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Yes, indeed. Arbitrage in general is very capital intensive. They participate in a lot of very similar trades to what LTCM was doing - just with much less leverage.

No, they're just trading their own capital through in-house traders. The guy above me is on target - they do a lot of bond arb volume.

You'll never be better than the big institutions, simply because their costs are lower than yours - not to mention their better/faster information and countless other "hard" edges. Sorry, try again.

I'm an M&A guy myself :)

So what if you can only exchange at NAV with banks only once per day, you can duplicate it any time you want.

lol you guys are all so silly. a trade with real edge is one where you are taking advantage of a mispricing in the market which is usually gone in just a few seconds. markets are not efficient, but traders like me make them more efficient.

themost consecutive posts in ET history.

Keep in mind that vols have been following over the past few years -- http://themarkettruth.blogspot.com/

I know quite a few people trading these spreads (FYT, FOB, etc.), I don't watch them myself. It's just like any other instrument, sometimes they will make some major moves, at other times they will hover around the same number for a while - easy money for the savvy trader ;) --...

Energy? Maybe soft commodities. Both of these sparked by perhaps uncontrollable future growth of chinese economy.

The problem is not knowing when to get out ;) The idiots want to make money too. -- http://themarkettruth.blogspot.com/

Kak dela. You're right, simply looking at size is a good way to lose money. Size that steps up and goes market is what moves markets (institutions). -- http://themarkettruth.blogspot.com/

Stocks with an excessively large naked short position (a short without an attempt at borrowing the stock) are put on this list by the SEC and failed deliveries are essentially rectified under threat of market maker intervention. If anything, this can cause increased buying. --...

Frankly, yes. You won't find edge in trying to predict general market behavior. The morning numbers are just one of many factors effecting currencies. The strategy of selling volatility as you describe will be profitable on calm days but will lose big bucks when a piece of U.S. news rocks...

Yes, sorry, I misread it as well. What we have been referring to is inter-commodity spreading :) -- http://themarkettruth.blogspot.com/

This wouldn't cross your mind in the IBanking industry as you're gambling with opm, but... what is your edge? It looks to me as though you have simply gotten lucky, you have no edge, and will therefore lose money in the long run. Unless your client is paying you a hefty salary (not performance...

What commodity doesn't move at all? Unless you consider illiquid contracts which you can't trade in and out of anyways without giving up a load of edge. To answer your question, I have always seen brokers calculate spread margin individually for each and every pair, I have no idea why this is...

Very few countries still use the gold standard, you could've stopped at the word "faith"

In my experience, it's not so much less contracts but whether you're trading round lots of 10/100 that can affect your fill speed/quality (no partial). This applies to almost any instrument, a market maker won't mind filling a round lot as it is easier to hedge --...

It's impossible to consistently predict, anything. -- http://themarkettruth.blogspot.com/