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Since your original question inferred that the position was for an experienced trader, consistency would be a very desirable trait. Consistency that could be scaled. If the hypothetical involved a 'blank slate' to be trained from scratch, I would personally like a technical background with...

The first trade Getco got into was electronic basis trading between Globex CBOT futures and the screen Cantor-Fitz and Brokertec treasury cash markets. HFT is prevalent in the electronic markets to the extent that the CME and Eurex allow messaging - all futures exchanges tightly regulate...

Gold is probably the premiew flight-to-quality instrument these days, so it makes being short Gold and long anything else (including silver or platinum) a dicey proposition when the stock market is under stress. The fact that you have many players who are not routine metals traders reaching...

IMO there is more opportunity now than ever for relative value/spread traders due to electronic access 24 hours a day linking anyone with an inexpensive computer and a modest ECN to hundreds of markets and thousands of products in regulated exchanges across the globe. The spread combinations...

A spread position these days has to be specially constructed and modeled for mean reversion tendencies - any stat arb trader would agree. Even highly correlated and fundamentally linked spreads seem to trend more than they mean revert, and this has been the case for a few years now. From the...

This thread is improving.

Well, Lime is owned by Tower Research Capital. The clients are subsidizing their own slippage on HFT - if they can arb it to zero plus a very, very small fraction, how is Joe Schmo going to do it?

I actually think that it's too late to get into the HFT game - it's getting arbed too much and the returns are really coming off the past several months.

Yep, I get a big laugh from people who actually believe that one political party in absolute power would have a profoundly better influence on their lives. The one thing that vexes me is the left side of the political spectrum that believes in complete wealth distribution and the nirvana that...

All politicians should QUIT SPENDING MONEY THEY DON'T HAVE! If any rational person believes that a particular political party has an exclusive franchise on sound fiscal policy they are completely dellusional. You can tax the top twenty-five percent at 90% and you still wouldn't dent the...

Most of my clients are full-time pros, but I do have several part-timers who are making steady progress swing-trading futures, equities, and cash forex SPREAD positions. About the worst has been scratch, and the balance are netting a few to several thousand per month. One netted over $20K in...

That was Mind Bottling.

IMO high frequency trading is more a natural response to increased electronic exchange access opportunities as well as the increased availability of capable and relatively inexpensive software platforms and toolboxes. Every year seems unique and different than the past 80. If you recall the...

For me, the term 'pressure' means digging my way out of a hole for the day. I tend to trade particularly well under 'pressure', and I used to lament the fact that I was making money back instead of adding for the day. In retrospect, it's just part of the business - making capital back or...

FWIW, the 'blame game' is the quickest way to get bounced in an interview. The market is what the market is. Employers/Backers absolutely hate traders who refuse to take responsibility - namely, recognizing that they didn't change their strategy approach with the market conditions. If you...

"i never see any volume in flys for energies" I never traded them without legging it out. I leg them using the standard implied two month calendar spreads and the occasional third or fourth month flat price futures fill. All kinds of volume in the front four calendar months in terms...

The 'traditional' Chicago Prop Trading business model has certainly suffered a major hit, and the resulting transformation has favored automated HF technology and groups over a collection of individuals slugging it out in an arcade office setting. In the mid to late '90's, successful pit...

Interesting that nobody mentions butterflies and condors using exchange-supported impied spreads, it's my personal fave in terms of swing trading a longer-term position (days, not weeks). I've been using the tactic for energy and STIRs since the mid 90's electronically.

Yep, any electronic marketplace is going to get arbitraged to the highest frequency allowed ( or able to be gamed ). That genie is already out of the bottle and it's not going back, ever. Just because GS fades away doesn't mean that Tower Capital or Rennaissance or Shaw or Citadel or one of...

Kinda already there - the Arabs have always insisted on getting paid for oil in U.S. dollars, despite the failed attempts by Iran and Russia to change that exchange convention. Yep, Europeans have to exchange euros to dollars and the Japanese yen to dollars beforehand in order to buy Arabian Sour.