Understanding the Role of HFTs and Dark Pools for Day Trading

TSLA reports on Wednesday of this week, October 18th. Last quarter, it had a gap down on its earnings news based on Year over Year comparisons which triggered High Frequency Trading (HFTs) to gap the stock down. Quarter over Quarter, however, TSLA has shown consistent growth this year.

The problem with determining if the HFT gaps are likely to gap down or up on the next earnings report is the very low Percentage of Shares Held by Giant Buy-Side Institutions (PSHI). TSLA’s CEO has lost the necessary confidence of the largest Buy-Side Institutions in the world. So it's institutional interest is extremely low for such an important US company. The Buy-Side Institutions want the Board of Directors to replace Musk with someone who is more focused on TSLA to help it grow. The PSHI is likely to remain low until a new CEO is chosen.

The highest the PSHI has ever been was in July 2020 when it reached a high of 71%. It dropped to a low of 43% in November of 2021 and the stock has been sideways with very low PSHI ever since. It is very rare to see such low PSHI in a young new technology company with such high growth potential.

With less support from largest most influential institutions, the HFTs, which use retail news as one of their 6 primary algorithm triggers for automated orders as Maker/Takers, often gap a stock down on earnings news that was actually not negative.

Smaller Fund Managers, who have a special SEC classification with lower reporting requirements, often have VWAP automated orders trigger on high volume surges. This is often mistaken by smaller funds and retail investors or traders as “Dark Pool high volume activity,” when it is not.

High PSHI creates a natural liquidity draw and thus more momentum and speculative price action. This is missing much of the time for TSLA stock price movement.

The current sideways trend has existed since 2021, best seen on a Weekly Chart. The dimensions of the sideways trend and the irregularity of the price range determines whether the sideways trend is a Long Term Wide Trading Range, a Short Term Trading Range, a Wide Sideways Trend, or a Platform-Building Sideways Trend. This is a Long Term Trading Range due to the inconsistent highs and lows.

This is common in a stock that has PSHI below 60%.

On a Daily Chart, the fundamentals currently are within the rectangular shape outlined below. This area of price can be problematic for retail day traders as there are always portfolio adjustments going on by the Buy-Side Institutions who have ETFs and Index funds with TSLA as a component.


When the stock drops below that Buy Zone range, it quickly reverses and runs up into the lows of that fundamental range. This becomes a price range where there is conflict between retail day traders trying to trade on news and the Buy-Side Institutions accumulating inventory shares of TSLA for the Indexes or ETF Trust accounts that must maintain a value close to the ETF or index value upon which that ETF is based.

What happens intraday is a very choppy and indecisive price action up and down that causes whipsaw losses for day trading.

In order to successfully day-trade TSLA, these factors must be understood to use to one's advantage. This requires an understanding of how to identify a Dark Pool Sell Zone or a Dark Pool Buy Zone within the daily charts. It also requires an understanding of how HFTs trigger and how VWAP orders often cause whipsaw action as well.

Remember that Dark Pool data is not available during the trading day. That data is on Over-the-Counter Alternative Transaction Systems. Those orders are filled off the exchanges and are not transmitted to the National Clearing Houses until after the market closes.

Hence, ALL retail day traders are trading against an invisible entity whose orders they can’t see even on Level 2 screens. The art of day trading in harmony with Dark Pool activity requires what I call "Relational Technical Analysis."