Quote from Lucias:
let me take another stab...
The typical view is that the index represents beta whereas stocks can generate alpha. So a fund may go and buy some stocks and then sell (hedge) to the index. Most quantitative traders also take a "wide view" of the market,i.e scanning "wide" for anomalies rather then "deep".
Stocks do have several advantages:
* More variety of strategies such as stats arbitrage, relative strength, news, rebates, and other stock specific plays
* Playing news and tape reading the specialist using NYSE
* Greater ability to play market neutral/weak vs strong
However, many hedge funds do play in the futures space. The e-mini was built for institutional traders. Honestly, unless you are playing at a stock specific edge such as rebates or tape reading the NYSE then I don't think it will matter because I track stocks and (for the index) trades and the ones I track follow the index. This is why my suggestion would be: futures for retail, stocks for props
I mean the US stock market is very mature. I doubt there is any "game" out there where there is easy "free money". Also, over the recent few years global macro concerns have dominated the market movements with very high correlations among various stocks.
Look at the Tuco? records where all their stock traders lost money. They didn't fair so well.
If I had an advice, I'd say try many things as possible. If you prefer making trades based on global macro events, prefer technical analysis, and prefer deep vs wide focus then I recommend futures. If you prefer to make fundamental based plays, want to take a wide/stats view, do company specific research, or trade news events then prefer stocks.
I myself have some sort of mental aversion to trading Forex but last I heard a lot of professionals were in Forex and having very good success. So there are a lot of markets out there. And Forex is very suitable for a small retail trader.. probably most suitable.
@Picaso -- love the explanation!