I'll give you one tip about HFTs...choice of trading instrument is paramount..that's all I'll say about that. I don't know how you guys trade the daily TF...gaps and all news is reacted on by word interpreting algos...sounds so frustrating...I couldn't do it. If you sat next to me during trading hours, you would find my process very unspectacular, but I do find intraday chop much easier to exploit than DAILY CHOP! GOOD LUCK!!!
Most of my net worth is in retirement accounts...all created by investments and position trades. My income is from intraday swing/scalping. I plan on keeping both methodologies as long as I can...both have been a good dual diversification...in case one or the other fails! For me, I would never trade on 1 minute time frame...good luck to those that do...but I do trade off of the DOM, trying to interpret buying or selling pressure.