Arch 

Because HFT is in the microseconds and there’s no way you can reach that without an infrastructure to support that

Some are in Nanoseconds.

Matt Z
Optimus Futures

There is a substantial risk of loss in futures trading. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

mattz 

Some are in Nanoseconds. Matt Z Optimus Futures There is a substantial risk of loss in futures trading. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

Hence the absurd impracticality for retail traders to consider HFT, when you’ll need a custom FPGA to calculate and execute at that time scale, along with a direct connection to the exchange. Not worth it.

Arch 

Hence the absurd impracticality for retail traders to consider HFT, when you’ll need a custom FPGA to calculate and execute at that time scale, along with a direct connection to the exchange. Not worth it.

As I mentioned in the previous post most beginners confuse between HFT and scalping with a frequent level of trading, not because they really attempt HFT.

Matt Z
Optimus Futures

There is a substantial risk of loss in futures trading. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

mattz 

As I mentioned in the previous post most beginners confuse between HFT and scalping with a frequent level of trading, not because they really attempt HFT. Matt Z Optimus Futures There is a substantial risk of loss in futures trading. Past performance is not indicative of future results.

This gets to the heart of what I'm attempting to discover and reveal to myself. Thank you for that simple, but crisp definition. Scalping, albeit at a high frequency, higher than I could manually trade, is still scalping perhaps? I'm not equipped yet to know if micro-, mil-, or nano- second specificity and the ability and budget to deploy such a system will help or hurt my strategy; my guess is it would only improve things, but at what cost; cost here being defined , not only monetarily, but from a quality of process standpoint; do I really want to delve into a thicker environment? I have actually enjoyed the process up to this point so I can't complain too heartily, and moving about and understanding things at the retail level has not been too taxing. It is (my strategy endeavor) working on the live market which was unexpected, and seems profitable enough at a retail traders round trip cost, so perhaps I'm overthinking it. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts and expertise.

Cheers,
Bullywig

Arch 

Hence the absurd impracticality for retail traders to consider HFT, when you’ll need a custom FPGA to calculate and execute at that time scale, along with a direct connection to the exchange. Not worth it.

In many instances, absurd impracticality can be the fuel that drives imagination. Without it, would we ever attempt anything outside the box?

Cheers,
Bullywig