who are we playing against as retail traders?

[mute9003]

So you only look at charts?
You dont take into account financial data or company news or even the market conditions?

 

[KCalhoun]

All that matters is price action.

I made over $1100 in winning trades today. Mostly UVXY. Even charts are secondary.

Using time/sales and OTO orders with tight stops and exiting at first sign of stalling or pivoting price action is what trading is all about. Daytrading that is.

 

[JSOP]

another thing i just realized i dont understand who we are playing against as retail traders and what are their moves.
I get hustled alot by sudden moves against my positions and i have no idea what caused it
In short heres what i understand
as retail traders we make up a small fraction of total traded volume and we dont have access to same level data as institutions and other big bois.
So we are mostly reacting to whats happening
Institutional traders. Banks? Hedges? And who else?
They have much more capital and access to data that we dont have.
And they can manipulate the market in their favor most of the time(even with wsb making waves) the institutions were still mostly in control
The CEOs of companies seem to not like retail traders and try to manipulate stock to squeeze them out (especially shorts) to make it more beneficial to those who want to hodl (invest long term)
I ve noticed few times where ceo would try to shake off the shorts and traders by releasing some bs news that would make the stock go in certain direction

i dont know how much of what i said is true or not. Thats just what i gathered from youtube lol
besides this forum its my main source of info

This is what we are trading against: Algos! Machines!!

It wasn't a reversal out of nowhere, it was Fauci spreading news around 1PM that algos panicked on because they do not think, they just react.

Algos gone wild. Seriously, how many people sold stocks out of their portfolios today BECAUSE of the Omicron case detected in the US?

Yes we are in the Matrix.

 

[StockChartist]

So you only look at charts?
You dont take into account financial data or company news or even the market conditions?

It depends on what strategy I'm using, for example in my swing trading journal here on ET I'm mostly focused on stock price technicals, I do look at the fundamentals in regards to the company's financial stability, valuation, time to earnings, recent earnings beat/miss, and current market/sector news.

Lot's of the time I'll buy a stock and it'll drop right away, just the way it is, you'll never always buy the bottom tick and sell the top tick. You need a trading plan based on a empirical evidence then it's a matter of following it and not getting caught up with individual trade results. Try to think like a casino, they have losing streaks too but they never accept one bet that could significantly impact them.

 

[smallfil]

As someone who has been on the other side working for a large investment bank you're over thinking it, they're not sitting there trying to screw you over, there more concerned with hiding their true intentions so front-running HFTs don't catch wind of what they're doing. A sharp move against you is just one or more market participants filling a large order and having to chew a few bids/offers to get it done, they're not trying to scare you out of a position.

Most of the time you're playing against yourself as we're limited by our own beliefs and actions. As a retail trader your only advantage over larger market participants is your size, you can trade instruments they can't, you can get in and out easier and quicker than they can with less slippage so you need to work with that.

In regards to company management, yes when their stocks are in a downtrend they know that and will pull out all the stops to try and reverse that with a new announcement, that's a big reason shorting stocks is hard. Look at $DLTR as an example lately, stock was being whacked then BOOM in late Sep management come out and announce their jacking product prices up 25% and the stock is up over 50% since, that's their job and what they're incentivized to do not because they're trying to screw over retail traders who are short, that's just a by product.

There is too much disinformation out there and retail traders believe a lot of the falsehoods. Hedge funds and other institutional players do not need to mess with retail traders because retail traders are slashing their own throats each time they trade against the trend. They are their own worst enemies but, like little kids do not take responsibility for their bad trading decisions. Nobody forces the retail trader to lose 50% of their monies. Chances are good, they had a 10% loss, then, a 20% loss but, you kept wishing and hoping to just break even. These are just some of the most common ones but, retail traders continue to commit the same trading mistakes and not doing anything to minimize their mistakes, yet expect to make monies?

