glyder
Established member
- Messages
- 755
- Likes
- 94
"I get a thrill out of watching the market, with pitting my wits against some of the sharpest, most intelligent and ruthless people in the world" ***
the quote above is an often enough stated concept in trading.
But I do wonder how much truth is there that we actually pit our wits against any other individuals / entities in the market really?
Looking at the FX markets - much of the activity is trade (ie international trade) related. Perhaps even the majority is.
The customers behind these trades are not pitting their wits against the market. They put their order to a bank who will generally provide them with a decent enough spot price. - No ruthlessness there just a commission order and a 'best execution' of sorts.
Swaps, fixes and other hedges - these may impact the FX market in that they create the support & resistance, especially around the big round numbers, but again - this is working to client orders. Quite useful for us small traders in fact, but we are only incidental.
Hot money - chasing interest rates. Theres a lot of volume in that. Its maybe ruthless in its own way but not pitting itself against other traders in the market.
All that said I have no idea how volume much of the FX trades are speculation rather than trade / commercial client driven. But given the enormous size of international commercial trades it takes a hell of a lot to impact it in anyway....there are the big speculators - prop desks of banks. How big is this compared to trade related fx volume?
Are they not just following the flows anyway?
It seems to me that small traders in these markets are using their skill to get between the cracks and /orfollow trends of these large trades and skim off a profit (sounds kind of obvious).
I only see in the 'stop running' where there can be a battle of nerves, but on the whole its rare we are pitting ourselves against anyone specific. Just taking our chances and hopefully cutting our risks. The otherside of our short term trade may well be a long term hedge totally indifferent to our aims and our profit or loss.
Of course there are always winners and losers but they are not always up against each other except indirectly.
Similar in the stockmarkets - the big players are the asset managers / pension funds.
These trade daily, but have a long term outlook on the whole - are we 'up against them' ? They are the big price movers maybe yes, but generally we are following them not up against them.
***Quoted (out of context )from Trader_dantes post at
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/gen...an-you-ever-wanted-trading-6.html#post1209628
I used this post to quote out of context of the original post because it is a reference I recently saw that got me thinking.
(Tom, I hope you don't mind)
the quote above is an often enough stated concept in trading.
But I do wonder how much truth is there that we actually pit our wits against any other individuals / entities in the market really?
Looking at the FX markets - much of the activity is trade (ie international trade) related. Perhaps even the majority is.
The customers behind these trades are not pitting their wits against the market. They put their order to a bank who will generally provide them with a decent enough spot price. - No ruthlessness there just a commission order and a 'best execution' of sorts.
Swaps, fixes and other hedges - these may impact the FX market in that they create the support & resistance, especially around the big round numbers, but again - this is working to client orders. Quite useful for us small traders in fact, but we are only incidental.
Hot money - chasing interest rates. Theres a lot of volume in that. Its maybe ruthless in its own way but not pitting itself against other traders in the market.
All that said I have no idea how volume much of the FX trades are speculation rather than trade / commercial client driven. But given the enormous size of international commercial trades it takes a hell of a lot to impact it in anyway....there are the big speculators - prop desks of banks. How big is this compared to trade related fx volume?
Are they not just following the flows anyway?
It seems to me that small traders in these markets are using their skill to get between the cracks and /orfollow trends of these large trades and skim off a profit (sounds kind of obvious).
I only see in the 'stop running' where there can be a battle of nerves, but on the whole its rare we are pitting ourselves against anyone specific. Just taking our chances and hopefully cutting our risks. The otherside of our short term trade may well be a long term hedge totally indifferent to our aims and our profit or loss.
Of course there are always winners and losers but they are not always up against each other except indirectly.
Similar in the stockmarkets - the big players are the asset managers / pension funds.
These trade daily, but have a long term outlook on the whole - are we 'up against them' ? They are the big price movers maybe yes, but generally we are following them not up against them.
***Quoted (out of context )from Trader_dantes post at
http://www.trade2win.com/boards/gen...an-you-ever-wanted-trading-6.html#post1209628
I used this post to quote out of context of the original post because it is a reference I recently saw that got me thinking.
(Tom, I hope you don't mind)
