thats so much BS.
Really, I'm not interested in a pissing contest here but betting on intraday direction in the most competitive market with the most crossflows you can find in any market is definitely the road to ruin for retail.
Pick a niche market that nobody cares about, learn it inside out including fundamentals, supply chains, trade financing and macro factors and become a master of that market. Once your home turf gets out of line you will most likely be the first to notice and you will be able to position yourself properly before the headline hunters chime in. You liquidate into them for a profit, rinse, repeat.
That's what the big boys do in the big markets, that's what I'm doing to make a living and that's what basically every profitable trader I know does. Table selection is extremely important in this game and so is specializing. Don't go where the competition is, go where you are the competition.
There were a couple of threads by @s0mmi which are absolute gold in my opinion. He doesn't post much anymore since I think he wandered off into crypto land (which is completely understandable).
https://www.elitetrader.com/et/thre...make-over-1-million-a-year-at-my-firm.280041/
https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/its-been-3-years-and-im-back.302474/page-2
He specialized in ozzie STIRS and knew that market like the back of his hand. Read those threads over and over again and you will realize how much work it takes to become really good.
I also started out trading STIRS especially Eurodollars and Short Stirling until ZIRP hit and volumes died down. I'm not saying that this is a good market for beginners, especially since it's so difficult to understand the fundamentals, but what can I say? I much rather sat on a bid for a long end bundle for the entire day than duking it out against the machines in the front end or the belly. Why? Because nobody gave a shit about the long end, they traded the 2y treasuries instead.
But when a lonely soul came along, he HAD to take my price and I either could spread it off where the liquidity was when the entire curve moved or carry inventory with a huge edge and liquidate into the next muppet. That's how I still trade today and the only difference is that I branched out into multiple markets that nobody gives a shit about to increase trade frequency.
You don't need to be a spreader though, the approach is important. You want to be the guy to set the price and let the other guys trade into you. Because if you know the market better than the majority of the players the likelyhood of you being on the right side of the trade is a lot higher.
Look at RIBT. Everyone was shilling the trade "because food crisis". Once you read into their balance sheet and actually took the effort to listen to their earnings conference, you knew it is a piece of shit and the only guys you're trading against are retail FOMO momentum hunters expecting the stock to explode. Easy short...because no big guy ever cares about a stock like that.
So that's why I was excited about the introduction of cash settled cheese futures on the CME. Another shit market nobody pays attention to, another market to exploit.
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