Quote from WinItAll:
ZR1 and the other amateur after him - Obviously the two of you are new to trading and because of that you don't have the slightest clue about what you're talking about.
The biggest advantage that any trader had was the ability to read the tape, the order flow and know what the specialist was doing. Since you two amateurs feel it necessary to interject your uneducated opinions please pay attention. I started in about 1995 as one of the only floor traders on the NYSE to trade his own account, since you probably don't know most brokers on the floor only traded customer accounts for commissions. To put it bluntly, day trading on the floor was automatic, you knew where all the orders were, who was buying, who was selling and how much they had left. Also, there was an uptick rule which meant far less whipping around on no volume. When the exchange began to become more computerized I moved "upstairs", you probably don't know what that means because you have no experience but look it up if need be.
After the exchange went mostly electronic in the mid 2000's it was still a slow paced market... meaning you could get off size... Once again the fact that you said the HFT's don't affect you is just a perfect example of what insignificant volume you trade and how little you know. Before we moved to the fully hybrid model, traders like myself were able to take 50k - 200k share positions of stock within a tight price range without running the price of a stock up 2 dollars. For example, I could buy a 50k block of a stock like amzn, lvs when it was 100 dollars, goldman, etc without moving the price up and without having 50 programs jump in front of the order as soon as it was entered. Since you are probably trading 100 - 500 share lots of stock to you it might not matter, but to an actual trader being able to take size within a tight price range is extremely important. The way the HFT's work is off of big orders coming in, so now I can probably only gather 10k shares in the same price range I used to be able to gather 50k shares. Also, if I sent my order to the market it would be matched by the specialist unlike now when my order would just sweep through the market 2 dollars. My order would go 2 dollars through the market to get filled because all the HFT's would pull their offers as soon as my order came close to it.
So, like I said, the market has changed due to HFT's to a point where day trading size is no longer viable and traders have to expand their time frames. So now my shortest term trades are multi-day and longer trades are months. And I guarantee you that any former day trader that did not adapt to this method is probably broke by now. Obviously you are new b/c if you weren't then you would know that about 90% of all daytrading firms, many which were around for over a decade, all of a sudden went out of business at exactly the same time... It's not a coincidence that it happens as soon as HFT became the majority of the markets volume.
Bottom line is that for anyone who isn't a piker the HFT's made a big difference in terms of day trading. Longer term time frames however are completely unaffected because the price of a stock will always go where it is supposed to and in a longer time frame quick dollar moves don't matter. To conclude, ZR1, instead of reading and learning you felt it necessary to state your incorrect and unwanted opinion. From what you wrote anyone with any experience can tell that you are a joke, why don't you look up a list of prop firms from a year ago and see how many day trading firms are still in business.
This is the last I will address you and I usually wouldn't spend time and energy responding to someone like you but I think it's important that the people that frequent this site to learn are provide accurate info.
