks, but just barely eeking out positive now, and with much bigger risk than ever.
"So tradingmonkey- do you really know TONS of very successful intraday stock traders? If so, what techniques are they (and/or YOU) using? Of the several stock daytraders that I've known over the past 5 years, I'm the single only one left who is still trading stocks, but just barely eeking out positive now, and with much bigger risk than ever." Yes I really do know tons, and I work with them everyday and we constantly challenge each other to do more than we think we can. We share ideas and strategies and because of that all of us are far more succesful together than we could ever be on our own. I have no interest in divulging any techinques that I or those around me use but I can assure you that trading equities intraday succesfuly is quite possible.
Stock traders should be doing very well. Most stocks have been trending intraday, much better than the futures markets. Unless you're trading the utter penny nonesense prop shop strategies such as Swift teaches. Then you're wasting time.
i know mamy many more emini futures traders,,,,,,,,,but most of the successful traders I personally know trade stocks............therefore I do not agree with the original premise of this thread.
I did notice that intra-day the stocks I have looked at don't look so bad. The daily charts on some of the NASDAQ stocks seem like a mess though. I was looking at some NYSE stocks today with some nice patterns that seem to be trending quite well without all the crazy jumps and gaps. So it looks like there are still some sane opportunities out there, just have to pick the right place to fish.
Trading has gotten harder. It's darwinism. Where older traders who can't adapt see randomness, I see subtle differences that some here might call an "edge." The bots aren't that smart. The way some of those market maker people play liquidity games can is so manipulative it's almost criminal, but you can still recognize their games and try to trade alongside them... recognizing buy programs/sell prgorams is easier than learning specialist behaviors IMO.
I agree except for one thing. When you start to trade alongside them they change direction immediately and will continue until they've shaken you off. Here is an analogy: One rat among a plethora of cats.
It depends. Sometimes when the outside order flow is light, yes, they count the prints and try to take every dollar from a daytrader they can. It's my job (literally) to recognize this and stay out. When I see from the price action that much larger orders are in play, being entered with fear or panic, the market maker algorithm has bigger things than my 800 shares to worry about. Basically those fucks know when they have you and they will pick your pocket. But they would rather pick the pocket of a guy moving 80,000 shares if there are those kind of orders out there (if your order is 800 and the stock trades 500,000 daily)... I just want to go along for the ride. I'm good at picking up the clues well enough that, in an inperfect game where mistakes are unavoidable and we act on imperfect information and it's a dynamic environment where anything can happen at anytime... I can still make money in these or any other market conditions.
I also know a lot of stock traders making money. I think the market in the last few months has been near the best in years. Seems more forgiving to me. The randomness is not as prevalent. That said, newbies are still struggling with survival rates still razor thin. However, experienced traders are loving this market.