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Strategies & Market Trends : DAYTRADING Fundamentals -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Eric P who wrote (16844)	8/21/2003 9:41:38 PM
From: Mark Davis	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18137

You've covered most of the bases well. I'd add that market makers have also gone to great lengths to make trading against them difficult. At the very least, almost all the serious volume is done on anonymous ecn's and off the floor, not via the MMid (Nasdaq). Where are they paying 80 cents to do 500 shares?

To: Eric P who wrote (16844)	8/21/2003 10:08:09 PM
From: TraderAlan	Respond to of 18137

<Elimination of the Idiot.> Hey I'm still here!

To: Eric P who wrote (16844)	8/22/2003 8:04:29 AM
From: Bridge Player	Respond to of 18137

Your insights greatly appreciated.

To: Eric P who wrote (16844)	8/27/2003 5:29:30 PM
From: Threei	Respond to of 18137

Nice review, Eric. Want to add one more factor that somewhat changed the landscape for retail traders: execution techniques became non-issue. Remember the times when a trader to be efficient in fast game had to know all the nuances of countless ways to route his order? SOES with its size limitations, 5 minute rule, SelectNet with its 30 seconds no cancel, preferred or not, All or Nothing, 9 ECNs with their particularities, ISLD crossed orders, hidden orders etc? :) All this stuff is non-existent now, sweep everything in sight with ARCA and count your money (or lack of). Certainly makes life easier for newcomers, and at the same time takes away an advantage from those who got art of getting filled down <GG>

To: Eric P who wrote (16844)	9/3/2003 6:36:38 AM
From: Apakhabar	1 Recommendation Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 18137

Hi Eric, and Everyone else: What a wonderful reply. I am late to the discussion again due to my continuing spiral down into the world of law (I am nearing the end of my second year of law school, and working as a legal researcher) and of course I'm lost on the homefront (my two children, now of speaking age, are terrible savages who would make anyone long for the calm waters of the Nasdaq circa 1999). As a part-time trader now I probably don't know WTF I am talking about. Nonetheless, I found your list of reasons why trading has become more difficult for many was perfectly pitched. I would only add to the "Elimination of the idiot" category that the rule change requiring a $25,000 account really sealed the fate of the newbie and accelerated the decline in prices. Given that we all know how hard it is for the dumb money crowd to set a stop or take a loss, it should be no surprise that a great number of these traders, undercapitalized to begin with, fell under the threshold and have never been heard from again, making the rest of us all the less inclined to grab that ridiculously-priced bottle of wine. I also want to speak to your comment that all the traders you know are equally comfortable short or long. Initially I thought you were overstating a truism. (In law, the corollary is that the best lawyers can take either side of a case.) But I think what you know is that genuine traders are able to recognize, in any time-frame, in any type of market, what makes them "comfortable." This word choice is insightful because it doesn't imply that traders are so smart that they know how the market will react, or in what direction it will go, or that one must be counterintuitive and sell when one so wants to buy. I've heard many traders talk about how in one particular trade, they felt so uncomfortable going in, yet it turned out great. But I don't know ANY old traders who say this is their everyday, year-in, year-out experience. The best traders I know seem to have something in common with the most happily married: they don't work hard at it, even when the hours pile up it's all good; they are just comfortable and everything works out fine. Phil