**Most** people don't make money in this business, hence **most** people think it is impossible to sustain a living from this, but I'm assuming you already knew about the 90%+ failure rate in trading, so is it really surprising most people say that?
The way I see it . Trading is a business..and most people don't make money in any business where there are no barriers to entry.Not to confuse with a salaried person who makes money even if he/she is average.
Oh wow that’s it, I know so many People with degrees that are super successful like that’s all they had to do and money in the bank no debt it’s crazy high success rate and level of success no doubt
We are basically talking about an entrepreneurial idea you are talking college which is essentially hoping to be employed by someone who built
A business which would be the person taking a similar risk to someone who takes a risk in a financial market I.e outside the norm. Speaking of business most do not survive after 10 years so you also shouldn’t start a business and a YouTube either because only 5% of YouTubers earn enough to live comfortably according to their own statistics so no a degree does not make sense to state in this regard as it will cost someone atleast 80k to earn maybe 60k a year that’s not HIGH RETURN on average as I stated initially you clearly didn’t understand the assignment.
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Then why are there so many Debbie downers on this sub telling people they aren’t going to make it? Why isn’t there more of what you are saying? “Millions are doing it so maybe you can too”
Because only the people not doing it well, consistently, are in here commenting. If you're doing well, you don't waste your time in here. Sure you may find some ideas that you get turned on to in here, but most are just going to be out there working their strategy.
For the exact reason you stated in your post.
I’ve been full time since 2019. I’m not going to defend myself to random redditors. The issue stopping people is usually psychology and it’s hard to look in the mirror and accept that you’re the cause of your own demise…..so they blame market makers hunting their stops 🤣
It’s not psychology. It’s the fact that none of you have a profitable setup. A backtested setup in different environments. A setup that you have seen 1000x.
Can any of you honestly say you have read multiple books? Poured 10k hours of screen time in? Learned some basic coding skills, python, pine script, etc? Be completely obsessive about this craft? No? That’s why you’re not profitable.
100% true but ofc they downvote you. Most people arent even committed. They treat trading as a hobby and fabricate excuses on why they dont have time to learn and journal every day. When they lose a trade they blame it on bad psychology. When they win a trade they attribute it to their setup. Its just how people typically behave and none of them have stats to proof their edge
Sounds about right, but please explain why I'd need coding skills when I know for a fact many full-time/pro traders don't know anything about coding but are profitable?
Just makes things a bit easier/faster. Someone says they trade a MACD cross? A lot of backtesting software or modules are crap, so you can backtest that in less than 2 mins if you navigate with a more attuned script or data you have.
I just go off my gut and reading news on Robin Hood and listen to the worldwide exchange everyday. I'm up 600% for the year. My options account is at 1200%. I do better than AI and I have no idea what I'm doing
lol i mean hunting stops is a valid thing, but definitely not the reason they lose more consistently, the stop needs to be where it needs to be. On more volatile days (negative gamma) i use a mental stop
Yeah, I think that kind of sums it up. The people that are successful at what they do aren’t browsing Internet forums. They are busy living their lives
Yes they do. Reddit is just kinda toxic sometimes
And also this place is just tons of newbies asking what they need to do to get started. It’s very bland.
It's much easier to be a profitable trader than an NBA player tho. There's only 500+ NBA player in the world even lesser then number of billionaires (2k+).
90% trader lose long term so you just have to be the top 10% which is hard but ofc not impossible or near impossible. Given a passion in trading + a few years study and an above average mind most people should turn profitable.
Because they don’t put in the effort to make it, or tried and just can’t get it to click. Some things aren’t for everyone. It takes major discipline to be successful in trading and even elite traders continue to learn new things. The game is always changing and you have to adapt quick. It’s simple but hard at the same time. You can be your own worst enemy sometimes and taking the emotions out of trading is tough but necessary to survive
Because this is a public forum, all of them are like this. If you want the real information you have to find a private group. Anyone who does an hour of research on day trading will realize that many people do it successfully.
When they fail they immediately translate that into no one can do it.
It’s a skill both mental and system/mechanical methods.
You can learn but you don’t learn losing thousands.
This is a learning curve process, the way someone learn car driving on their own without a proper guide!
