Why would I ever accept the rationalizations of someone who obviously has no relevant expertise? I've forgotten more about HFT than you've ever known, and I'm telling you straight up your statements are naive. 99%+ of active algorithms do nothing new. They are just faster implementations of the same old stuff. Day traders never had a problem stepping in front of size, but when an automated system does it they go crying and hide in Mommy's apron. "Traders" think they're somehow doing something different when they buy a breakout or a moving average penetration--vs an algo that does the same thing, just much on a micro- time scale and with a layer of intelligent execution mechanics. Trading is not different than it ever was. It's just getting more efficient: the less adaptive are perishing faster.
+1 Jonp, you are 19 yrs old. You really should simmer down a bit. You have almost zero experience compared to a lot of us here.
fair statement, but experience has nothing to do with this. actually this is all about forgetting past experiences and making your trading decisions based entirely on what you are seeing happening in front of you.
Forgetting past experiences?? No way man, the mkt is the SAME just that the mechanisms have changed. The way price moves up and down (and sideways) hasn't changed because people haven't changed. But the mkt is faster because of the technological advancement of trading algo's. This cannot be denied, but can be counteracted by dropping to a slower frame where speed is not of the essence. Once you have 5 yrs or so of live trading under your belt, it will probably make a lot more sense to you. It did for me.
long ibm 129.18. not a recommendation just saying. hold til after earnings. p.s there was no backtesting involved in the making of this trade.
Wrong. All trading decisions based on historical data involve some form of backtesting. The only information available on IBM (and everything else) is historical data. Even ticks are history by the time they reach your screen. So you made an assessment based on historical data that you'd be more likely to profit than lose if you bought when you did and hold until after earnings. I hate to break it to you but that's using backtesting, even though in your case it may have been subjective, informal and unsound.