Welp... I'm not a math wizard or anything, but I don't know that it makes sense when you say price movements will be more and more random...either they are random, or they aren't.. The markets are the same today as they were 100 years ago - they are always changing and they are always causing maximum pain to the maximum number of its participants...
FWIW, price movements aren't really random in many cases. If futures traders can sell S&P contracts high above their Fair Value, then the spot price will surely rise, and we can trade baskets of stocks or the whole index...predictable...and also, check www.programtrading.com for other obvious "non random" responses. Simple things as fair value plays keep trading much easier. Some traders prefer volatility to make money, we prefer predictabllity for most of our trading (again, keeps things simple). Al the best, Don
the premise of this thread is utter rubbish. trading has always, to some extent, changed, and always will it is still an issue of supply and demand of VERY imperfect analysis of a great deal of information (and in our internet information age, we have a low signal/noise ratio). there will always be opportunities in various markets at all times volatility will cycle (as it always has), edges will appear and dissapear over time, etc. but the idea that the "good days" are over is absurd and reminds me of the guy who ran the patent office in the early 1900's claiming his job was going to be obsolete because everything substantial that could be invented had already been so or bill gates saying a PC would never need more than 640k of ram traders who can RECOGNIZE the market and adapt to it will always have an opp to make money, in ANY timeframe traders who are willing to be intelligent contrarians and ignore that talking chatterboxes can too
the money has been and always will be where there are barriers to entry and information is not easily available. find an inefficient market (in the economics sense) and you can make money.
Lower volatility is ok if commissions are lower. More trading competition reduces volatility and spreads. Lower volatility and spreads attracts investors. More investors push up PE. Higher PE more volatility. Itâs a positive spiral.