[TheDude]

From what I understand, HFT's will generally take a trade if the perceived payout (2c) covers costs minimum. If it does, the trade is taken. And why not? Money is money.

2c x 1 gooozillion trades a day adds up to rent, beer money + a night out with a lady of your choice

Look at ES scalpers. They only do 1-2 ticks per trade, but on a 300 lot 50 times a day, that aint bad money, even if a load of them scratch.

Different strokes.

[natedredd10]

Originally Posted by SIUYA »

It will also never be the end of technical analysis - thats like saying its the end of maps.... I prefer to think that these guys have a different way of visualizing the same price information, they just do it in numbers and statistics.

I think there should be an end to "technical analysis" because its a completely poisoned term at this point. It's just an old term, chosen to sound scientific back in the day..Just like the term "quant" has evolved because it sounds "science fiction" like. Most very wealthy people are not self made but born into wealth. "quant" is a great marketting strategy to get to play with these peoples money because at the mean they are of average intelligence...it was daddy or grandpa who were the above average ones.
We are all dealing with numbers and statistics..no one trading is using a data feed that contains something other than numbers.
In any form of analysis there is science and there is a nonsense. Just because you are not crunching numbers does not mean you are not using science. People of average intelligence are easily fooled by nonsense.
Its like if I was a great discretionary MA based trader I would never start a CTA under the category of discretionary TA based. MY CTA would be based on a strategy of a type of finite impulse response filter, optimized by a biologicaly based non linear pattern search.....
Message boards and open discussion have been poisoned by this fake wall...TA vs quant..TA vs fundy..
people actually did science before the advent of the computer...

[natedredd10]

Anyone with speculative common sense can pick up on the stench in this article, thats why I believe Brownsfan walks the walk but is the only candle trader in the world I would actually bet on but gets offended when his method is put down.

The alarm should have went off when this comp sci/HFT guy spends more on news than on his other data..huh?

"800k to 1.5 million shares a day and make 2cents per trade on average. He made 7 figures profit in 2008 after expenses and taxes."

Lets forget "expenses"(whatever that is sopposed to mean) and taxes and just use 1 mil gross...
He has to make 50 trades to make a dollar with an expectancy of 2 cents per trade. To make 7 figures min he has to make $4k a day($1 mil / 250 trading days) ...
$4000 / .02 cents means he is making 200,000 trades a day.I would have a very hard time believing that if he was even talking SPY. Yet this magician makes 200k trades a day martingaling market neutral strategies but goes out of his way to point out he is not making a market...implies he is an option trader yet trades "shares"...complete fucking nonsense.

Ironically though, I basically agree with what he said, I could have wrote that myself. I don't mind the skill saw to the brain though ego wise when intial experiments fail and guys like brownsfan make way more than my zero...this guy is making shit up. I would put him on a failed options trader that got Hull from nuclearphy and found faitail.org(been there done that)..then made up this nonsense to feel good about himself.

[SIUYA]

nate -"We are all dealing with numbers and statistics..no one trading is using a data feed that contains something other than numbers."

exactly - its all the same.
The rest is either one persons way of dealing with it in their own mind. By either making things more statistically based, or visually based. what ever works for them.
or pure marketing as in your CTA example. If you read most black box proprietary trading algorithms etc; they are all still dealing with the same data - no matter what the marketing says.
there is an often unquoted section in market wizards about a guy who does not use science, rather gut feel and mystical zen to trade....he remains anonymous as he understands its not what people want to hear and it would deter a lot of people.

There is always fantasy v reality. Quite often a lot of fantasy can make money, but may ultimately blowup, or it makes its money in fees etc. Ironically sometimes the people living in the biggest fantasy make the most money....good for them.

Additionally, unless you are trying to replicate what someone else is doing then take what you want from them and their methods and ideas and realise why you dont want the rest.
If you think half of what someone is saying is BS but it works for them so what.
Reminds me of the quant who told his boss that if he had access to a $100mil portfolio he could return them at least $2mil a year...... for a while they thought he was a guru.

If you cant pull something positive out of any education then you have bigger issues.

(not directed at anyone, just a general rant)

[bakrob99]

Originally Posted by natedredd10 »

"He has to make 50 trades to make a dollar with an expectancy of 2 cents per trade. To make 7 figures min he has to make $4k a day($1 mil / 250 trading days) ...
$4000 / .02 cents means he is making 200,000 trades a day...

I think you missed the part where he trade 800,000 plus shares per day. If he made .02cents per share and trade 1,000,000 shares ... that's $20,000.

Obviously - the .02 cents referred to is the net per share after losses are subtracted.
If one were to trade like the above the average day is $20K, but we are told that the earnings are around $1.2M per year. So that is 60 average days ... out of what ... 220?

Seems like his edge is very small.