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FTSE / DOW YTD

Morning all.

Markets seem a bit nervous ahead of inflation data. Forecast 2.9%.

I'm keeping out now until the data comes through. Can't read the market - although we went up yesterday the volume was very muted for the first 6 hours of the day. I don't find the rally very convincing, much as I would like it to continue up.

https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-commodities-funds-computers/data-overload-commodity-hedge-funds-close-as-computers-dominate-idUKKBN1FW0E4

Reposted from last yesterday.

The article hit a nerve with me in two ways.

1. It appears to me that the ability of analysts or indeed Joe public to read a set of accounts and understand the fundamentals is no longer a requirement to placing good trades. I see too many stocks on very low P/E's for reasons I don't understand and they stay that way for very long periods of time. Years. 15 years ago any aberration would have self corrected over time but this just doesn't seem to be the case any longer. No matter how stupid the bots, fundamentals would have won out in the end. This doesn't seem to be the case any longer.

2. My day-trading days are pretty much over as a result of the bots. If there was a rule they had to leave their volume on the book for a quarter of a second and had to place trades of a minimum size of £1000 I'd be ok, but the present situation is stupid. Some of the order books are now completely unhelpful as there's so little volume on the book as it's all waiting in the background depending on what volumes are going through.
If I put any decent sized volume on the book and by that I mean as little as £15k on something like OSB, the volume is so large I get front run by the bots, never get a fill and push the price against me. This forces me to most of the time hit the bid or the offer rather than sitting on the book, so then I've got the spread plus the extra spread as there's bugger all volume on the book.
If I trade the larger market cap. stocks to avoid this I might as well go and trade the index, which is interesting at I've been doing more of this lately.

I still make money day-trading but not enough to live on, so I've become a long term investor now where I can still find an edge. Best to pick stocks with dividends though as the market can remain irrational for a very long time these days.

It's all a bit frustrating.

It would be interesting to know whether the algo's are making lots of money at the moment or getting whipsawed to death.

Oh and finally it would be nice to know what volume is available on the book.

I can see LSE , BATS and CHIX but some of my direct access orders are placed in the dark pools now, where sometimes it appears the dark pools get time preference over the other three exchanges.

A bit late :- UK inflation proves stickier than expected at start of 2018

FTSE 100 dips as strong pound dampens dollar-earners

Just sitting here doing nothing.

Too scared the Dow will drop 300 in 3 candles