I second dbphoenix and in general the pros are simply concentrating on reading the market and exploiting market opportunities.
fwiw, I'd consider squawk if I didn't have to listen to the endless price reporting, which is torture. The e-mini moves at the same time as the big contract moves for the most part, so price is usually redundant. Is there a service that reports just the players , their moves, and only occasionaly, price changes.
One thing you get with a squawk you can't see on the mini chart is "no bid, no bid!!!" Then you really get agressive with the selling. Remember the guys in the pit can read the fear on the faces of other locals, so it's not just a numbers interpretation game, they're seeing more at ground zero than we are behind a screen.
It would be impossible. Imagine trying to catch what is going on in a crowded small room. Now imagine a crowded room with hundreds of people each acting ten times faster. Not all of the transactions get done by open outcry. Sometimes it is body language, sometimes it is a wink. In a crowd with everyone screaming only if you were focusing on the individual or stand next to them would you catch what they were doing. Things can happen so quickly you do not even realize they happened until it was over. In addition some brokers filling huge orders don't cry out and show the order but rather quietly take the offers. So the dude you just sold 10 lots to may have 2000 more to go. Furthermore that order may be yanked by the client the next minute. So what is going on? It is possible to gauge the mood of the crowd but not much more. Some peole sense momentum and rithm in price changes and also know that at critical levels there be a battle between buyers and sellers, or as scalpers they take advantage of the small discrepancies around the pit. You can do just as well watching a one minute chart with volume info. The -E-minis for that reason are a great vehicle. Just a side note: Needless to say the government observers who are supposed to make sure everything is fair most of the time have no clue as to what is going on even though they are standing over the crowd and have nothing else to do but keep order.
It always pisses locals off when a print lower than the market shows up on the trans-lux and nobody's heard a bid or offer. Then you hear the "Somebody's fucking whispering in the pit, huh?" from some disgruntled guy. It always makes me laugh! People don't understand or appreciate the difficulty of pit trading.
The recently released cot report shows a dramatic divergence of small traders vs. "the big players" in their positions in stocks. The commercials were on board for most of the recent rally, and have now scaled way back, while small speculators have continued to increase their long positions.
Jasrlew, I have been watching this thread since we thought it migth be a good idea to start it in the chatroom. IMHO, this is one of the most important concepts in all of trading, and from it comes MANY strategies. You have gotten some good responses here. I will give you my two cents when I get back from vacation. nitro