Level Playing Field or Is It?

When I was on the floor, we had a huge advantage over "the paper". Off floor traders, be they the big boys trading size or the retail traders, were at the mercy of the floor. We could front run the paper, hit tick and low tick, run stops, you name it and it happened.

Those days are gone! As electronic traders, we have all the advantages. We can use whatever technology we can think up and afford. We can see lots of markets at once and trade whatever has juice. Yes, some of the big boys can peak a little ahead of us, but on the whole there is a level playing field and if you have the technology edge or a brain edge then the playing field is tilted in your favour.

Not having the millions to throw at the latest technology, lots of traders work smarter. My Dad always told me to use more inspiration than perspiration and that is especially true of trading. Creating a methodology that gives an edge is the answer, and we have a lot bigger edge now off floor than when we were floor traders.

The picture below is a scalping system I use when I have limited time. We had an overnight and morning snow fall and I was doing some snow blowing on the farm, so didn't really follow the markets in the morning as I usually do. I sat down for a couple of hours to scalp the Euro using 3 tick range bars. The picture below is the result. Nice and profitable, but hard yakka (work) as they say in Oz. Same methodology, just faster bars.

Just remember that usually the last trade in the sequence is likely to be a loser. I'm particularly watchful after the 3rd trade, although in these really short term periodicities there can be many more than 3.