[Soultrader]

Interesting thread Paul, I will add a few comments from my exprience.

Advantages of a retail trader:

- Flexibility of trading tools. Insititutions require traders to use tools that they have only. Third party add-ons are unlikely to get approved.

- The level of noise. Retail traders can enjoy their choice of dead silence or loud noise such as listening to pit noise.

- I found this to be most important. The FLEXIBILITY OF TRADES. A retail trader can easily call it a day after 2 morning trades. Insitutional trading requires you to sit there and trade all day. (leads to poor setups)

- The flexibility of the financial instruments and markets you choose to trade.

- Politics as usual.

With the current technology and information retail traders have sufficient tools and knowledge to compete evenly in this game. Although there are definitely disadvantages for retail traders (mainly information distribution), retail traders have an edge in terms of flexibility. I think trading tools and equipment retail traders now use are more sophisticated than insitutional traders. Also due to the size of the trades, retail traders are able to get in and out easily.