Has Day Trading Changed?

[Laissez Faire]

Wide intraday ranges when looked at in retrospect on charts does not mean that day trading is as profitable as it ever was, unless you have evidence of discretionary traders capturing the majority of these ranges consistently on par with prior to the HFT/algorithm paradigm shift, if so please share it.

A lot of trending breakouts and then trend reversals in Crude oil futures take place in seconds to under 10 minutes...You're suggesting that the speed of price action has no influence on a discretionary day trader's profitability?

The burden of proof is on you and others who make this claim. Show us with data or charts how markets have changed in recent time and how that change has made it less profitable to day trade than in some other time in history.

As far as I can tell, sharp and fast price changes and reversals also happened pre-HFT and possibly even more dramatically so. But back then, people would complain about the specialist or the locals screwing them over and not HFT.

 

[wartrace]

I disagree with the premise that HFT's are killing intraday trading. I trade the 6E and one study I saw recently showed up to 70% of the trades are algo driven. I don't see the algo trading as a problem for my trading. Saw a relevant video recently explaining HFT behavior in the futures markets.

 

[Q3D]

arts does not mean that day trading is as profitable as it ever was, unless you have evidence of discretionary traders capturing the majority of these ranges consistently on par with prior to the HFT/algorithm paradigm shift, if so please share it.

A lot of trending breakouts and then trend reversals in Crude oil futures take place in seconds to u

The burden of proof is on you and others who make this claim. Show us with data or charts how markets have changed in recent time and how that change has made it less profitable to day trade than in some other time in history.

As far as I can tell, sharp and fast price changes and reversals also happened pre-HFT and possibly even more dramatically so. But back then, people would complain about the specialist or the locals screwing them over and not HFT.

No, the burden is on you, you're making a dumb and illogical claim without evidence. There are numerous academic studies and Nanex studies showing that volatility, decreased liquidity, and decreased non-HFT volume has increased rapidly since 2008 in futures and some equity markets and also a market decrease in non-HFT and non-algorithmic trading activity.

 

[mignonette]

Is that sad sapp in prison?

 

[rmorse]

Without being able to point to a study, I believe day trading has been affected by the advent of ETFs. Many customers buy ETFs rather than a portfolio of stocks. You lose some of that ebb and flow of money moving in and out of "stocks" directly, that created volume and movement for day traders.

I think if I were a day-trader today, I would focus on futures. NO PDT. Good leverage. 1256 contract tax advantage. With that said, I have equity and option day traders that do quite well.

 

[qxr1011]

it seems it's getting harder to make it as day trader these days. I think day trading is done, but not dead yet. What do you think? probably, HFT has contributed a lot to the demise of day trading.

20 years ago with the proliferation of the internet day trading was a novelty that attracted the public's attention and its money

but when all the pigs of that wave got slaughtered the daytrading in public opinion became fruitless exercise for the idiots

other than that nothing change

 

[Q3D]

Without being able to point to a study, I believe day trading has been affected by the advent of ETFs. Many customers buy ETFs rather than a portfolio of stocks. You lose some of that ebb and flow of money moving in and out of "stocks" directly, that created volume and movement for day traders.

I think if I were a day-trader today, I would focus on futures. NO PDT. Good leverage. 1256 contract tax advantage. With that said, I have equity and option day traders that do quite well.

Are you advising discretionary or algorithm day traders? The Mark Fisher interview linked from another thread implied there's no edge to be found day trading futures unless you're using algorithms. Pattern recognition is useless without an edge in speed of execution.

 

[arna]

A lot since 2007 when I totally focused on US Stock Markets.

From my point of view the biggest disadvantages is that a lot of volume move on dark pools. Especially hurts when trading low volume stocks.

Also more front runners than years ago.

I hope that volume will back to levels from 2008-2010.

 

[rmorse]

Are you advising discretionary or algorithm day traders? The Mark Fisher interview linked from another thread implied there's no edge to be found day trading futures unless you're using algorithms. Pattern recognition is useless without an edge in speed of execution.

Both. All I'm saying is that all things being equal, futures day trading has an edge over trading equities. However, the real trick is to find your edge to be consistently profitable. You should stick to whatever that is. I would expect that the skills are portable back and forth, unless you are relying on rebates.

 

[d08]

Both. All I'm saying is that all things being equal, futures day trading has an edge over trading equities. However, the real trick is to find your edge to be consistently profitable. You should stick to whatever that is. I would expect that the skills are portable back and forth, unless you are relying on rebates.

Futures still don't offer the diversification equities do. Yes, a large part of equities are correlated but during normal volatility the correlation declines.