Quote from FXTraderWill:
He does endorse directional trading; however, he only endorses trading the direction of a spread between two stocks. Why? Because when you trade spreads, you pay double the commissions. Bright already charges over twice what Schonfeld does; legging in and out of a spread with many thousands of shares at .004-.008 really brings Don the cash (not that I don't think it's fair; it makes complete sense for him, brom a business perspective). I do find it a little annoying, unprofessional, and perhaps even condescending to the experienced traders out there to try to propogate a myth that it's easier to find an edge in picking the direction of a spread between two stocks than it is to pick the direction of a single stock or a single ETF/futures contract is a little ridiculous. Personally, I believe figuring out if a single stock is going to make a move in reference to the US dollar is easier than figuring out in which direction a stock will move in reference to another stock, because I only have to follow one market in "risky directional gambles" as Don might call them... but to each his own...
Spread trading is not generally referred to as directional trading. It is generally thought of as the opposite of directional trading.