The Globex can execute a trade every 13.7 milliseconds (as of May 2008 see news release at http://www.reuters.com/article/pressRelease/idUS258268+13-May-2008+PRN20080513 ) and can update the DOM even faster (since no price matching logic is involved). Can you process up to 100 DOM updates a minute? No, you can't. Thus you should use an automated trading robot AKA a bot to be able to take full advantage of the DOM.
Thanks for the clarification, Jeb. Interesting article to boot. The natural follow-on question would be do you really need to process every individual update in order to utilize the DOM as a trade-assist tool? My analogy would be a pitched medieval battle, 10,000 strong. At any one moment, there would be thousands of individual reactions and counter-reactions. However, from an aerial vantage, one could observe the ebb and flow, the tide of battle and, every so often, notice recurring patterns
I'm sure it takes a long time to get to grips with the DOM, and that there are no shortcuts. Saying that, does anyone have any useful advice for novice DOM/tape readers?
i heard reading not the supply and demand, but reading the last trade is helpful. for example if last trade is 1000 sold, then you know a big buyer sold. by the way, does anybody know how you can figure out if those big orders are buy or sell orders?