im curious how much advantage the trading institutions actually have on retail im assuming they have access to massive amounts of data and massive amounts of processing power to run predictive algos and stuff like network analysis is tracking network traffic to exchanges and company pages and other stuff is it legal( im assuming most traffic now is encrypted for that reason?) what is illegal when it comes to institutional analytics? like what can they have access to and what they cant?
If you're willing to enjoy the research, just register to this website. It's free. https://www.savvyinvestor.net/ savvyinvestor website offers an exhaustive list of white papers to help answer your question. I suspect many companies like Blackrock, Bridgewater and Goldman Sachs probably use proprietary technology/analytics not readily available to public scrutiny.
The analytical tools, access to deep fundamental research, and technology stack are the primary advantages. Most retail traders are random and just guess using lines on a chart without understand the factors that drive their returns.
institutions: infrastructure, credit lines, market making on a number of asset classes, fees if they sell something retail: think they run predictive algos what would tracking traffic to a page or exchange offer?
The biggest advantages are the added liquidity due to facilitation and access to upstairs markets. Economies of scale to build tools or buy institutional tools. Most of the tools relate to derivatives trading. Access to world markets 24/7. You get shown more IPOs and Converts. Access to the knowledge on the upstairs desk. There is also a disadvantage of higher costs to trade.