Presto skaap simont and the clever people in the room

[Ben_ladin]

I have seen big volumes of shares put up at one bid to buy and force the other buyers to bid higher on bat. price,then that same big volume shares changes price lower and vanish from the bid side of the live price , and I checked every thing at that moment shares that was sold and price of last 30 deals . So I phoned jse and was told that this was algorithem trading {I hope it is spelled wright} so that means we are trading against machines or bots . Then we are going to loose here What do you clever people know about this ?

[Preston]

Dear Bin Laden, This market is loaded with Algo Traders and the mere fact that you have noticed this, tell me that you are a extremely bright boy or girl. Now strategies and play the game where the odds are in your favor.. Well done

[EkisDoep]

I heard this on TV last night - that majority of market is actually traded by algo! I suppose that's why the market makes such huge swings at times? So, it is not really traders that panic, it is simply machines executing programmes! Perhaps one can benefit from that?

[Vano]

Nah, it is the traders that panic. The machines have been programmed to take advantage of the panic (and the greed) of the traders. The advantage the machines have, is that they can execute their trades much faster than any human could possibly do. I have experienced this several times, e.g. buying STXfin at the machine's offer price, buying quantity far less than what the machine is offering. Result? only half of the bid goes through, the machine had time to take the bid off the table, and increase it's offer price half way through the transaction. This has happened to me several times already.

[Yatagan]

If that is true, then why do you not just double your order? That way, you get your quantity. Of course, if you have not done that, then obviously you do not believe it yourself..