Should be obvious, could be obvious, would be obvious. But not to some. I have done a complete 180 in the last year. I used to love the open. Now my first trade is usually at least 15 minutes after the bell. The downside is that I have to sit here all damn day again. Oh well. Ya gotta adapt faster, folks. That being said, OPG orders might actually be working in this environment. I have no idea though since I don't trade them anymore. Don?
I don't trade the first half hour myself, and I am an automated trader. The opening is too whippy and the slippage is out of control, and you can pay too much with market orders. I don't blame HFT market makers though. The guys who move the market can do a lot of damage quickly and very fast, and most people are not going to want to be on the receiving end of the abuse, whichever way the markets are going. Somebody's losing on those moves, and they're the worst moves to lose on.
Slippage killed our last API. And most of our guys are co-lo. I still use the same interface, but it's subjective selection, and then fire and forget kind of stuff. Such a nasty world.