More like all on 6 numbers. But the real answer was leverage. It would be hard to lose even 50% in a cash account. To the rest, that's all I do is add to winners and losers. Buy low sell high. Buy any dip add to my longs, sell any rally add to my shorts, regardless of where I got in or my average price.
This, it's due to greed, the urge to make large amounts of money quickly. if people risk max 0.1% per trade if they are day trading or 1-3% then swing trading, they can make hundreds of trades without emptying their trading capital. An other thing is that psychology may get at them, failure to execute, fear, doubt, front running setups, second guessing, etc.
Market makers are allowed to place hidden quotes up to four digits. If you see a transaction on the tape at $6.0671 that means a hidden from the public bid/offer from a registered market maker that resulted in a trade. A quote of $6.06-$6.07 does not mean there are not quotes between these visible displays.
" Buy low sell high. Buy any dip add to my longs, sell any rally add to my shorts, regardless of where I got in or my average price." By the rules this is the required method of trading by specialists. Buy low and sell high. They are required to buy minuses and zero minuses, and sell pluses and zero pluses. The public trades opposite from the professionals.
Asked CME risk management about this. The rep said there is no such thing as market makers making "hidden bid/offers" on any given instrument at CME. Meaning, if the min-tick increment is $.01, such as CL, there are not hidden orders at tick-increments below $.01. Market makers have access to the same information as everyone else in futures/options. He did say that those "dark pools" can exist in securities, so perhaps your statement needs to be qualified with a call to the SEC.
My posting was pertaining to securities not futures. I don't know how you read futures into the discussion. I have traded both futures and securities for over fifty years and have been a futures exchange member. I think I know what I am talking about. Market makers and specialist can trade/quote shares at four digits and it is hidden from other market participants. The public cannot.
%% PLUS, its not really a coin flip; but to use his ''coinflip'' illustration silver+ gold coins do not sound , trend nor are they valued the same as copper. And trade -invest is not 50-50, bid ask spread just proved that. Mr Trade 55+, actually markets are not random @ all-- i did huge worse than random, first year.LOL Another reason not to ''random chose stock'' LOL] GM, C, DAL, AIG, BAC, BEAR STEARNS, LEH ,Indy Mac, they did far worse than random;its enough to make some invest, or sell in some like 30 or 500 stocks. Really, who could have predicted Bear Stearns bit the dirt in a bear market??
My deepest apologies. This was in the trading forum, not the stocks forum specifically. I forgot the title of the thread. I guess if you have been trading for 50+ years, you've seen it all.