Is it possible to day trade $20 million+

Quote from dafugginman:

so basically, you don't think it can be done. i don't think anyone disagrees that you can swing trade 20 million, but you provide some interesting insights on moving that size in relatively few stocks.
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That is where I am on this.

I feel that when you get to using an excellent universe and "swing" trade it optimally, the size of the market does enter the picture.

To never disturb the market becomes THE problem. The other problem is keeping the desk on point for you. Once you get into over three hours or so of bleeding on the peaking day, you have had an experience of going into the peak and across the peak. The less than optimum wrap ups then occur as you are trading off the peak to complete the exit.

To stagger the cycles of the separate streams you are running is also a factor. It is nice to be rotating through the streams as a major wnat. But the facts are that if you are monitoring the nearly 200 sectors to catch the intial rise of a sector where the most pristine actions is, then you often get a little congestion for bunches of winners. By knowing how many sectors are getting ready to BO and rise, you can spread the rotating streams better. Once the leaders go in a sector, you KNOW that they will be followed by the next best FA measured entities. FA analysis very nicely lags the general market. The movement of the general market is caused more by switch outs and switch ins of the included lagging sectors.

To study and know the relationship of FA change compared to price change is an interesting and important set of considerations. The fact that "investing" is dominated by "financial planning" "sales strategies" that involve making change primarily as a result of "pain" means that the post pain market is where an equity goes through a rebirth that leads to FA improvement. This low volatility period, TA wise, sets the scene for the S levels from which a sector does the take off. Sectors, in effect, are discovered at a time when there is no pain strategy in effect. You have to use non price related FA analysis to see that a sector is "ready". Quarterly info is slow relative to the "natural cycle. this means that you can count on several cycls of money making per sector creming to the top.

If you see my analysis sheet and the better excel versions people have constructed, you see that an excellent universe has elements that are repeatably tradable and the "herd" wakes up and various "sales strategies" kick in for investors.

All of this is what I refer to a trading by being "pushed" by the herd.

So there is an aspect of wealth which is like---is enough, enough. I see about three enoughs. One is leveraged commodities indexes... another is this stuff: the optimum trading of rotational streams in the best equity trading universe.... the last is "parking" capital...this is large amounts that make about 60% a year...

I poked a few of these into Mr Market's venue for the fun of it a while back. He did not catch on. The HOV example I gave him was a "park" capital entity. It ran from 10 to 20 to 40 to 80 or so over a little more than a year. It was in a sector he was screwing up so I gave him HOV to ilustrate how to choose within a sector. DELL would be another park more in the 60% per year range for large capital. These would be "swing" trades conducted by using the annualized S and R.

My response here, initially, was to just answer the Q of the thread. Do intraday trade 20 mil as an alternative activity, you just have to knock down 1.7% day after day. This stated as a fact since that is the rate of capital appreciation (not compounded, I grant) you have to beat.

Believe me, if a person like me gets an opportunity to, regularly, spent an hour or so twice a week with a crew that is oriented to getting to know how things work, in terms of latent opportunities, a whole new world opens up.

I recently started (12APR05 scope and bounding memo) a paradigm for moving capital from the US GOV to the private sector. Today, at the Mon AM meeting they stood there and surprised me with a full page back cover ad on the back of the regional TV guide. It advertises 6 events in the next three days. The target is 40 mil transfers @ 7k per. Each million transfer moves 7 billion dollars annually. The curves for two separate application areas managed differently is running at a 200 to 3 ratio where advertising is the key. The TV guide ad dumped and terminated the second approach and threw the whole paradigm into a fast track start up. The paradigm will be repped on a county by county basis throughout the US. We are doing three states to start and are bilingual. Our base is a 42% increase in net last year (nationally). My interest is in the override on the transfer.
 
It was on an option expiration Friday a number of months ago. The months all run together so I can't tell you which one and have no need to prove what I am saying.