 

[smallfil]

It depends on what strategy I'm using, for example in my swing trading journal here on ET I'm mostly focused on stock price technicals, I do look at the fundamentals in regards to the company's financial stability, valuation, time to earnings, recent earnings beat/miss, and current market/sector news.

Lot's of the time I'll buy a stock and it'll drop right away, just the way it is, you'll never always buy the bottom tick and sell the top tick. You need a trading plan based on a empirical evidence then it's a matter of following it and not getting caught up with individual trade results. Try to think like a casino, they have losing streaks too but they never accept one bet that could significantly impact them.

You have given the ET message board, a lot of nuggets to learn from. However, a lot of retail traders believe they know better and will ignore your advise. Then, they continue to wonder why they continue to lose their monies?

 

[StockChartist]

You have given the ET message board, a lot of nuggets to learn from. However, a lot of retail traders believe they know better and will ignore your advise. Then, they continue to wonder why they continue to lose their monies?

Thank you, I think the biggest problem most retail traders have is they only open a few trades and focus on them too much, but no matter how good your analysis or edge is, you can't ever predict with 100% success the outcome of a trade, as all trade results are based on future events and nobody can ever predict the future with 100% success, so it all comes down to risk management by making lot's of small trades with an edge. Just because a trade resulted in a loss doesn't mean you did something wrong, but that's goes against our natural instincts and how we were raised which is hard to overcome. Having realistic expectations is key too, not expecting to beat the market every month is one of them.

 

[maxinger]

another thing i just realized i dont understand who we are playing against as retail traders and what are their moves.
I get hustled alot by sudden moves against my positions and i have no idea what caused it
In short heres what i understand
as retail traders we make up a small fraction of total traded volume and we dont have access to same level data as institutions and other big bois.
So we are mostly reacting to whats happening
Institutional traders. Banks? Hedges? And who else?
They have much more capital and access to data that we dont have.
And they can manipulate the market in their favor most of the time(even with wsb making waves) the institutions were still mostly in control
The CEOs of companies seem to not like retail traders and try to manipulate stock to squeeze them out (especially shorts) to make it more beneficial to those who want to hodl (invest long term)
I ve noticed few times where ceo would try to shake off the shorts and traders by releasing some bs news that would make the stock go in certain direction

i dont know how much of what i said is true or not. Thats just what i gathered from youtube lol
besides this forum its my main source of info

retail traders should always blame themselves if they can't make it.


Institution traders, bankers ... are not out to slaughter the retail traders.
They work very hard so as to earn as much $$$$ as possible.
They are good people because they move the market, and they provide
trading opportunities for retail traders.
Be thankful to them.


CEOs are not out to slaughter the retail traders.
They work very hard so that the stock price can go higher.


manipulators (legit or not) work very very hard so that they can earn tons of money.
In fact, manipulators are very 'good' people as they provide excellent trading opportunities for retail traders.
It is up to retail traders to seize the opportunities.
Be thankful to the manipulators.



So lazy retail traders should work very very very hard instead of blaming others.
Instead of complaining, learn to be grateful for the trading opportunities created by those people.

 

[SunTrader]

If I walk into a grocery store to buy a 1/2 gallon of milk do I care what dairy farm the milk came from? Where the dairy is located? Who owns it? How much they make selling milk? Whether the CEO has a hot wife or not?

I only care if the milk is fresh, and most importantly, the price I want to buy it at.

Price. Fack PE's and all the rest of that useless noise.

 

[deaddog]

Thank you, I think the biggest problem most retail traders have is they only open a few trades and focus on them too much, but no matter how good your analysis or edge is, you can't ever predict with 100% success the outcome of a trade, as all trade results are based on future events and nobody can ever predict the future with 100% success, so it all comes down to risk management by making lot's of small trades with an edge.

You'll have to define "a few" and "lots of" .
I agree that risk management is the most important part of managing a portfolio but depending on what "lots" means, you can be over diversified and have so many irons in the fire that you can't manage them in a timely manner.
I only have a few positions open at a time and I hope I focus on them too much. The number of open positions has little to do with risk control.