Quote from kevin729fl:
Usually when i accumulate a position the postion immediately goes against me. If I am buying a dip or taking a breakout a computer program comes in and starts to trade against m yposition immediately. This happens probably 90% of the time... on volume above 500 shares. All the time with market orders.....limit orders for me rarely get filled unless i take a little on the offer so the program can hit my bid. While watching my time and sales I will take the offer and immediatley the stock price action will get a little more aggressive and the bid will trade...sometimes you will not even see the size on the bid trade ...you will just see prints go off at the price of the bid. It is aboslutley crazy...andit is getting worse than the way it was years ago. At times i will have a limit bid at say 18.25, if traded it would be the low of the day, yet on many occassions there will be nasd trades below me creating a new low when I am there in different ecns ..no stock would trade with me. As active trading professionals we are considered toxic order flow and the market makers in every possible way will make our intraday adventure as difficult as possible because In my opinion every Broker dealer out there knows our positions and can assimilate our every traders postions trough a computer program and will contra our flow all day long...it actually becomes the odd lot theory...and it works amazingly well during trendless light volume days...(because they do not have the order flow to create a trend environment..so they wreak havoc on the day traders during these times)...back in the mid 90s it use to be collusion with market makers via emails and phone calls....now I believe it is market maker collusion computer programs.....the market makers know when to step away because noone has anonyminity anymore. How many traders out there have hit the low on theday?...How many take a top?..and I am talking about experienced traders also...how many times have you taken a big position and it just seems like the programs out there constantly trade against you? How many traders are out there intraday that are trading a stock with 250k in average daily volume? you probably would be very surprised about how many traders are left playing this game like us.....every day we are coming to their poker table and they see the sucker coming every single day...and this is a fact......and trustme not too many suckers are coming to the tables but when they do they will take your money intraday....sounds like a big conspiracy theory right?....that is the brilliance behind this.......everyone thinks it is your improper risk management....or your small risk parameters...or your early entries or exits...sometimes it could be.....but in my opinion when a postion froma day trader at any price has been taken it has changed the dynamics of that stock instantly...so that moving average or any other technical indicator will not hold at that level because someone bigger than you has to get you out now before the stock can resume the proper manipulating flow......now is it different on the bigger more liquid stocks?....probably not that far away from the illiquid stocks.....
This is not a trader with a bowl full of sour grapes also. I have been a trader for 10 years and I have made an incredible living at this game....I am just highlighting something that my gut has been telling me since decimalization has come to be......decimalization brought forth to keep the nasdaq and the nyse still in good business.( we still have incredible volume in the markets do to computer strategies that take minimal risk since there are penny spreads). By the way, volatility has not expanded higher than April of 2001 in the nasdaq even after the slaughterfests and it has only been larger one time in the nyse( probably because off the specialist spreads). Remeber this is just my opinion based upon my market experience......Now I put intraday positions on for swing trades to bleed out the noise...and I trade the e minis which cannot be as manipulated as much as the stocks out there in the market place intraday.