Yes, in that context you are correct. I'm just saying If the market was all day traders and nothing else, there wouldn't be enough dumb money out there for the big players, citadel, virtu, rentec, 2 sigma, etc. to be in existence to profit from. They would need to take money from each other which isn't doable long term since they all have about the same level of sophistication. There would be no game to play without the longer term players. Thats what makes day trading even possible. The past 1 day hold time. (that creates trends) Otherwise, yes random (meaning game not winnable) Which circles back to my point the market is tradeable because longer term players create value opportunities.
If the ES has in over 90% of the time a next quote that is never more than 1% away from the previous one, it is clear that prices are not random. If random they should vary much more. They should jump up and down 10,20,30,40,50...%. Which almost never happens. The same in stocks, but there the 1% moves should be replaced by 10%.
well es is arbed so it would't get too out of wack anytime otherwise free money. and stocks have requirements for multiple firms to quote both sides all hours of the day.
Price limits are most days not touched, so the rules you refer to are irrelevant. The markets move less than the pricelimits which proofs that these price limits don't limit the "random" moves most of the time. To make them relevant these price limits should be hit many times. Which is not the case. And even if your reasons are relevant it proofs that prices are not random. The reason why prices are not random are irrelevant. Only the fact they are not is relevant. There is always a reason why they are not random. Otherwise they would be random.
You named mostly HFT firms that ALREADY make their money from each other! My mechanic has 25 shares of amzn (worth about 50K today) he has held for over a year. And you are saying he's the target!?! LOL. Okey Dokey! Last I checked AMZN has average DAILY volume of around 6 million: about 17 Billion of value. Even with lots of 10000 shares (worth over 2.5 million), that would mean over 1.7 million dumb money "investors", you know, the ones that hold longer term to create a trend, LOL, are exiting their shares every day and support the big players! Do you realize how that thesis is just ridiculous?
Random doesn't need to mean random numbers, but random fluctuations, as in Brownian motion, which is used to price options: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brownian_motion "This pattern of motion typically consists of random fluctuations"
How can random fluctuation be recognized as a pattern? if something is random, there is no pattern. Otherwise, random itself is a recognized pattern.
That's the difference between random numbers and random fluctuations. Random numbers don't draw patterns, just noise, like punching a piece of paper with a pen at random points. While random fluctuations draw patterns, just as if you held a pen to the paper and moved it in random directions & steps, without specific logic. You and your pen will then draw a random pattern.
I understand what you are saying. IRL however, eyesight, range of hand and arm movement, balance, and Im sure several other inputs could be analyzed to "predict" the "randomness" of the drawing. I am in the @volpri camp... there is no noise. There is no random movement in the markets.