S&P500 at record highs - time to stay in or pull out?
Discussion
AyBee said:
Tells you a lot about the market when SPCE (Virgin Galactic) goes up 22% in a day just because the ticker is similar to SPCX 
Get into OPEN (may get mistaken for OPENAI)I suspect virgin is just going up because people want a piece of the space sector. There probably are a few fools who will get caught out by the ticker.
Tim Cognito said:
g4ry13 said:
Yes, they are constantly scraping the data feeds. Potentially Twitter as well.
If you have a person doing, it then you're too slow.
Wouldn't surprise me if they hooked into X data to see tweets before they go live. Every millisecond counts.If you have a person doing, it then you're too slow.
Interesting.
I would love to see the annual results, by some of the investors who do this millisecond trading.
We read about the technique and take the impression that these investors are in a completely differently league, perhaps doubling their money every day.
If +36% was possible last year, by doing absolutely nothing at all, and having total annual costs of £45, I was more than satisfied with that.
Big percentages occurred in my early stages, when the fund was small, but 2025 showed it can still occur, although very rarely that high.
I have the feeling, that millions of Pounds worth of computer servers and an instant fast Starlink, perhaps is not a guarantee that every transaction is a winner.
New vs old, but maybe old is still good enough for us.
Does anyone have factual results knowledge about such a comparison?
Jon39 said:
Interesting.
I would love to see the annual results, by some of the investors who do this millisecond trading.
We read about the technique and take the impression that these investors are in a completely differently league, perhaps doubling their money every day.
If +36% was possible last year, by doing absolutely nothing at all, and having total annual costs of £45, I was more than satisfied with that.
Big percentages occurred in my early stages, when the fund was small, but 2025 showed it can still occur, although very rarely that high.
I have the feeling, that millions of Pounds worth of computer servers and an instant fast Starlink, perhaps is not a guarantee that every transaction is a winner.
New vs old, but maybe old is still good enough for us.
Does anyone have factual results knowledge about such a comparison?
https://www.ft.com/content/c889e07e-db83-499a-93d2...
ooid said:
If you have subscription (or can see behind paywall), loads of good articles about one of the best there (Jane Street).
https://www.ft.com/content/c889e07e-db83-499a-93d2...
https://www.ft.com/content/c889e07e-db83-499a-93d2...
Thank you, S.
I read the article (magic helper).
Their figures show the huge increase in quarterly revenue, so presumably that would consist of client fees, in-house investments (they mention their own holdings in top tech) and other revenue streams.
Therefore, we cannot make any direct comparison, with our own portfolio performances.
After we discover, that long-term equity investing has been one of the best ways of building wealth, we are then either quite satisfied with that strategy, or perhaps sceptical that millisecond trading might be hocus pocus.
However, what a wonderful way of attracting new clients, who are perhaps not particularly interested in the investment subject.
It all sounds so modern, a breakthrough in obtaining brilliant investment returns. Clients would queue up to be allowed to participate.
Could it be that style of marketing theme, has anything to do with attracting a rapidly increasing number of customers?
If an investment system became so impressive, that everyone used it, then a mathematician would probably say that it cannot continue to work. If we say a market index roughly represents an average, some do better, some worse, then if everyone did better, than an average no longer seems possible.
There have been a few examples, where it has been more profitable to be a shareholder of an investment firm, than to be one of their investment clients.
Edited by Jon39 on Saturday 13th June 13:07
Jon39 said:
ooid said:
If you have subscription (or can see behind paywall), loads of good articles about one of the best there (Jane Street).
https://www.ft.com/content/c889e07e-db83-499a-93d2...
https://www.ft.com/content/c889e07e-db83-499a-93d2...
Thank you, S.
I read the article (magic helper).
Their figures show the huge increase in quarterly revenue, so presumably that would consist of client fees, in-house investments (they mention their own holdings in top tech) and other revenue streams.
Therefore, we cannot make any direct comparison, with our own portfolio performances.
After we discover, that long-term equity investing has been one of the best ways of building wealth, we are then either quite satisfied with that strategy, or perhaps sceptical that millisecond trading might be hocus pocus.
However, what a wonderful way of attracting new clients, who are perhaps not particularly interested in the investment subject.
It all sounds so modern, a breakthrough in obtaining brilliant investment returns. Clients would queue up to be allowed to participate.
Could it be that style of marketing theme, has anything to do with attracting a rapidly increasing number of customers?
If an investment system became so impressive, that everyone used it, then a mathematician would probably say that it cannot continue to work. If we say a market index roughly represents an average, some do better, some worse, then if everyone did better, than an average no longer seems possible.
There have been a few examples, where it has been more profitable to be a shareholder of an investment firm, than to be one of their investment clients.
Edited by Jon39 on Saturday 13th June 13:07
NowWatchThisDrive said:
The firm trades its own capital, there are no external clients/customers.
I see, so would their revenue mostly include; dividends and their portfolio unrealised valuation change from the previous quarter?
There would obviously be many operating costs to subtract from revenue, including cost of capital, but whether we could establish their pure fund percentage performance after costs, I don't know.
Jon39 said:
NowWatchThisDrive said:
The firm trades its own capital, there are no external clients/customers.
I see, so would their revenue mostly include; dividends and their portfolio unrealised valuation change from the previous quarter?
There would obviously be many operating costs to subtract from revenue, including cost of capital, but whether we could establish their pure fund percentage performance after costs, I don't know.
Comparing them to a fund's performance is apples and oranges really, their profit comes from spread/turnover on their own capital not being paid to manage other people's.
Better link below, 2 years old but good summary of what they were up to:
https://www.ft.com/content/54671865-4c7f-4692-a879...
https://www.ft.com/content/54671865-4c7f-4692-a879...
Jon39 said:
Interesting.
I would love to see the annual results, by some of the investors who do this millisecond trading.
We read about the technique and take the impression that these investors are in a completely differently league, perhaps doubling their money every day.
If +36% was possible last year, by doing absolutely nothing at all, and having total annual costs of £45, I was more than satisfied with that.
Big percentages occurred in my early stages, when the fund was small, but 2025 showed it can still occur, although very rarely that high.
I have the feeling, that millions of Pounds worth of computer servers and an instant fast Starlink, perhaps is not a guarantee that every transaction is a winner.
New vs old, but maybe old is still good enough for us.
Does anyone have factual results knowledge about such a comparison?
Tim Cognito said:
There is a book called Flashboys which investigates the high frequency trading stuff if you are interested. It's written by the same guy who did The Big Short.
I only have a passing interest and that is about what the net annual percentage returns might be, for the traders.
We are told publicly that-:
Academic and industry research consistently shows that 70% to 95% of day traders lose money. Long-term studies indicate that only about 1% to 5% of day traders are consistently profitable after accounting for transaction fees.
Hardly a recommendation, more a warning to stay well away.
You mention books being written. The old chestnut, where supposedly someone is making good returns, but for some strange reason, the person wants to sell books. Why bother? Such circumstances remind me of those Internet adverts, where a man wearing gold medallions, standing beside a Rolls Royce, tells us he is making a huge fortune through share trading and if we send money to him, he will send a book telling us how anyone can do it. -
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