Looking for a thread

I work in investment banking and this takes a seriously good algorithm and preferably a fast connection to the JSE. Most of the institutional algo trading firms are currently hosting their software at the JSE co-location site to get better latency. Its a fun but scary game. They mostly tend to be high volume trading with small profit across a lot of deals. The largest players in SA can do over 60 000 trades in a day which is a ton as the record day for the JSE was I think 375 000 trades in a day.

Algo trading tends to be on indexes only. Auto trading where you try program in technical trading rules and do more normal low volume trading is a lot more dangerous and I would not recommend it. Technical patters only yield so much and the trends are never reliable enough to allow you to win more than you lose. Any recognisable pattern is normally recognised and then made obsolete very quickly.
 
I would strongly recommend reading Michael Lewis' Flash Boys. Will give anyone thinking about trading an idea of what he or she is up against. Once you bat against the likes of Citadel or Renaissance Technologies there can be only one outcome.
 
What you guys referring to is High frequency trading (HFT)

You get HFT and LFT, both can be algos. I can run an algo on daily charts as well.
My personal preference is hourly charts.

Retailers cant compete with HFT as they do not have access to fast enough fibre optics (/ its incredibly costly)
They do have a chance on LFT.

Read up on Kevin Davey. His live results listed on a 3rd party site is up 130% for the year,
he mostly trades dailys and hourlys as well.
 
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