Several pages back somebody said that whenever a participant becomes predictable, they create an exploitable market inefficiency. I suspect most of the folks following this thread are, like me, thinking of ways to monetize this situation.
My problem is that an important part of my business model is keeping my overhead low. That precludes building a low-latency trading rig. I'm also not sure I want to invest a year or more of time life developing the software. The whole project could end up being above my pay grade anyway.
Still, it's interesting to think about how it all works. Engineering a 15-tick price drop requires sweeping all the inventory, both visible and invisible, for 15 price levels. That can get expensive even in a thin market. And the big risk is that another bot might piggyback your raid with another 15-tick raid, which could be problematic either long or short. Simply sweeping 15 price levels requires taking on a lot of market risk, unless of course most of those bids are your own. Layering out all those bids is risky too unless you put out offers too. Then if you get raided, you have to defend your position.
This whole scenario sounds kind of predatory with bigger fish eating the smaller fish.