By reading many responses here (not the sarcastic ones), no wonder why so many retail traders are not profitable...
Like I said but said in another way.....they are not interested in our peanuts. They are not gonna waste time trolling around thru our data trying to figure out our strategies to grab a .50 bag of peanuts when they can go after the peanut factory.
tldr; yes but not in the way that you think. Flashboys, IEX, ATS’s, the rise of advanced orders types and FIX messaging are pieces to put the puzzle together. https://www.sec.gov/news/statement/shedding-light-on-dark-pools.html
That is EXACTLY what they are doing every day, dumpster diving in the reddit forums and on Twitter. Guess someone forgot to put that note in your mailbox.
Ok whatever you wish to believe. Whatever floats your boat. LOL But they ain’t after your 100 bucks. They are after GS million bucks.
People complaining about MMs looking over their shoulders are probably using this excuse to explain their losses. It ain't their fault, it's somebody else fault, and they can't do anything about it...
Um...The more responses i read on this thread the more I realize anyone worried about MM is taking trading seriously and trying to find an edge and most likely trading. while those making statements they arent after your 50 cents or 1 dollar or 100 have most likely never traded live and done battle with the bots. MM make their living their profits their entire purpose of existing is to take 50 cents 5 cents a dollar a tick. at the end of the day a synthetic market maker at the cme might take a fourth of an emini tick x all trades matched! also your 100 dollars as someone put it would be huge and is exactly what they are after over time...trade after trade. It matters when you need to get filled and they wont fill you or when they do fill you then spank it lower immediately to lock in ticks. MM and brokers and exchanges are not your friends. they dont facilitate in anything really needed in these electronic mkts especially with so much volume being done. before hft the mkts electronically worked just fine and you had actual prices and orders on the book that were more real and values were more real because in order to get filled you would have a real match at value not an infintestimally small time period of inefficiency that a bot or algo can exploit at numerous price levels in order to cost you more. until you start to do real size you wont care or notice it. However when trying to place large orders that are time sensitive either contractually or defensively then you will be forced to just pay them to get filled. Here is a plan. make them come to you! if they tick your price and dont fill and you have time then lower your bid and raise your ask. they are constantly assessing the order book in pico seconds. nano was 5 years ago! raise up and reduce orders to force them to come to you because they are holding trades they need to exit always! thats called mm inventory. they look for stale orders. move your limits a lot. keeo jostling your limits and like a shiny lure to a fish they will come up and bite on it wondering could this be a bigger order than i realize. the only true way to not worry about this too much is to stay very small and increase your time frame. Here is a simple example in the ES which is 12.50 dollars a tick. e.g. short term trade. trying to capture 1 point or 50 dollars. mkt order in mkt order out. 1 lot in 1 lot out you made 50 dollars gross - 12.50 tick to enter. -12.50 to exit. net gain 25 dollars. no fees or commission for example purposes you paid 50% in slippage! to the MM synthetic hft same idea but your exit is 10 points or 500 dollars 1 buy mkt 1 sell mkt you still pay 12.50 in and 12.50 out. so 25 dollars. 25/500 gain= 5%!! you are still paying out 5% of your gains on a 500 dollar trade to the MM. Sure well you can use limit orders but then what is the cost if you miss your trade due to priority because you will always be at the back of the que!! ALWAYS.