Manual tape reading & DOM in an algo age
- Thread starter 777
- Start date
depends whose doing the reading
Due to the overwhelming presence of algorithms in the markets by institutions and the growing list or retail algorithm traders...
I don't believe that manual tape reading, market depth analysis, DOM trading or whatever you call it these days is viable. It's something left over in the closet from the dot.com days.
Also, I think some traders misunderstood the decline in DOM trading by thinking it was due to the increase in "chart reading" or due to technical analysis when in fact the decline was due to the proliferation of algorithms.
DOM, not so much. As pointed out above, too many fake orders.
As for tape reading, depends on whether or not one understands the language of the tape, that is how it illustrates/reveals/betrays the behavior of the participants. If one understands how to read that, the algos are irrelevant. If one doesn't, then tape reading will be of no use to him.
Everybody calls 'manual' something different. In futures properly reading 'DOM/tape' with a 'helper' software but still manually is helpful. Indeed, one couldn't decipher what goes on without a help of some amount of code, a significant percentage of daily traded volume happens so fast you couldn't even blink (I have stats supporting this). The real holly grail would be to automate this 'vision'. It would be interesting to hear if someone accomplished this at least in special cases.
The few remaining DOM traders that I know...almost all of them except for one are scalpers and using automation in their trading. I think it should be the norm now for DOM traders because as you stated that the traded volume happens so fast you couldn't even blink for fear of missing some sort'uv critical information.
Lets not forget the changing Ask/Bid info too...all of each are greatly influence by algorithms.
I truly think DOM trading requires someone that's either automated or has lightning fast analytical skills.