Trading Competitive Landscape

[treefingers]

Hi Folks, a few questions from a newbie on the competitive landscape in trading:

Where does the profitability come from if you are consistently trading against established well resourced traders in big institutions? If you are able to beat those who are employed in these firms, they likely won't last, so won't the only ones remaining at these firms be consistent winners at your expense?

Going along the first point, what % of the trading pool are novice (dead money to use a poker term) that will soften up the competitive dynamic? If someone told me you are going to lose against the big boys but will net profit from novices, that would make sense to me.

Finally, are there other elements that soften the competition and create profitable opportunities across the board? For instance, a farmer may routinely take a 'losing' trade on corn prices but he is not interested in profiting from a trade...he's interested in minimizing risk. To what extent do these elements provide buoyancy in the trading competitive landscape?

 

[piphoe]

"competitive landscape"

smthg a liberal proff might say

lol this is trench warfare! guns blazing, people dying, one trade at a time

 

[tomorton]

Hi Folks, a few questions from a newbie on the competitive landscape in trading:

Where does the profitability come from if you are consistently trading against established well resourced traders in big institutions? If you are able to beat those who are employed in these firms, they likely won't last, so won't the only ones remaining at these firms be consistent winners at your expense?

Going along the first point, what % of the trading pool are novice (dead money to use a poker term) that will soften up the competitive dynamic? If someone told me you are going to lose against the big boys but will net profit from novices, that would make sense to me.

Finally, are there other elements that soften the competition and create profitable opportunities across the board? For instance, a farmer may routinely take a 'losing' trade on corn prices but he is not interested in profiting from a trade...he's interested in minimizing risk. To what extent do these elements provide buoyancy in the trading competitive landscape?

I for one am not trading against the big players. They have brilliant analysts, instantaneous news inputs, super-fast computers and billions of pounds to deploy.

But their size means they move price and this is the trail I follow - they can't avoid leaving it - I just follow their price trends.

If my profits can be traced, they probably come from the private retail traders who are continually going short against my uptrends and long against my downtrends. Bless their little cotton socks. I usually find whatever Oanda clients are doing on their sentiment indicator, I am doing the opposite.

 

[Quantt]

Hi Folks, a few questions from a newbie on the competitive landscape in trading:

Where does the profitability come from if you are consistently trading against established well resourced traders in big institutions? If you are able to beat those who are employed in these firms, they likely won't last, so won't the only ones remaining at these firms be consistent winners at your expense?

Going along the first point, what % of the trading pool are novice (dead money to use a poker term) that will soften up the competitive dynamic? If someone told me you are going to lose against the big boys but will net profit from novices, that would make sense to me.

Finally, are there other elements that soften the competition and create profitable opportunities across the board? For instance, a farmer may routinely take a 'losing' trade on corn prices but he is not interested in profiting from a trade...he's interested in minimizing risk. To what extent do these elements provide buoyancy in the trading competitive landscape?

Actually the less money you are trading with (few millions and less) the easier is to make money in the stock market... When you go up into the tens and hundred of millions, this is where you'll be slow to react and have to worry about the big boys...