Quote from WinstonTJ:
I think most people would agree that trying to get into the AMM/HFT space today is a complete waste of time unless you have the resources already.
Oh you know I will disagree with that. It is not *that* hard to start an AMM/HFT operation from scratch. Having done exactly that, i know it is a fairly reachable goal (yes, I started as a single person). While I have had some prior knowledge alrdy on the brokerage side, and the transition is bumpier than I thought going into it, but the overall cycle was shorter than what I originally imagined.
And since I know a fair number of AMM/HFT/Automated Trading operations, the actual landscape is more primitive than what most ppl think. One of the major reason is "legacy", a lot of firms (including the large firms), have trouble "fixing what ain't broke", so they stay on the 4-5 year old platforms (hardware, handlers, even calculation engines). So in some ways, an up-start AMM/HFT firm actually may have an advantage in not being burdened down with all that "legacy" stuff, and can experiment / explore the bleeding edge.
The main challenge I think facing AMM/HFT is just capacity of the markets. To take a firm I know as an example, a well known firm, they were almost "minting money" in 2008 (few million a week), and their performance fell > 50% in 2009, and even further in 2010 (fine, still profitable). This space has become seriously over-crowded, everyone is looking for "guaranteed alpha" has at least looked at HFT.