Austin, look man, you are acting like we are Catholic nuns and when we traded 10 years ago we were feeding the poor after the market closed and helping raise orphan children. We were not. My firm in particular destroyed stocks, absolutely destroyed them. In fact, we did so much damage that the specialists tried to organize a class action lawsuit against just our firm. Stocks would open on bad news and we took a torch to the place. LOL. See, for those of you not in the know, the rules were, specialists could not sell short ahead of the public since they were holding the deck of cards so to speak. They had to wait for an uptick as did mom and pop on main street. Not us. We went in with a vengeance and hit the bids so hard not even FEMA could sort through the wreckage. The specialists watched helplessly as we took their stocks down 3 pts. Mom and dad got filled on the lows and we made bank.
At my old market making firm on the CBOE, oh boy did we pull off some shit. Not sure how much I should talk about here but let me just say, we were NOT providing liquidity.
As for HFTs, we had them back then, only it wasn't computer algos, it was 22 year old kids on Adderall and no sleep clicking the mouse so fast the processors at the time couldn't keep up. If mom and dad wanted stock, too bad, fuck you mom, I just lifted your offer, I'll sell it to you 3 pts higher. Yeah we were really altruistic back then.
The business is actually pretty fair today. You want to know how you know? Because everyone is getting out of the business. Once they couldn't steal anymore they thought, what's the point in doing this. The floor locals are all but gone at the cbot, the option market makers are all running bars in Lincoln Park, the specialists are selling real estate in Long Island and even grandma through down her arthritis medicine and called it quits daytrading.
The markets are as fair now as they have ever been. The cost of entry, the availability of information, commissions, spreads, software, you name it. It's a pretty level field. And that is why you are NOT going to make easy money flipping spoos all day in your boxer shorts. I mean come on, I can't believe we are even talking about this. I mean I look back on the old days and think, jeez, this must have been what it was like in the 1850's. I mean when I think of all the disadvantages the public had, no wonder most "retail" people LOST money during the greatest bull market ever.
I will never forget that experience I had out in Ontario, CA back in Oct of 1999 at the first ever DayTraders Expo with live CNBC coverage. I met old Donny boy for the first time, although he won't remember. The people that were at this thing, oh my God. I mean, Austin, it was ridiculous and you know that. I get it that you miss it, I kind of get nostalgic for it as well. But your memory of that era is either really bad or you are feeling really guilty about it and have convinced yourself of some completely different world back then.
