3 ms·
> the retail traders I have a friend who works in HFT[0][1], over a beer or three in central London a few years ago he told me that in his world a common descr
by logifail 4y ago
> the retail traders
I have a friend who works in HFT[0][1], over a beer or three in central London a few years ago he told me that in his world a common description of retail trading is "dumb flow".
When your intentions to trade are being sold to the HFTs before your trades are even priced, I guess that does indeed rate you "dumb".
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-frequency_trading https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-frequency_trading
[1] https://clsbluesky.law.columbia.edu/2015/12/15/is-high-frequency-trading-good-for-capital-markets/ https://clsbluesky.law.columbia.edu/2015/12/15/is-high-frequ...
- astrange 4y agoYou can’t sell retail traders’ intentions to anyone. They trade in single blocks and effectively trade at random (some people need to sell even if someone else is buying), so there’s no hint of what they’re doing. HFT only trades against institutional multi-block traders. The institutional people wrote Flash Boys to distract you from that.
- kareemsabri 4y agoI don't think it does. If I'm buying AAPL on a 10-year time horizon, and some HFT trader front-runs my trade for some fractions of a penny, that doesn't really harm me as far as I can tell.