Day Trading and Automation

At INO.com, we regularly receive questions about completely automated trading or “Black Box” systems. To shed a little light on these complex robotic trading systems is today’s guest, Todd Mitchell, from Trading Concepts. Be sure to comment with ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

I received an interesting e-mail today asking me about a particular futures trading system. The writer wanted to know if I knew of a futures trading system was fully mechanical and automated. I should point out that there are automated or “black box” trading systems employed by large hedge funds and other large trading groups, but I have never come across a fully automated futures trading system suitable for individual traders seeking to day trade the futures markets.

Of course, there are a slew of Forex robots on the market today, and the trading results from these robots have been mixed, at best. In my opinion, this type of question regarding futures day trading is the result of the spillover effect from the Forex trading groups. But I think that this request reflects an even deeper question being considered by new traders as they are entering the futures markets.

What sort of question do you think I am considering? Continue reading "Day Trading and Automation"

Using High Frequency Trades to Your Advantage

Today's guest, Michele (Mish) Schneider has gotten such a phenomenal response from Trader's Blog readers in the past, that we've decided to bring her back and share her take on High Frequency Trading, or HFT, plays. You can leave any questions or comments here on our blog, but be sure to visit Mish on her site, Market Gauge, as well.

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Not too long ago, the buzz around the street was all about High Frequency Trading Models and the possible legislation that would be enforced to try and quell them.  What is High Frequency Trading (HFT)? According to an interview with Sal Arnuk Partner of Themis Trading LLC printed June 14th, 2010 in the High Frequency Trading Review—yes, there is such a publication—“I guess you can call HFT any strategy that involves high speed execution of thousands of orders per second, or in a short time period. I don’t even want to handicap it by calling it thousands as some people can do a million.” Continue reading "Using High Frequency Trades to Your Advantage"