depends how liquid is the stock, i could start with 200-500 or even 1k, then keep addin' every few cents at the bottom/top of retracements. if i know the stock is gonna trend all day i trow my all account at it, buildin' my position for hours: always small lots after small lots.....that's my intention anyways but porb with fills are alwasy there. gettin' in with size all at once aint a good idea imo, especially if u are not sure about direction: sometimes u just cant get out where u want and it costs a lot of money.
i am terrible at scalpin'. sometimes i keep gettin' in and out fast [when mkt churns] but certainly it aint my style and neither my main strategy; infact i usually get trashed on days when mkt is goin'nowhere.
now you tell me lol, then yes, the openbook in your sense is not much of help, but as for me, the scalper, all i am looking at is very very short term supply/demand imbalances.
Bitstream, Just my 0.02 cents, even if you are a position trader hoping for a 50 cents profit (not sure how much you are looking etc, so I'm guessing here), try to look at level II also. I find that they do provide more edge than the Level I quotes despite all the tricks that are being played. However, if the stock happens to be moving very fast, then level II will not be that great a value. Fastandfurious, Can you explain 'banded prints' pls. Thanks
look, i was subscribed to both L2 and open book for ages, and the only good use i found for 'em was to embellish the platform with fancy colours. all that shit that is on L2 has no significance beacause it CANNOT BE TRUSTED!; there aint no pattern there, it's a game of bid and offers that might or might not be real, i am after repeatable patterns that reoccour with consistency. L2 does not provide anythin' close to that. u can use it to see if u will eventually be able to get out at a better price, nothin' more.
see that's the difference. For the scalper, the openbook and level II is very useful where as the level I is not so much. If there's a market short by an institutional order, I can see what price level he is at. When the ECNs on level II walks to the other side, it warns me that the size may be printed all in one shot now, and look to get out. But that's scalping where I can about 1 minute or 2 that I'm in the market where you are in the market all day. banded prints are prints that are not in the currently new york spread.