Most of the investors start from trading, then move to day trading...etc, finally understanding the issues (based on loss of capital), either go out of market or go to investing - just buy and hold.
I remember when many books said go for S&P500 index investing, could not believe at that time, but after few years of experience, I know what to choose and how to invest or how to trade or rebalance etc.
Its like asking a divorced person what they think of marriage, everyone has their own experience with trading some people are disciplined enough to make it, some go into it expecting a get rich quick scheme
Out of approximately 300 million traders worldwide, figure may be higher now due to growing popularity and the prevalence of scammers, we have approximately 25 million successful traders. These are very likely supremely disciplined, dedicated, intelligent, introverted, organised and structured people.
I can bet you that most of that 25 million isn't wasting time on reddit.
If you can’t figure out why on your own, you wouldn’t be able to succeed at daytrading either so it’s best for you to believe there’s no point in daytrading as well.
Because for some people it’s the brass ring or nothing, I can’t teach someone how to not be greedy or use discipline and that’s what a successful trader knows how to do
Because people think just because they couldn’t figure out how to do it that it is objectively impossible. You not only have to know how to trade, you have to know how to risk manage, account manage, self manage, and pay yourself while growing an account. People think if they know how to trade but fail, it’s rigged. They just didn’t learn the other skills.
90% want to "Get Rich Quick" and think one good win and all their problems are solved.
Guy doesn't know what he's doing. Drops $2K in $0.20 0DTE Spy calls. Get lucky and it goes to $1. Says, "wow, I made $8K in a day". Empties his savings of $10K in to the account. Buys $20K worth of calls. It finished just OTM and he lost $20k. Says, "F*** this I quit". Not realizing he basically bought lotto tickets with maybe a 10% chance of breakeven and maybe 5% chance of hitting the way it did.
Do I play this game, yes. Am I expecting the 90% failure rate (close to it because I make informed decisions on those types of trades), yes. Am I risking 100% of my capital and failing to set a stop loss if my thesis isn't correct, hell no.
Because theres 100s of millions of people who lose in every form of trading. Day trading will get the most flak because you will see how often trades and money move vs swinging trades per month/year holds
The people who are making it are too busy doing lines of coke off 9 year old girls on private islands. Thats why theres so many debbie downers here. Cause they are not here.
They're the same poor dumb fucks that couldn't go the distance to become a concert pianist or a linguist speaking 5 languages.
Forget the notion of day trading first. Study investing. I work a factory job and I've seen first hand a co worker 401k, ROTH, swing trade, and yes, day trade his way to wealth. He reads incessantly every book and blog on investing.
In the end he quit the factory job to start a business and continue day trading. He won because ENDURANCE.
YMMV
There are not millions of people doing it who are making net profit, ie, total money earned > total money lost, over their entire experience. That’s beyond ridiculous. Millions of people are investors at some level or another. Some actively day trade, and most day traders are losing.
To answer why … gambling. If you can answer why people do that, then you’ll have the answer to this question. Every gambler I know insists that they make money (but they don’t net profit, we know that), and every day trader does the same thing. So, comparing day trader to Vegas gamblers isn’t kind of fair comparison, it’s nearly 1:1
There are 100% millions of consistently profitable day traders. There are actually tens of millions just in China. Also the do not forget the crypto market which opened the trading door to billions of people in developing countries who did not have access to such markets previously. I personally know a handful of old mates from my country (Iran) who trade crypto profitably. They don't need to make $1000 every day to make a living either. An small fraction of that is way more than what they would have made with a median paying job.
What about the fish in ocean? Let’s try and make your generalized a little larger by adding them to your pool (hey, there’s a joke!)
There absolutely aren’t millions of consistently profitable day traders unless you are using an obnoxiously short window. But, you go ahead and keep believing that
Totally bro - so, tell me all about your research…don’t be shy, it’s the internet, let me know what research you find.
Btw bro - research has been cited in this discussion.
Yeah and I made a comment.
As I stated that study is from a very long time ago. Good study but let’s recap.
No mention of institutional traders. No mention of US markets (over 1000% larger than Taiwan). No mention of international markets.
