I don't even really use a pit ticker. My theory is that 1) don't get too used to anything which is a byproduct of friction, and 2) the moment somebody starts waving his hands in the pit, long before those tick-punchers on the pier ever have a trade to input, those mini people in the bleachers see it, price it in, and send me a print to tell me about it. Plus, I can't remember the mini's ever having a print pulled.


I can do mini's for $5.00 a round turn, so long as I do them in round lots, even though it is usually split fills. I will be happy to trade in whatever timeframe activity overwhelms the ambient population of trend surfers in that timeframe. So, like, after the Fed moves, the S&P's get very trendy in a sub-1-minute timeframe. Or remember when that plane broke off its tail and went down in Queens, and the news kept dribbling in and dribbling in? That created a series of short-term trendiness explosion-and-decay events.


9/11 created an environment that was so darn trendy in the short term, I'd swear about a million new trend traders got back in business over night. Plus, it revived the trenders in the cash markets, the Island-ECN types. That creates redundancy, and it has been pretty chopped up ever since, thought improving a little bit lately.


Okay, I lost my train of thought, but you get the idea.


Oh, I remember when Timber Hill first started standing in the pit with those high-speed radio-books, placing one-lots. That was about the slowest, crappiest fill I ever got. I could have done better giving my ticket to a hotdog vendor out on Wacker Drive. But today, IB is The King.


eLROY