Has trading become harder?

[MohdSalleh]

Yes and this week has prob been the easiest week this year

 

[Handle123]

Quote from pcp198:

Dont generalize, I've spent a ridiculous amount of hours over the last few months manually backtesting and studying charts to put together my trading plan. Nobody handed me anything, if some guy decides to open up a trading account and treats it like a Roulette wheel, that doesnt refect the majority of new traders here.

I said "generally" more lazy, you are one of the few that has worked hard to get a trading plan.

I had a brokerage in mid nineties, over 90% of the day trading accounts didn't last more than four months before they either refunded or closed out their accounts. We would accept a couple hundred new accounts each year, and always the same results. The ones who learned and worked hard made money and the others lost. Back then you had to phone in your orders, so this actually helped slow down the money drain unlike today.

 

[bone]

IMO mechanized and automated markets have made things tougher for many traders using technical indicators to take flat price directional risk. Technical indicators by definition are historical references, and the efficiency of automated markets makes many signals short-lived. To compensate, traders use shorter sampling periods like 1-minute or tic data - and consequently get their asses run over. Using an oscillator on 1-minute bars isn't an ATM machine unless you're willing to risk 3 tics to make 2.

We are in a transitory period, and the survivors reap the rewards in these situations. I know that alot of people rag on me about my 'experience', but hey - I've got a substantial account and I am trading whenever the spirit moves me. I'm always around to pick up the pieces from other trader's broken dreams.

 

[businessstaxes]

market is less liquid or become illiquid...nobody buys or sells. the only guy buying and selling or HFT machines and market makers. it's a no man's land.

reason why traders don't trade penny stocks is there is absolutely no volume. penny stocks are more free market.,,today's futures markets or blue chip stocks are the securities that are manipulated or rigged. large hedge hedge funds are not in this thin market...

and for buy at bid and sell at ask daytraders the bids don't get filled and sells limit orders don't get filled with all these HFT frontrunning client orders so profits are thinner and thinner or no profit for daytraders scalping for pennies trying to compete with HFT machines.

it's hard to make money if volume is zero. very thin choppy markets.

with no volume

brokers don't make money
traders don't make money
mutual funds don't make money as nobody buys
volume has slow so much firms are laying off traders.
either stocks need to come down lower to get more volume..the market needs the value investors with cash on the sidelines.

Quote from trickshot:

Trading has been difficult for the past year, and its mostly due to the shrinking volume and choppy market.