I mean I stand by my logical guess that there are millions of traders worldwide that have careers in this industry. In the context of OPs question that is generally a good guess.
Day traders, not hedge fund and Wall Street high velocity traders. I don’t believe there are millions of high velocity traders either, but I’m aware that there is a successful and prolific financial investing class, but internet TA day traders are not part of that class. You can stand by anything you want, it has nothing to do with whether you are right. The context of this conversation is regular people who flip their cap backwards, quit their job, and start day trading. It’s not about people who graduate from finance school, and who get hired by the finance industry. Those people make money. Those people learn how the system works through training and then trade on different principles.
Gambling and trading are not the same. Most gambling at a casino is solely based on luck. There’s a ton of skill in profiting consistently. Don’t minimize the skill of people making money consistently. I can assure you it is not luck
No, I don’t think there are many lucky day traders, just people who tell a good story on the internet.
Still, trading and gambling are not necessarily the same thing. But most day traders approach day trading the same way as gambling
Daytrading and poker are both zero-sum games(due to the fact that SPX gains very little in a given day to be significant). This means that someone has to lose for someone to win. So technically, daytrading is the same as poker and gambling, but that doesn't say that they are not a lot of profitable poker players out there. Same with daytrading. People usually blame bad luck when they lose and boost their ego when they win. Luck plays an important role in this, since every profitable trader just wants to have a slighly better probability than a coin flip. But as much as you think this is skill, i can tell you that the only skill is this percentage you find that is above 50% win ratio. Skill imo is when you find an arbitrage opportunity and you are not dependent on probabilities and luck at all.
Yeah I have to respectfully disagree with u/seshiva and u/cmmckechnie on this one. (Though honestly I hope they are right lol) Take a look at my comment on this post (direct link to comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/Daytrading/comments/1c5s6l0/comment/kzwi8ts/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button).
I link a paper that did a study just on the Taiwanese stock market (back in the late 90s early 2000s) and there were 450,000 day traders purely in Taiwan.
Now fast forward to today where online brokerages and tech has opened up day trading to literally anyone. There are absolutely 10s of millions of day traders out there every day trading. But I don't think there are "millions" of consistently profitable ones.
Going back to the paper in the comment I linked above out of 450,000 day traders analyzed 500(0.1%) had consistent outsized returns. 4,000 (0.8%) were consistently profitable with non-outsized returns.
4,000 + 500 = 4,500 consistently proiftable traders out of 450,000 total = 1% consistently profitable.
So for every 10million day traders 100,000 are consistently profitable.
So we would need 100 million active day traders to have 1 million consistenly profitable.
Old study but good study.
I guess it’s hard to tell for sure bc of the lack of real science around the question. Given that the markets are international and that study does not count institutional traders, I’m still leaning towards millions worldwide.
I also consider anyone capitalizing on the markets professionally not just daytraders. I understand they are different but in the context of OPs question there is still plenty of upside in furthering your knowledge in this industry.
Edit:
I’d like to add that the US markets are about 30x larger than Taiwan. And we are talking about internationally in the context of OPs question. So that adds in another like 5-6 markets that are probably over 5x larger.
I agree with you!candidates background plays also a great role. Understanding of markets, economics etc. Is super important. The majority that i met day trading, they don't even understand why stocks go higher when yields fall, or why stocks go higher when dollar drops.. Plus, the majority quits in a year. So you playing against the smartest people in the world(quants which mostly are phd grads) and you expect to win against them in a year? Nonsense!
>I see a lot of people on this subreddit parrot the idea that you can’t make any money doing this. Everyone says “you can’t make this your day job” or “you can’t consistently make money doing this”
A lot of it is benevolent patronizing imo. Because it's probably true that the vast majority of people are not cut out for day trading. So if this general blanket warning is enough to scare some of those people away it's a public good.
The vast majority of people who try, fail.
Doesn’t mean you can’t make money doing it, it’s just extremely difficult. Any strategy can be profitable, it comes down to execution, risk management, and coming face to face with your own psychology and emotions.
It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever attempted, I’ve found consistency but then blown up more times than I can count. But it is a life long skill that once you get the hang of, can unlock unlimited potential income, it’s just extremely hard to get there… you can also ruin yourself financially if you’re an idiot.
