Do we trade against" dumb money "or " smart money" ?

Quote from AAAintheBeltway:

I think it's more a question of timeframes. If you accept that the market is mostly random, then the dumb v. smart money issue is problematic. As a daytrader, the dumb money to you might be a huge fund that is not worried about the last $.25 on a fill, but that's where you live.
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AAA,

you nailed it right in the head! I see a lot of daytraders say oh I see that big print from funds trying to buy or sell and that's dumb money and I got my .75 or $1 move on 5000 shares. Whoohoo.

It's just a matter of perspective. Large funds buy in hundreds of thousands and in some cases millions of shares. So, they can't be thinking of nickel and dimes here. The fund manager might tell his traders to get me as many shares as possible within $1-$2 today. That's the kind of "slippage" they are willing to take. And in some cases when they are "building a position" they can let it go up a few dollars and average in some more. When I was with this lage fund, they made over 500% on QCOM in 1999. QCOM went up like 1000% but getting half of the move on a few million shares is still very good money. So, what if you can't get in at exact bottom to the last penny or the top at the last penny, but if you can move than kind of shares size(a few million) over a year's period and make good returns then it's still all good.

It's all about time horizon.
 
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