No Problemo! I don't seek anyone's agreement or approval... other than the one I see in the mirror....and Xela's, of course.... she's smart! (Hope I made her blush!)
Yeah, well... we'll work on yours. (And I do think we're making a bit of progress with you. After all you occasionally try to crack a joke, given a bit of time to think about it.)
Why do you want to compete with someone? Trading is not trying to finish ahead of your opponents. Your opponent is the market, not the other market participants. It's not a matter of being the faster, or the smarter, or the best. The olympics are for that type of people. The markets are like the oceans, you just need to pick your spoon and grab tiny bites, day after day. No need to try to grab everything all at once.
Saltynuts, Good questions you have. I am programmer with a technical science back ground and have experience with programming automated trading strategies and back testing, and manual/discretionary trading. I do intraday trading on smaller timeframe chart. From my limited experience, the art of trading is a day to day battle. I notice that it will require alot of adapting. Yes, I can have a strategy on what I look for each day, but once I enter the trade, it's like I have to carefully manage and control the risk. I honestly, do not read or think about what the algo are doing. Why? Because I honestly can't control what they are doing. All I can control is what is infront of me. Recently, I stop the programming and got back to manually trading and starring at the charts. So i am in the trenching with the algos trying to make money. I believe for us traders the market gives decent opportunities per day.
Saltynuts, I disagree with this. Programmers are not as smart as non-programming traders. Programmers are just code logical writing programmers. An experienced trader, still have to tell the programmer what the code up. Even if a pattern occurs, we have to know how and when to enter the trade and manage it.
lawrence-lugar, Good comment. I macro trader. I just trade daily. From what I see on the chart, I believe the HFT algo folks are seeking small profits. It does not bother me cause I don't look for small profits.
Don't compete against algos, go with them. You can clearly see that previous highs become support, then channel breaks prompting a short signal. Although I didn't short purely because of that; Nasdaq broke its long trend support and attempted to get back in, which was the precise high of today. Waited a bit for confirmation before shorting. Exited on second previous support due to higher volume area+breakout.
Don't concern yourself with anything you have no control over. There are however things you can control to become profitable. Also, I see no point in viewing what we do as "competition".