LOL you are an interesting read! Ice p.s however u r correct computers have made it harder... and upped the need for greater disciplne coupled with an elevated level of focus, patience and flexibility!
Ice, I wasn't around, when it was "supposedly" easier.... so wouldn't know how much of a difference there really is. I only see what is happening, which to any sensible and reasonable person would seem absurd. Specially looking at how European markets are doing. I can't see who is going long in this market. Either of two, computer systems or islamic fundamantalist investors?...lol No single book I have read so far mentions anything on preparing oneself against computerized trading..... If it's not about fear and greed anymore but algorithms.....? No more real bull or bear markets? I hope not. Good luck to you.
The machines that some of the most sohisticated program traders employ is probably a cluster of about 150 - 500 state of the art machines all communicating each other's information on a high speed interconnect. They probably turn over a good percentage of their machines (sometimes just the CPU) once every six months for new state of the art machines/CPU. But it is not the machines by themselves that matter - putting that physical cluster together would probably cost you $300K - $1M to implement, well within the reach of many. It is the sofware more than anything else that is the goose that lays the golden egg. After that the data and the direct exchange connectivity makes it all hum, and the bountiful capitalization that is the grease. On top of all that, it probably cost them next to nothing to execute a trade, and I mean nothing. nitro
Guys, personally I think you're wrong. Moves like that one do not kick off by themselves due to some system trade. It looks to me to be a more discretionary move orchastrated to kick off trend following systems and dump into them. It seems to me one would not be programming a system to initiate massive buying at times like that, more like a crafty discretionary trader. Nitro, what you describe is highly interesting. Once you've got all that technology though you've still got to know what to do with it. As in everything in this game, the core of it is creativity.
Very interesting perspectives indeed. Thank you for your input. As I side note, I mentioned earlier that European markets were strong blablalba Well I looked at them last night in conjunction with Asian markets too. Finally, now they all seem to be showing weakness, at least in a short term basis. Good, because I have wanted to hit the short side hard but have had my doubts because of their strength. It looks much more probable that we will have a short term correction here at home, with the small caps taking the brunt of it. Just my humble opinion of course. Good trading to you all !!
Hello: I guess if you got your ass whipped it is natural to talk about how the other guy was much bigger (stronger, faster, etc) than you. Fact is you folks had choices to make, and apparently you made the wrong ones this time. I am all done taking care of the children on the site, but for those adults still around, you may want to THINK about this a bit; When a locomotive goes by, there are several kinds of air flow that proceed and ACCOMPANY it. Just in front of the nose of the machine, you have a form of turbulent flow. Depending on the size and configuration of the machine, and its velocity, that turbulent flow forms a wake that LEADS the machine by some distance "X". As the locomotive goes by, if you had the right measurement tools, you could see laminar flow across the nose and leading edges of the machine, and as it CONTINUES ON, the body creates a vacuum right at the tail end. At the fringes of this vacuum is (again) turbulent flow. Strangely enough these characteristics (called fluid dynamics) also apply to the example of big order flow moving markets. In addition, when that locomotive goes by, generally the damn whistle is blowing, and the ground is shaking, and the rails start to vibrate. As kids, we used to put our ears to the rail to try to detect that vibration. Then we would put a few coins on it and watch them get deformed by the wheels. So there seems to be all these cues that proceed the train. Some by quite a distance, and yet every so often some idiot, wearing headphones, is caught walking down the tracks with his back to the train, and he or she gets turned into instant hamburger. So I am wondering why it is, that with all the possible ways to detect the train (trade volume) coming at them, that they don't either step off the tracks, or if they want to ride along, go to one of the whistle stops and just get on board.
Steve, I can't count the number of times I have heard the train, felt the ground rumble, lifted my ear from the track, got ready to jump on the train, and been smacked by a train going the other direction. It's not as simple as you claim. If you had a no-fail way of knowing when a monster move was coming ahead of time, you would not be here posting on this board, you would be sipping martini's on a yacht in the islands. Everyone lands on the wrong side of monster move eventually. -X