High-frequency traders have moved in on the US Treasury bond market in a big way. http://www.businessinsider.com/high-frequency-traders-dominate-the-treasuries-market-2015-9 http://www.marketwatch.com/story/go...n-of-high-speed-us-treasury-market-2015-09-23
All this talk about high frequency trading is falling on deaf years, its going to continue and continue and continue, no matter how many books or articles or movies or documentaries are written on high frequency trading it will continue.....every single time there is a debate about this they say that high frequency traders add liquidity to the market, its become a game of who can be the fastest, there is a whole other world beneath the surface that no one knows about that one day will come to light, but for now let them continue to play there "who can be the fastest" game and when the system collapses due to some algorithm failure we will finally get to see the truth....
HFT Can't fail, it's just skimming a fraction of the markets, buy buying at a price say 1cent less than someone else is willing to buy for, then selling instantly to that buyer. So that being said, it has no real effect on the market, makes it slightly harder for everyone else to profit, as profit has to come from somewhere and they do skim a fraction many many times. 17years of trading all in and markets move just the same to me. HFT is just another excuse for losing money, don't buy it personally!
I couldn't agree more. People blame HFT when they are losing money, but keep quiet when things are good. What about when you are short bond futures and the HFT's push the market down right into your bid where you are looking to cover ? They can work for or against you.....just like every other trader out there trading in the market one is involved in. I think the only ones it truly effects are the traders who worked the bid/offer years ago and scalped for a tick. That was definitely a strategy that did work in a select few markets (Worked very well in EuroStoxx Futures in the early 2000's). But outside of those guys it really shouldn't have a huge impact on traders. I said it on an earlier post, people always love to point the finger when they are losing money. Used to be the specialists....then the locals/brokers in the futures pits...then HFT's.......in 10 years it will be something else.
According to the people who whined when losing money who traded them off the floor they were impossible at times. You couldn't put stops in because locals would push the market to the stops to run em. Then you would get horrible slippage on the stop because the locals were screwing you. If you were trying to scalp you couldn't because the locals wouldn't fill you at your price, they always stepped in front of your order. Sound familiar.........it's the same bunch in 2015 who whine that HFT's make it impossible to day trade .
Shall I presume that's a trap as maybe there wasn't that instrument 17years ago ?? Let HFT skim some profits off the top, there skimming from Retail but reducing the amount of profit the banks make, retail are going to lose over all anyway, without this Banks wouldn't trade and there would be no reason for there to be a market. Pull up a 17year old chart and today, same instrument and yes the same pseudo* random pain in the arse. * pseudo means Like/appears to be, but not actually by the way!
Banks, institutions, hedge funds, HFT do not make money from retail players. They don't care about retail players. Why? Retail players are insignificant in that they don't have any worthwhile money. When i traded on the floor, traders would say that 'paper' was coming in. They meant institutions were putting in orders to buy/sell. No one ever discussed one lot retail trading or any retail trading for that matter!!!