---Now, who was that masked man who said these things repeatedly on ET? I hereby give that poster one gold star!--- i don;t know who put it this exact way(could be me),but i've been saying same thing for years. and i honestly stated in multiple threads that my trading profits are down x10 off let say 2006-2010 levels. why theirs should be different? this market is FBAR (specially stocks) for a very long time and getting worse every single day. for last FEW days i've been trying to sell 100 shares of stock PCYO. no matter where i place my order-it was never filled. it doesn't matter what price i put-there is will be trades all day long AT my price,thousands shares are passed by-but no fill for me. it is impossible to buy anything for retail at bid or sell at ask now. unless-someone is stepping on your price and scoop all shares. you always last in line,regardless. s***t..what a times.. i got like 40+ executions today,but after all i ended up at exact zero. spend whole day,paid shitload of commissions. all for nothing.
'A Nation of Whiners' July 11, 2008 From an online article published Wednesday by the Washington Times after an editorial board meeting with former senator Phil Gramm (R-Tex.), an adviser to Sen. John McCain's presidential campaign. The "mental recession" and "nation of whiners" quotes did not appear in the print edition of the Times: In an interview with the Washington Times, Phil Gramm, a former Texas senator who is now vice chairman of UBS, the giant Swiss bank, said he expects Mr. McCain to inherit a sluggish economy if he wins the presidency, weighed down above all by the conviction of many Americans that economic conditions are the worst in two or three decades and that America is in decline. "You've heard of mental depression; this is a mental recession," he said, noting that growth has held up at about 1 percent despite all the publicity over losing jobs to India, China, illegal immigration, housing and credit problems and record oil prices. "We may have a recession; we haven't had one yet." "We have sort of become a nation of whiners," he said. "You just hear this constant whining, complaining about a loss of competitiveness, America in decline" despite a major export boom that is the primary reason that growth continues in the economy, he said." you have become a real american.
OK Bob. A gold star for you also. I can tell you really trade. This is so obvious to those that keep records that it is hard to believe that people still argue the point.
heh..yep. however..nation of whiners whine for exact same reason as i do-those regulations,that people in DC have enforced on us. the regulations,where big corporations have it all, and all we got nothing. not a thing,that would work in our advantage. it's a fact,that most (if not all) big inventions,that changed your life comes from small comps\garage start up. big corporations aren't changing the world..oh wait..they do..but in their favor.. how small business can stay competitive,if he have to pay ALL possible and impossible taxes that are imposed currently, and big ones-not paying a dime? are they competitive? is it my fault? same exact logic\model applies to a current situation on stock market(where spend most of my time). so..old fart like McCain shouldn't point finger at me,but blame himself for what they have created. mother of all government expansions of all time. and his buddy W starts it.. they create those rules and regulations,that favors those,who lobbied them.. hey..now we have a leader, a president ,who is the biggest whiner of all. what else you are expecting from the nation?
what can you expect from bailout nation? that is what creeping socialism is about. the idea is to have a few big financial institutions. then the government controls the levers of credit and allocates credit to their friends and favorite projects. welcome to slavery 21 century style.
Are you sure thats HFT causing it or just low volume? If you sold 170 at the bid and bid dropped 5-7% that just seems more like a lack of volume and liquidity. If algo trading wasn't around how would it be different? Would there just be a bigger size at the next highest bid so after you sold it, the drop might only be .003% lower? To me the WEIRDEST thing I see in a stock that I think HFT is causing is a declining stock price that CONSTANTLY has higher volume orders at the nearest bid and lower volume orders at the nearest ask. I understand that the level 2 is just a representation of the orderflow at the current second, but how is it possible that a stock can decline for 2-3 weeks on low volume from $7.50 to $6.10 with more volume always at the bid than ask? Wouldn't it just start to bottom out? I don't see many stocks do this so when I do see it I conclude this is either manipulation or accumulation. Also, this must be watched and noticed for atleast 2 weeks. You can't just look at it for 5 seconds and declare manipulation. I know order flow reading is considered dead but some principles do still exist. Like for example, when a stock is selling off hard, most of the time there will be higher volume offers at the ask then the bid. The ask creates the resistance upwards and the bid just keeps getting taking out and going lower. The volume will show up as higher relative volume compared to other bars. But when a stock downtrends for 2-3 weeks with always higher volume at the bid, it just seems weird....
Agree. SEC makes the rules that favor institutions, market makers, brokers, etc. SEC allows front-running: Scottrade and Knight Traders used to front-run their customers so blatantly that market orders were held for 5 minutes without being filled, and market orders cannot be cancelled at Scottrade. Market makers of individual stocks blatantly control the bid and ask prices. They set them up like traps, waiting for retail traders to fall into them. If SEC gets rid of market makers, there won't be such a problem. Quote stuffing=sending orders and cancelling them? I don't think it's a problem. You can stuff as much as you like. If they cancel their orders so quickly, they won't affect the price anyway. Human eyes won't detect the difference. Quote stuffing may be the counter-tactics of traders to fight the market makers. The market makers lay down the traps and get ready to front-run, then this trader sends a big order to activate the market maker's front-running software. When the market maker is salivating and raises or lowers (depending on if the order is buy or sell) the price, the order disappears! If market makers get deceived many times, they lobby SEC to stop quote stuffing. So I think SEC is helping market makers to go after quote stuffing. SEC is trying to help the wall street crooks. Quote stuffing is the tactics used by ordinary traders to fight market makers. If market makers don't front-run, there is no need to trick them.
You must think deeper! Don't just stay at the superficial level. You know there is a market maker out there controlling this stock you are trading. When you send a sell order, he sees your order and lowers the bidding price immediately. If you really want to sell, you have to accept his lower bidding price. But you can also use his action to your advantage: You send a sell order, the market maker lowers the price by 5-7% (I assume the asking price will go with it accordingly by 5-7%. Otherwise the spread will be too big and cause suspicion), you immediately cancel your sell order and send a market buy order to buy at the newly lowered asking price. Of course, if you do that a few times successfully, the market maker will complain to SEC and lobby it to stop quote stuffing, because the market maker is losing money. See, you outsmart the market maker who tries to front-run you.
SEC will make sure the playing field is uneven and favors the big guys. What about co-location? Institutions co-locate their computers with exchange servers and gain an advantage over retail traders. Does SEC do anything about it? NO!
You can make money with HFT around. No one says you can't. Its just if you are a short term guy trying to game the system it won't work out well for you. HFT's job is to make you pay as much as you are willing to pay, it's called price discovery. To make you pay the maximum amount that you are willing to pay is not illegal nor immoral. No free rides. to hold trades for a longer period would require patience and hard work, something that few of the get rich quick gamblers seem willing to do.