I had a potential short setup at that moment, one of those ones where if it doesnt trigger, the mkt will go the opposite way with some force (usually). But this force was WAYY more than usual. It looks like news related and not just normal market gyrations but I don't know. That's why I'm asking..
Cascading is when price hits and passes several different types of orders sitting in queques. As they switch to market orders they go to the end of the FIFO line behind other already markets switched orders. It really piles up as a list. So there is an offset which is usually called slippage. What you did see on the DOM was the absence of "facing" orders. I joked to these turkeys about if they saw a wall on either side. Since I am always in the market during RTH's my main objective is to remain, lways on the correct side of the market. Today ws a great day in many ways. How to know a cascade is coming is to look for lengthy "shadows or laterals s they are called. the lateral started on bar 37, the 12:35 bar. What this meant was this. It took an hour for the market to begin the spiking. concurently, this was the first time in months that the DOW broke 13,000. this was a trigger for tons of differing strategies. The cascade only tripped enough orders to market orders once about 10 minutes (two bars) haad passed. Several detractors are always on my case. This is not important. What I especially liked was being able to call the peak of the move. I posted a call that was actually better than it appeared. I am just hoping someone posts the T&S of the bar I named and the sceonds I mentioned. Most of these guys are whiniing aways the days in the larry williams thread. As you saw on the bar I called, the peak occurred and then the short sentiment began. there are many many bots that operate in "reaction" to the market. Most shops turn the bots off once they get "burned" initially. But they do turn them on and then an oscillation begins. It took quite a while before the financial indistry got out of synch enough to return to strick "herd psychology" See bar 58 at 14:20pm. The Pattern behaved routinely through the recovery (long orientation) where the final "new" high for the day was put in.
I had the markets I follow (Euro, ES, Crude) as being in "no man's land" at that point, so a move either way would not have surprised me.
Maybe we just need more liquidity providers instead of blaming hft for our problems. Do you remember these stocks being as liquid in 1990? I don't.