I remember the late 90's and the latest decade very well. I did retail at one point and prop at another. In short, if you are focused on larger moves, nothing has changed. Not a damn thing. People will whine about low vol, low liquidity, bot games, etc. Maybe they are looking in the wrong places. Plenty of liquidity in stocks that are worth trading unless one is trying to lift 10K shares at a clip. Also, keep in mind that people are colored by '09 all too well, when everything traded 5x normal volume. If you are trying to scalp, rebate, etc. then things have changed plenty. But then again, both scalping and rebate trading are still alive and well. It just depends on the level of sophistication you are willing to employ and the corresponding resources available at your disposal. BTW, even good old tactics of spotting a large buyer on the tape haven't changed that much (at least for me). If someone is going to buy 500K, they will move the stock one way or another. If you know what to look for, you'll find them. Don't let anyone let you believe that equities are impossible. Many find it impossible to get off welfare. To each his own. If you've traded stocks in 00's and made money (and I mean traded as opposed to playing idiosyncratic games with the book, imbalances, etc), you'll be fine today, Cheers, /Wulfrede
Great, thanks for the info. I know exactly what you mean. I was trading before the rebate game. I never played that super short-term trading style, never wanted to take so much risk to make so little per trade. I know my long-term trading never changed, still making money with a system that's similar to old school Livermore etc... I appreciate the feedback. Cheers
Yes, especially true since the moves in the market have been due to FED policy comments or things of that nature. There haven't been as many opportunities but the ones that appear are easy to spot ahead of time - you just have to understand the state of the economy and be able to anticipate that these QE programs are now incapable of being stopped. - the name of the game is inflation in stocks and the moves happen at precisely pre-orchestrated times.