until the 1980's dawn of HFT, the average hold period for a security, across the entire NYSE basket, was about 4 years.

"investors" were still "investors"

by the mid 90's, the timeframe had dropped to around 8 months.

in 2010, it was one session.

today?

the average holding period for a trade across all 13 majors and the 44* market centers is twenty two seconds.

pro houses pay tens-of-millions monthly in direct connectivity to hold onto a performance edge comprised of differential execution advantages that are measured in billionths of a second.

I hate to break the news, but daytraders can't outrun the machines. they can only try to outrun the other sacks of meat.

what we pesky legacy human beings do in the way of trading is becoming (or already is?) less and less relevant. except as to being the commissions-fee food for HFT, of course.

GLTA,

R.

* 45, if you count IEX.

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