one firm hired ten (10) people and the other firm hired four (4)? that's not a spree... the local ice-cream stand other side of town here just hired more girls than that! <lol>
What I do personally, like a lot of other traders in all markets, is follow price direction long while rising or short while declining. I don't do reversion or fade stuff, and I've never known any futures trader who has long-term success fading price. So what I do never ceases working UNLESS price contracts to a point where the sideways churn is equal to or greater than the directional swings. Such is the case in various symbols now more than ever before on a purely intraday basis. One solution to that is focusing on symbols that are volatile for short-term tactics and/or work higher timeframe charts for fewer trades turned and longer hold periods in the afflicted symbols. Russell 2000 futures are highly volatile and make excellent price moves almost every day, but that's because they are more illiquid now (true open interest available for total demand on each tick) than ever before. If they weren't so illiquid, the algos couldn't shove them thru $2,000 per contract daily ranges. So you accept the fact that you cant click 10 or 20 contracts filled entry or exit on stops without lots of slippage and partial fills. You can turn a couple of contracts at a clip, no different that stock guys scaling down from 1,000s to 100s shares turned. Same thing for the same reason. Thicker markets like ES and NQ you can work on a higher timeframe, zero to three trade signals on average per day with one - two signals being most common. If you miss them for any reason, too bad... remainder of day is roached out. Afternoon signals tend to stall until overnight and/or next-day follow thru. Which means holding positions overnight and swinging the trade instead of everything out by the close. Or accept the fact that after the morning stretch, afternoons are mostly a waste of time until VIX returns to 20s again. Thinner markets, quieter markets overall. Doesn't mean the specific tactics ceased working forever... means there is much less opportunity purely intraday now relative to years => decade past.
Aren't you the guy that... 1) makes his own automobile repairs, including a tailpipe repair? That's a crappy, uncomfortable, on-your-back job, and if the car leaks any oil or tran fluid, it can really stink and give you a bad headache. 2) makes said repairs with an olive can and a couple of big hose clamps? To me, that's the opposite of flashy . It's frugal, bordering on cheap.
yep. what's wrong with that? old nissan lasted 14 years. bought for 7.5K, sold for 1.5. MB was for wife (or should i call her a sugar mommy now?) same guy build his own PC's for trading and write his own soft,using free sources and made his money literally out of thin air. yes, i admit-I'm cheap. but debt free(not sure if it's a right thing in US). looks like borrow and spend to the hilt and then stop paying is a way to go . even here, on ET
Well, how I remember it, you were quite braggy about how much money you had extracted from the markets. I can't find your post now. Definitely not modest. Personally, the uncertainty is nauseating. I'm beginning to think the right way is to borrow yourself into the hole if you have something that works. Make a fortune as fast as you can and then play golf until you die.
I think some bankers and traders thought of that , till the losses and now the "problems" since the start of the year. If you go down this road, remember that you can have losing trades ( I'd say this is the only certainty in trading ) and even losing days , so be careful who you borrow from. Now I am noticing a change in the thread titles : it moved from joy-happiness-euphoria, then to pessimism, and now we are getting the "casino mindset". There, one needs to remember when to get out! <iframe width="640" height="360" src="//www.youtube.com/embed/iMlb_sz6Esk?feature=player_detailpage" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe>
It's neither the HFT nor the lack of money. These are misconceptions. It's the long-term trend. People just let their profits run. No1 rule of trading. When this happens, number of traders go down. When the market will correct, then number of traders will start increasing. In addition, many, the gamblers mainly and the addicts to trading,. have moved to forex. There they keep on depositing their $10 to trade microlots.
D08-you probably talking about a screen shoot with 1m in realized profits? It was a joke mate, Just another IB's glitch. In reality I got up to low six figures from zero and from there -all way back to zero again. For all this time every single day I was working on alternative systems, but unfortunately unable to come up with something solid and stable. Something that would satisfy me.
i read the article, i think the traders it is referring to isnt prop. Only thing i as a prop would be concerned about would be liquidity and volatility. both seem to be at a record low this year. though if your strategy depends low volatile mean reversion, i think you can certainly blame HFT's for that.