Fight back against the trading bots

I trade on Kraken, and I have noticed that <em>the order book is increasingly controlled, it seems, by the trading bots</em>. I imagine that is the case on most exchanges.  There are a myriad of very small orders relatively close to the strike price, but the first significant order (to buy or sell) is usually a fair distance away.  Then, after you execute a market order, before you have time to refresh the screen the small orders you just took out are replaced with new mini orders.

Therefore, I know that if I place a market order the bots will make me pay more dearly than real live humans would.  But if I place a limit order, particularly if it’s a relatively large limit order, the bots will fill the book with small orders in front of mine within seconds.  It’s called front-running when the exchanges themselves do this. If it’s not illegal for exchanges to do this, it should be.  But for other traders, I guess these are the rules of a knife fight.

How to defeat these bots?

My strategy is to take a half-taker half-maker approach when I want to fill an order quickly.  In other words, suppose I want to fill an order quickly, buy or sell doesn’t matter, but I don’t want to give too much to the bots.  If I want to buy 100 coins, for example, I will find the limit price that will buy me 40-50 coins. I enter the limit order at that price.  What usually happens (not always, particularly not if a fast market) is the entire order is filled at my limit price within moments, as the bots kick in.

I share this info because I know the bots are eating you alive too.  Maybe together we can take away some of the bots unearned profits.
I will go out on a limb here and say it’s time to buy ltc. There is a little bit of room to the Fibonacci vortex support, but not much.  Firm support ~ $23.  Lets look at the Gann setup:

Here the picture is the same.  There was a spike low exactly at the end of the square, but recovered quickly to above the 5^th square.  I believe the low is in.  We will see.

ETH is sitting on long-tern 2×1 support and is exactly 90 degrees (dotted vertical line) after the beginning of this setup. It’s an energy time, so my guess is a rally will begin shortly. We will see…

DASH has just about gotten through 3rd arc resistance. I would wait for confirmation before buying, but this may be getting ready to do something also.

This 12 hour chart suggests another 3-4 days of rallying to ~ $2100.  When it gets there it will be a good idea to take some profits, IMHO.

XLM has closed above the 5th arc.  The top of the 5th square is tough resistance.  If it gets past there I will need to re-size my setup.  Let’s see what happens…

XRP is at 5th square resistance.  This is pivotal.  If it goes higher I will need to re-size my setup.  But it’s a good place to take some profits, IMHO.

ZECUSD looks weak, but it should be watched because it is almost at the end of the setup.  Reversals/accelerations often happen here.  Also, note that the 2×1 has provided excellent support for a very long time, and it is not far away…

Happy trading!