Sneaky Trading - How to sell without being noticed

Whenever I use the word sneaky now I think of John Turturro playing the part of Emilio in the film Mr Deeds:

Longfellow Deeds : Whoa, you kinda snuck up on me there...
Emilio : I am, very very sneaky Sr.

Anyway, that is not what this is about.

Today (Friday, March 24, 2006), at around 12:55 EST, I was watching the Time and Sales window in the ES and noticed that someone was selling 100 lots in the ES fairly aggressively but doing it in a very sneaky manner.

This trader was selling in pairs that added up to 100 contracts and the trades went through at exactly the same time and either always added up to 100 and sometimes 200. Of course there could be many traders who employ this tactic and the more that you watch T&S the more you will see pairs of trades go through that add up to 100 (or multiples thereof).

I assume that the trader(s) in question want to get into a position and stay below the radar. They know that a lot of traders that watch T&S will filter size at 100 contracts. This way someone can sell 700 contracts or so and not have any of them noticed on these T&S windows and hide what they are doing from most traders - but not this sneak buster one

I urge you to spend some time watching the unfiltered T&S window and notice how many pairs go through that add up to 100 and sometimes 200, and more rarely 3, 4, 500 etc.

Interestingly, this trader was hitting the bid at 1312.00 and by 13:15 the market had traded below 1310.00 giving him/her 2 points on more than 600 contracts. Excellent trading Sneaky Trader!!!

Daytrader

Thanks for the great post, I too have watced the time and sales window the noticed the same but thought maybe I was imagining things, so thanks for the heads up, nice job.
Mark

You're welcome Mark. What amazed me and prompted this posting was the frequency with which you see those pairs go through. I'd love to sit down and analyse that data but I can't see how I can justify the time to do that because I can't see how that would improve my trading or allow me to develop more of an edge...