What worked in 02? Don, Gene, etc?

So is there any type of consensus as to what the top net 20% traders did this year strategy wise to put them in the top 20%

This question is primarily directed to firm owners who see the sheets every night and able to objectively view what is working day in day out for others.

What may I ask are your top net dollar traders doing this year to make money? Owners you see the sheets every night, what are these guys doing? Do they use First Alert or just read the tape, do they have really complex strategies or are the extremely simple. Are they primarily scalpers, or pairs traders, or basket traders, do they hold winners overnight, are they focused on 2-3 stocks or is their universe considerably larger. Do they carry mainly multiple positions or just 2-3 at a time.

Can Don, or Gene or someone shed some light on what has worked this year? I know you guys know because you have to know. Your top 5 traders, can you give us a basic profile of what they did. Have the best Bright Trading traders made 1/3 of their profits on opening strategies, if not how did they do it? Did they just grind it out everyday, or were some home run days really helpful in pushing up their year end totals.

I realize that all types of strategies can work, but I am interested primarily in what has worked for firms most consistently profitable traders this year.

Are they trading a lot of volume and making a good bit on rebates? That type of thing.

Could a firm owner or someone here that has netted a few hundred thou shed some light on how they did it?

Could someone who made big bucks or knows someone that did answer these questions so we can get some kind of sketch or atleast basic profile of the 2002 supertrader. I mean there have to be a few attributes they share besides discipline, cutting losers and all the other generic stuff we talk about.

1. Was NYSE or NASDAQ more profitable for you?
2. Did you concentrate on a few select stocks or patterns or a wider universe of stocks?
3. Did a volume based rebate or ecn rebate contribute heavily to your overall net
4. What kind of volume did you or a really profitable trader you know do? Was it 50K a day, 100, or 500K shares a day.
5. Did you make substantial money off of news plays and such or is that just “noise”
6. The openings. Anyone here make good money off just the openings over the last 11 months.
7. These most profitable traders, have they been getting better each year, or did guys switch strategies mid year and their p and l took off, how long have they been at it, is this there 2nd, year, 3rd or whatnot.

Thanks, just trying to get a profile of what the biggest and best traders did “this year”. I realize how subjective trading is but surely, firm owners can look at their sheets and have some understanding of the methodologies that have worked best this year now that it is coming to an end.

Cheers.

 

good luck getting this info. there is a tremendous amount of competition in trading. everyone wants to know what's working, what's not.

why would a top trader reveal what strategies are working... this would only create more competition. if i was a top trader at a firm, i would be pretty pissed if management spewed my strategies in a chat room.

 

There is some info about this on the Birght web site under "Trader News".

http://www.stocktrading.com/html/bright_trader_news.html

 

Recently another trader friend and I were just discussing this, I personally feel that Opening Orders have shown a loss of it's "edge" somewhat......but both my friend and I feel that one strategy that hs worked is "pairs trading", My friend is consistantly taking profits from his "pairs" but it is still difficult too.

Just my .02 cents worth......

mrktwiz

 

I am not really interested in the nuts and bolts of a particular strategy per say. Mainly I was interested in getting answers to the seven questions I posted, none of which would dilute anyones strategies.

For the record though, every firm I have ever been at or visited tries to pass down what is working for their best traders to everyone else. Most of the biggest traders I assume are in pretty liquid stocks, but I certainly concurr If I am trading the low vol stuff and my branch manager starts telling everyone about how I'm making the spread in XYZ all day long...hell yea I would be pissed.

Actually that remindes me...question number 8, do they trade primarily liquid or none liquid names?

1. Was NYSE or NASDAQ more profitable for you?
2. Did you concentrate on a few select stocks or patterns or a wider universe of stocks?
3. Did a volume based rebate or ecn rebate contribute heavily to your overall net
4. What kind of volume did you or a really profitable trader you know do? Was it 50K a day, 100, or 500K shares a day.
5. Did you make substantial money off of news plays and such or is that just “noise”
6. The openings. Anyone here make good money off just the openings over the last 11 months.
7. These most profitable traders, have they been getting better each year, or did guys switch strategies mid year and their p and l took off, how long have they been at it, is this there 2nd, year, 3rd or whatnot.