I'm interested in hearing from very short-term traders on positive/negative experiences you've had with using a person to perform order entry. I find dealing with the order book to be an unwelcome and distracting task. Specifically, did the positive effects of such an arrangement (e.g., quicker access to the right window, better focus on the charts, etc.) clearly outweigh the negative factors (e.g., cost of keeping the entry person, worse fills, mistakes)? Was the simple fact of having another person around a significant distraction? I like to clear my mind, passively observe the price action across several charts, and wait for the good trades to appear. Having open order books in my field of vision is highly distracting, but keeping the windows minimized and then scrambling to find the right window and place an order screws up my mojo. I'm picturing someone sitting adjacent to me who would only have DOM windows open for the different products I trade, and I would have only charts and T&S windows at my station. Thanks in advance. Regards, William
I know exactly what you are talking about. I think a hidden downside to electronic trading especially in the futures is the instant access lto the market leads to chronic overtrading. Sometimes I leave TT off all together in slow markets like we have now and will phone my orders to the desk right down the hall.
Agreed. The abundance of data at any one moment is a double-edged sword. The speed of execution is key and at times there is useful information to take away from the order flow -- at other times I allow myself to second-guess the original plan based on the look of the book, hesitate if don't like the spread and feel too cheap for a market order, or not watch my charts as closely. There is usually no more than ten seconds between the time I identify a trade I want and the time at which it's no longer prudent to enter, so I can't give up speed of execution (ideally I would like to improve upon it).
maybe you could put your order entry/position tracking on one screen and your analysis/charting on another?
Thanks for the suggestion. I already use multiple screens, but it's more about not breaking focus than a lack of real estate. I'm just curious whether anyone else has tried this approach and found it helpful or not. Regards,
Its time to hit buy.com and get yourself a 37 inch HDTV set. I use a few 19 inch screens. They used to seem large when I first got them, but now with so much going on it seems difficult to use. It only costs about a grand to get yourself a large 37 inch set lcd. Use the set as a main monitor and then have two 19 inch monitors on the sides with other auxillary tasks. Im not a hardware whiz, but I assume that maxing out the memory on the computer and having a dual-core or higher processor would probably be the best setup for a multi-monitor configuration. I have a HP AMD dual-core 4200+ and everything seems to be very speedy. 1 grand is nothing when compared to missing something like a news release or a chart or messing up order entry because its all cluttered on a 17 inch screen.
Our group traders generally set up a couple dozen "hot keys" to make for instant order entry. I have found that communication between two people leaves room for errors. FWIW, Don
Usually traders in this situation setup Hot Keys for their entries and exits. In fact, there's a thread where someone showed their hot key keyboard setup in the thread called Picture of your Trading Workstations. There's also links to where you can purchase those particular types of keyboards. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?threadid=43661 Sounds a lot better than all the extra mouse movement to minimize or maximize screens when you need to place a trade. Sounds better than hiring someone to place your trades for you. By the way, I knew a guy in Seattle that hired someone to place his trades...it worked fine for a few days until a big trade error (order entry error) that cost him several thousand dollars. He got rid of the order entry guy and started using hot keys via a special keyboard. Simply, hot keys on a keyboard is much more effective, less overhead and reduces the chance you'll assault someone for placing the wrong order. Mark