FXCM SSI Logic

[Hotch]

I ended up listening to a few fxcm webinars of late as Spotify has changed meaning I have to go to youtube to listen to piano man. One of their guys seemed rather fun, and it popped up he was going to do a live webinar so I thought why not.

He started talking about their SSI (tells you the ratio of those long against those short each pair). He said that he doesn't fade it because retail traders suck, but because if there are 9 people short, and 1 person long, if they want to close their positions, you have 9 people closing shorts (buying) and 1 person closing long (selling), buying>selling => price goes up.

So I asked whether me meant positions as opposed to traders (I assumed this was the case), and thought I'd implied the implications if this was not the case ...apparently not.

So I clarified my thoughts, and said that if that one person has greater size than those 9 short, then following his idea they'll be more people selling than buying. Or (as I suspected, and still do) was he assuming that # of traders is proportional to size.

His response was that it was retail traders and not Goldman Sachs. I think what he meant to say was "Yes, I am assuming # of traders is proportional to size."

Which left me like this

Maybe I'm being completely retarded (probably). Am I missing something here?

 

[Joey25]

Their argument goes that the retail trader likes to fade, and that the retail trader also tends to lose.

His argument is utter BS, however, and appears to go against the "party line". Retail traders closing out positions will have diddly-squat market impact.