Institutional Traders vs. Private Investors

D

DallasCowboysFan

I was thinking about trading volumes today.
About 2/3 of the volume is done through high frequency trading, mutual funds etc....

One trade by an institution might be 10,000 shares and it might be 100 private individuals at 100 shares a piece to reach the same volume.

I don't recall any stats for the number of private traders and the number of institutional traders that conduct business. I don't even know if a distinction can be made.

But I wonder if you could.......if any trends could be gleaned from them if you saw an increase or a decrease in the ratio or the number of individuals entering the market.

It seems like it would be a useful tool.
 
speedo said:
I trade futures not stocks but if I get a tradable pattern, I take it and don't concern about who is participating.
More...


I agree and a stat like that might be too much detail. But I was thinking about the ratio between the price of gold and silver and then I thought about the NYSE daily volume.

Then I began to wonder if the percentage of individuals vs institutions changed in one direction or another if that would suggest an up or down movement in the market.

Probably too much detail.
 
Forex is mostly institutional trade but if a market is liquid and had good price structure, it's trade-able.
 
speedo said:
I trade futures not stocks but if I get a tradable pattern, I take it and don't concern about who is participating.
More...

For futures, sometimes you can get clues from the T&S, but if you are only looking for say 20+ contract orders on the NQ, you may miss the 30 that get iceberged in 1-2 at a time. Watching the complete T&S can *sometimes* give you an idea.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top