When lost in the hinterland between a hard days fantasising about new formulae for finding profits and the realm of deep sleep what does an algorithm trader dream look like?

We have the traders impossible algorithm floating like the good ship Bootle Bumtrinket on a steaming sewage ocean of bad instruments. It is driven by the money distorted lunatic bravado of a blind profit making magical ideal. Unseen in the murky arena are all the other algorithms eating each other's and their own excreted noise, slowly and surely distorting the direction of their intended goals.

♦ Me: Why have you put your symbol signature on the moon?
♦ KB: Every time I have tried any form of trading it makes me feel like I am the man on the moon.

♦ Me: You mean in a good, out of this world feeling?
♦ KB: No. Normally I feel like I can't breathe and my blood is going to boil as some invisible calamity takes place completely contrary to all the news and all that I can see in relation to what I anticipated would happen. Probably some algo' trader dream is working away vacuuming up my small stake.

♦ Me: Trading - not your thing then?
♦ KB: Except to see some of the things that happen, no. I am impressed/suspicious at how anyone can make money this way at the moment.

What is an algorithm trader?
It is a person (or company) that comes up with computer algorithms that take financial instrument data (like stock prices) and use it to determine buy and sell decisions. This can be used to make millisecond (or faster) buy and sell orders to rapidly make a profit (if all goes well)!

"Algo' Trader Dream" 30th November 2011. Acrylic (including metalics and glaze medium) on heavy 300gsm acid free canvas textured paper (from a pad of it). Aprox 42 x 29.7 cm excluding off white wood frame.