Trading is hard. Always has been, always will be. Ive been around the markets for a long time. I am more consistent than ever. Provided markets go up and down someone is making money. Apart from something like a financial transaction tax i can't see anything that would kill off trading
Has Day Trading Changed?
- Thread starter HeSaidSheSaid
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Trading is hard. Always has been, always will be. Ive been around the markets for a long time. I am more consistent than ever. Provided markets go up and down someone is making money. Apart from something like a financial transaction tax i can't see anything that would kill off trading
If it wasn't hard, we'd all be doing it, we'd all be billionaires and no 1 would be working to make anything, so the Billions would be worthless!
America sets up rules to ensure any more lost through trading or gambling doesn't leave the country, other rules to nobble small traders, but short of a Nuclear WW3/4 trading should stay around.
Better had do, just starting to make good $$'s, SEC Rule stopped me a long time back, so never say never
Once i eliminated the noise I started making money. All the so called experts can take you down a path of no return. Sometimes i think the experts spend more time separating us from our hard earn trading capital on useless training and newsletters. They promote stocks they hold to pump up the value, I guess pain feels better with company. Let's see how much slack i get for this comment. hahaha
Since you've been doing this a long time, what did ES futures 15 second to 1 minute charts look like in 1998-2001?
It's not a question of whether trading is or was hard and if it will still be hard in the future, the question is how much more difficult has day trading become with the HFT revolution since 2008 and how quickly will the level of difficulty increase after the coming institutional quantum computer algorithms, which will likely usher in the third mass exodus of non-professional day traders following the post-2001 and 2008 retail-trader exoduses.
"To profit these days, you need to scalp pretty much"....The fastest way to end up homeless is to try and scalp futures(unless your Algo, HFT). Run a comparison chart of wins, losses, federal taxes, brokerage fees..."Risk 4 ticks to make 4 ticks"...LMFAO
Being able to profit a small amount isn't hard, to "trade for a living" i.e. day trading as a sole source of income, is now impossible for 99.99% of retail traders and will most likely be impossible for 100% after the expensive and cutting edge quantum-computer revolution, which the CME and big institutions are in the process of acquiring.
Well I started trading in 2005 professionally. So can't comment on 2001. But the charts look pretty similar now to how they did then. In general terms of course. The micro structure of the market has changed a lot and second to second order book scalping has changed a lot.
The biggest issue now is there are more and more market makers..passively working large size in the order book and less and less 'real' orders hitting the market. This is largely due to high amounts of regulation... Dodd Frank and the like. Banks prop desks shutting down. A lot of large orders going through off screen etc. But exchanges handing out huge rebates to guys that will quote a tick wide market all day which attracts the algo world...is that 'real' trading? That's very much up for debate.
Before there were a lot more anomolies in the market we could profit from. A large order would cause the market to move 7 or 8 ticks and this would quickly be brought back into line by locals. This is where we would make money.
But now there is so much size made up by passive algorithms just arbitraging against underlying stocks faster than any human can (in 'normal market' conditions). But when there is a big market event and the market making algos are turned off you see the real market and lots of opportunities. But what we as traders like is not what exchanges and general investors like. They want slow stable markets which is very hard in my opinion to make money in. Give me a fast crazy market where I can provide liquidity to the institutions any day. This slow QE fuel grind up is very frustrating for me.
Having said all of this. If you look at my career earnings over the past 10 years there is an upward trajectory. Back in 2005 when it was 'easier' I was breaking even. Now I consistently make over £100,000. But to be honest this growth in P&L has flatlined the past year or so and year on year growth slowed. Maybe ive just reached my potential?
Exchanges are losing volume (due to reasons stated above) and they need to make money elsewhere so now they are charging more for data fees etc which is very unfair on small traders. But that's like every regulation. It always hurts the small guys.
HFTs/black boxes/ call them what you like are here to stay. Unless we reverse technology and open up trading pits again this is the 'new normal'. So get used to it. Is it harder than before? No it's as hard as ever...just different.
I've traded at 4 different prop firms over my 10-11 years in the industry and the amount of trainee success of new blood coming into the industry fluctuates (last year or so been bad) but in general is about the same rate as it's always been.
It is harder for retail traders now unless they have advanced tactics not mentioned by gurus, I think HFT is why Don Miller doesn't trade the ES RTH session. If a retail trader is entering at the market in futures and manually entering their stop and then limit order, they are just way too slow now and putting their capital in way too much risk in relation to the decreasing reward. If you read about quantum computers it's obvious they will have an extreme effect on market micro and macro structure.
Not saying you're wrong. But what is it you don't like about HFT's? Most ppl just use them as a scape goat without really knowing what they do and don't do.
If your edge is getting to the front of queue position or hitting a news release faster than the competitors then yeah algos have that game locked up.
But most retail traders are not trading like this. If you are picking levels off a chart and running it for 10-15 ticks I don't see how HFTs have made any difference. They've dampened volatility which is annoying for me because I am a professional trader that used to look for these micro edges. They've effected me but don't see how they impact most retail guys.
Most retail traders lose because they look at useless indicators and massively under capitalised. When have retail futures traders EVER made money? Not in my career