No, they never do learn. Your post just proved that. "Slave to the screen"? I guess that's worse than being a slave to some jackass boss? "A drone to the action for all eternity"? Not really, try a couple hours a day. No offence intended, but you'll learn a lot more with your ears/eyes open than you will with your mouth open.
In short.......... Take what they give you and use it to your advantage. How about getting a scanner to find the action as fast (or nearly as fast) as they do? If you don't have a decent scanner can you really bitch about this? "Size. These bot trading systems, like the ones at James Simons HF, Goldman, and many others can take the liquidy out of the market just seconds before you click "buy" leaving you with a bad fill or slippage." Try using limit orders. Impossible to get the wrong price with limit orders. Personally I do 200-300 trades a day and haven't placed a market order (apart from stops) in at least 5 years. As for popular stop areas. Humans are very predictable, most like to buy and sell at whole numbers ie) $20.00 and place their stops in the same fashion. You don't need algos to figure this out. It actually makes day trading easier, not harder when you can rely on this stupidity. As far as the algos go, I love them. They are predictable and easy to manipulate.
I didn't read this thread because the assertions of the OP were just, well, stupid. I can say that screen trading and automated trading work from two entirely different and nearly unrelated toolboxes.. I worked on automation for a number of years and finally I had some real intellectual property to protect and I realized that I needed to fund an engineering project just to have a setup that couldn't be hacked.. the barrier to entry was too high for the moment so I started learning to screen trade about nine or ten weeks ago on a simulator... I started thinking I would implement the automation ideas but they were oddly clunky compared to what the method eventually morphed into over time. The thing is, I avoided screen trading for a long time but now that I'm in the routine I look forward to it with some enthusiasm, moreso than most jobs I ever had... up at 6am PST, fire up the computers, check the news, then the open comes.. it's intense, almost like a computer game.. waiting for the market to start talking to me.. first few minutes it can't get a subject and a predicate together in the same place at the same time but after a few minutes it starts saying "hey, I found my limit for this insanity, I think I know where I'm going for a little while, why don't you come along, it should be fun, maybe not but probably it will be great".. so I do so... the market and I ride along for a little while and then it starts telling me "hey, buddy, don't look now but there are a bunch of really big orders waiting up there ahead, they were there, same place, before too, you might want to think about reversing".. then after awhile it says "well buddy, we've ridden this thing all over the place, it's been great but the Europeans have left the building, might as well get flat and go have a breakfast, I'll see ya in a couple of hours" and I say, ok buddy, I'll say hi to the waitresses for you... Comparing that conversation to the one that went on with my last job, well... that's why it was my LAST JOB...
In your P/L, you have very large negative pass-through everyday and you also talked about joining the trend. How do you do that without placing market orders?
Cross the market with a routable limit order. This acts as a psuedo market order with price certainty.
A few friends of mine that are daytraders talk about "not wanting to be in front of these screens on a daily basis in a few years." I say it too and it's always in the back of my head as I continue developing strats for the longer timeframe. BUT....if each and every one of my longer-term trading ideas failed miserably, I would gladly remain a "slave to the screen" for 6.5 hours/day. Being a slave ain't so bad. I can go to work WHENever I want, WHEN I want, dressed HOW I want. I could come in for the first hour and net $5k and if I so chose (which I wouldn't do btw) I could leave and not return until the next day. I could lay in the bed and trade from my laptop (I did that this morning) while you fight 830 traffic to get to work for your miserable boss. Red_Ink knows exactly what the hell he is talking about.
That is one of the best quotes I have seen in a while. I have been trading for 3 years, professionally meaning that this is all I do. I sell out of the money options on stocks that I would like to buy. My trades last a few months and they are as boring as hell. Literally. I met plenty of daytraders, most of them have the best intentions and some are truly commited. They study and follow the market 8h + x day. The problem is that no one is consistent. Most of them loose their cool. It seems that the market is slowly burning them and draining them emotionally and financially. All the daytaders I know are normal people like me, trading from home. It's so hard to make good decisions under pressure, I have no idea how they will be able to last 3-5-10 years staring at the screen like that. In my opinion daytrading is truly fashinating, but it is also the hardest way to make money. I can't do it, but if you can it is truly impressive !