in my humble opinion. When you actually try to scalp the nasdaq now, which I have done successfully for the last few years, it is full of idiots trading for 0-2 cents to get there damn liquidity rebate. All the lowpriced stocks are that way, and now the last few higher priced stocks with volume, like KLAC for example, has turned into a pile of crap. futures roll down, you get short, everyonebids two cents below on inca, brut, trac, and the other liquidity giving ecns. Then those that didn't get there first cut them by a tenth of a penny, and so on and so on until you are in a negative position and it goes on all day. Liquidity traders are assholes, not traders. So after getting tired of fighting this all day to make a couple hundred bucks, I, like many others, have moved over to the NYSE, something I never wanted to do. You can actually scalp clean moves there, and the move isn't clogged up with assholes bidding for penny winners. Lspd collasped, so will the other pathetic ecns that all these liquidity idiots are using, and then hopefully the nasdaq will be worth looking at again for scalping. Goodbye trac, attn, gnet etc. don't let the door hit you....
It does not help that there are so few high volume and higher priced Nasdaq stocks left. All the lower priced ones are targets for the liquidity players (don't know why or how else you would be trading those) so all the naz traders are running to the same few stocks. Everyone trying to get in and out around the same price points makes for a choppy mess. I looked at Dell recently, although it is not really considered the volatility king, and there was some strange ECN activity there that kept the stock in a tight range most of the day. It did not look like the usually liquidity rebate suspects, but like automated scalping by a computer.
Here we go.... now it's the liquidity traders that have ruined the market! Before that it was decimalization, before that it was the 'tech bubble' , before that it was daytraders. Speed come on dude, I know you are a better trader than that! These are markets man.... they change all the time, what worked yesterday doesn't necessarily work today. You have to adapt and change "be like water my friend" (geez I miss that commercial). The liquidity thing is getting its day in the sun. It is the flavor de jour. You can choose to join it , or as you have done, find another way. Market makers felt the same way when all of us asshole daytraders started closing up the spreads and f@#%in up their nice little game. But have faith my friend the market is not ruined..... just different. MACD
Any questions concerning this topic can be directed towards myself. I have been trading this way for some time and have profited heavily from it. Anytime !
I read your post and you are right the liquidity scalpers are flooding the level 2 boxes. But you are wrong as far as ECN's falling. Yes LSPD fell, but that was mostly because of shady business practices. INCA, ARCA, BRUT, ISLD all give rebates, I don't see instinet falling anytime soon.
You are incorrect! Decimals killed scalping the nasdaq Liquidity trading came after...Your behnd the curve and it probably reflectsin your trading that's why your upset with traders using other strategies.
can rebate nasdaq trading be as profitable as scalping the nyse? Do the numbers of the best liquidity traders match the numbers of Nyse scapers? That is my main concern because i thinki willl be trained as a liquidity scalper on nasdaq. jc