It is pretty clear you're trying to bait people. An example of not trying to bait people would be the following: I don't understand how people are still able to scalp. From my observations, it seems like black-boxes with sub 1 millisecond turnaround times should be able to take away the majority of what was previously the scalper's edge - speed. I also know several prior scalpers who have gone onto position trading and burger flipping because they claim that scalping is simply too difficult when one has to compete against computers which process data near the speed of light. Am I correct in my assumption that scalping is effectively dead? Are there any scalpers left who have found a way to compete with black boxes and still win? Please share your thoughts on how scalping has changed. If you're a scalper, what alterations you have made to your strategy to stay alive, if you've been able to? Instead, you're pompously presuming that you have a glossary of all scalp-based edges and you ignorantly assume that algorithmic trading somehow magically negates them all. The reason this thread is devoid of serious replies is because anyone with a brain can see how you're baiting, for some unknown reason. If you wanted a thread with a serious discussion on the changing and increasingly difficult market environment for scalpers, you would have started the thread differently. And as someone else said, it's not that we lack humor when we reply seriously and inform you you're trolling; for us to have a sense of humor, there must be humor for us to sense. There is none from you in this thread. If you'd like to discuss scalping in more depth, I'd love to. I have absolutely nothing to prove, but I love the markets and I love sharing strategies and learning about what others do. However, I suggest you conduct yourself more professionally if you wish to attract posters of the caliber necessary to maintain a serious discussion on this subject.
stock777, Computers are taking over large parts of trading. I agree that if trading by computer systems is not your cup of tea, that you should be worried about the viability of your career as a trader. At my firm, I (we) just finished writing a program that automates a large part of what the traders do. I can see them looking at it with wonderment, but I can also tell that they are cogitating what this means to their future jobs. It sucks man. The world marches forward with or without us. nitro
You know the one thing that pisses me off? all the guys on this board who push size(which obviously excludes bitch777) will understand this, when you push SIZE like 10-20k per position on illiquid stocks, somehow before my routed order is able to hit Bitch1's offer/bid they are able to pull, this infuriates me as it only happens when i go to hit them, guess my connection speed is not close enough to newyork, what are ya gonna do? anyone know what im talking about or a way around this? we are talking milliseconds here but his connection is faster than mine and thus allows the pull of the order that is always there but i can never take. I have heard this is all about latency, obviously it is not manual cancel but this 1 millisecond lag costs me thousands when im looking to get out on someone else's fake quote, and it seems they are more than able to tag my sorry ass, when they need too. What i the quickest way to route so i can hit this order before they can use comps to pull? this reall became a problem with NMS.
Nitro I am not sure if I agree with you completely but I do partially. In my opinion the bid ask spreaders are dead except for a few distinct strategies that are still viable. But those will soon go too. The extremely short day trader is going to be a dinasaur also. But the position trader the swing trader and the longer term day trader will always be around. While you can program computers to realize and profit from quick small inefficiencies intraday that have a repeatable pattern you can not program a computer to decide how good the wheat crop is or what the energy inventories are going to be or weekly export sales. Human emotion is also very hard to program. There could be all the technical indicators in the world pointing one way and the fundamentals pointing that way but if people feel uneasy and need out they will go the other way. So while computers are certainly changing trading there are some things that will always stay the same. HUMAN NATURE just my 2 cents
Now you see, Nitro was able to respond without all the vitriol and defensiveness. It's clear who the real traders are. Glad I was able to bring the subject up, out of the darkness. I still think the boxes , since they trade so fast , make traditional scalping for quick and almost RISKLESS gains , a thing of the past. The signal is often simultaneous with the trade opportunity at that level disappearing. This was the whole idea behind the dark pools, to take the flow out of view. They are succeeding. Of course you can still trade the noise, but its a royal pain in the ass and way too much like real work.
Keep in mind I speak only of intraday scalping. Position trading is a completely different game and the boxes have almost no effect on it.