BTW, I wish you guys would refrain from the "Pinocchio" comment as I am extremely sensitive about my Jewish schnaz.
 
here's the Mark Rosalbo article..


Mark Rosalbo: leveraging the Qs.

Futures (Cedar Falls, Iowa); 8/1/2003; Collins, Daniel P.


Mark Rosalbo trades barefoot. That is just one of the benefits of trading from his suburban New Jersey home. He has an office in his attic equipped with multiple flat-screen monitors that he uses to place trades and analyze markets. The benefit, he says, is time spent with his family. Not being the typical type A personality, he doubts he would thrive on the trading floor. But upstairs, Rosalbo does just fine.

The quiet atmosphere he created belies that on any given day Rosalbo can account for as much as 30% of the off-hour volume in the QQQ, the exchange-traded fund based on the Nasdaq 100 index.

Rosalbo over the last year has earned approximately $1.5 million trading 175 million ETF shares, primarily on the Qs by taking advantage of inefficiencies in off-hour ETF markets. The heavily traded QQQ offers little opportunity for arbitrage plays during regular hours, but that liquidity dries up pre- and post-market, Rosalbo says.

"Most mornings before 8:30 I will do as much as 30% of the QQQ volume," he says. "I basically will take the other side of whoever is trading."

Rosalbo used to exploit the spreads on the various electronic communications networks (ECNs). "I was trading 3,000 shares, whipping it around on an arbitrage. I was doing arb between Island, Inca and Redi; I was the only one making a market in Redi on the Qs for six months. When there was news, I was the only bid and offer. It was great. It was free money," Rosalbo says.

But like every relatively straight forward arb play, the inefficiencies were worked out.

"When (the ECN) Island went dark, every trader who does what I do was forced to make a decision. You had to put up your hands and say the game is over, or you can roll up your sleeves and focus more on your ability to interpret the futures movement during the day," Rosalbo says.

He adapted. Out were the quick arbitrage plays and in was scaling in orders.

"Pre- and post-market is still a place where somebody who is willing to put in the time can make money," Rosalbo says. No longer on arbitrage but on understanding the way Qs are played against futures. He has identified market tendencies around expiration and some obvious technical plays. Rosalbo is not a technician but reads what the technical traders do. "I try and think about where other traders and institutions are going to place their bets. I either bet against that or anticipate their direction and place my bets before they play a big technical move."

He still does most of his volume before the open but has developed ways to take advantage of technical formations during the day.

"If I see a key move happen between one and two o'clock, I take the opposite side of it and it usually proves right," Rosalbo says. He calls this a lunch-time reversal. When the market establishes a trend and then reverses around lunch time, he fades that reversal betting the initial trend will reemerge. "Around 1:30, I will start doing the opposite of whatever the lunch-time trend is and playing it for size. I will take 100,000 Qs, 50,000 SPYDRs [ETFs based on the S&P 500] and just wait," he says.

Not only is Rosalbo a contrarian but he has taken a less-traveled route. Uninspired after completing the Smith Barney broker trainee program, he embarked on a series of eclectic careers including acting, fund management and various brokerage positions. He even spent time at the Kushi Institute, which espouses healthy eating and Eastern philosophy, where he met his wife. In 1998 he headed up a nascent ETF program at broker/dealer Lieber and Weissman. From there he went on to day-trading firm Hold Brothers and then to Ascent Trading, where he continues his proprietary trading. He keeps $100,000 in his account and leverages ETFs with futures style margining,

Rosalbo has had offers from firms to systematize his methodology but feels that building a black box around his approach would ultimately fail because it is based on quick reactions and the emotions of the market. But the bigger downside would come if his methodology were turned into a fund--then he would have to put his shoes back on and head to an office.
 
has mark R been interviewed or quoted since that article ?
I miss those "easy money" ECN arb days

sometimes I think I was competing against him AH

banging out my few cents arb ... but not in the size he did
... usually between
1 share and 3000 shares in the ETF's after hours

:p
 
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