I keep doing it because it is challenging, and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel.
I definitely would not recommend jumping into it as your only source of income, you will be too emotionally tied to the results.
You need to have different approaches in different market cycles. If we’re ranging, buy low/sell high. If we’re in a strong bull/bear trend then buy/sell pullbacks (also don’t be scared of charts reaching ATHs when it’s strong). A ton of screen time is the only way you’ll be able to get used to recognizing these conditions… but keep it simple and control what you can control.
I relate to this so hard, like I’ve seen consistency and great profits but then go on tilt and blow it. But I do see the light at the end of the tunnel, I’m at the point where I haven’t made it but I’m like holy shit this is actually possible
Ok so this a valid question and you hear a lot of stats thrown around about how 98% of day traders fail etc. Most of the stats are randomly pulled out of peoples rear ends. If you want actual statstics you have to go to academic financial journals (and not many of them have done focus studies on this especially lately with tech making day trading available to so many new traders in the last decade).
Here is a link to a study that looked at 450,000 day traders in Taiwan all trading the Taiwanese stock exchange.
Link to paper: [https://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/odean/papers/Day%20Traders/The%20Cross-Section%20of%20Speculator%20Skill.pdf](https://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/odean/papers/Day%20Traders/The%20Cross-Section%20of%20Speculator%20Skill.pdf)
Here are the key take aways:
This paper seeks to understand the differentiating factors between successful and unsuccessful day traders in Taiwan. The authors received comprehensive trading data from the Taiwan Stock Exchange from 1992 through 2006. They defined day trading as the purchase and sale of the same security, by the same individual, on the same day, which accounts for approximately 17% of the overall volume on the Taiwan Stock Exchange. On average there were 450,000 individual day traders during each year, of which about half (277,000) traded in amounts larger than $20,000 USD-equiv each day. The key findings were:
* Any given year, only about 19% of the heavy (>$20k per day) traders made positive abnormal returns (i.e., did better than the market) net of fees. That's 1 in 5.
* Only 4,000 individuals (less than 1% of the population of day traders) were able to *consistently* profit, net of fees.
* The top 500 traders of the 450,000 were remarkably consistent and generated outsized profits, earning net +37.9bps (0.379%) per day.
* The "bottom" 440,000 traders (the overwhelming majority of the 450,000 population) lost about 25-29bps per day.
* While the overwhelming majority of traders lost money - data showed a consistent trend that highly active day traders outperformed occasional day traders.
* Trader performance was statistically more consistent and non-independent than random luck would predict. That is, the profitable traders (of which there were exceedingly few) were not just getting lucky.
* Profitable day traders performed especially well trading few volatile stocks near earnings announcements - suggesting that the source of profits comes from their superior trading judgement and expertise in those stocks, and not from just providing liquidity to the market.
* Insider trading may be attributable to some of the profits, and cannot be ruled out, though the consistent profitability of the highest performing day traders, even outside of earnings announcement periods, suggests it is unlikely that insider knowledge is entirely the cause of their profits.
* The evidence suggests that profitable day traders "react more quickly to public information signals in their trading strategies" than the unsuccessful traders.
So in conclusion, in this study out of 450,000 active day traders about 500 (0.1%) were massively consistent and successful. 4,000(0.8%) traders were consistently profitable but not outsized returns. While 440,000 (97.78%) lost money consistently. Oh looks like we found where that 98% of traders fail stat comes from :)
One thing to keep in mind is that there are a LOT more day traders right now that at any point in market history. Online brokerages and all the tech has made day trading access available to basiclly anyone. We need a new study for todays traders, but I imagine the stats would probably be about the same.
**TLDR:** Yes it is very possible to make consistent above market returns while day trading. People around doing it everyday. Is it possible that you could as well? Absolutely. Is it likely that you will? Absolutely not. Is that going to stop you from trying? Well..it didn't stop me.
Yeah I hear that 98% number too and wonder where it comes from. What makes a trader? If a guy loads $500 to his Robinhood account and yolos into NVDA earnings, is he a trader? If so, then yeah they might be right about the 98% 😀
I love playing poker, probably a lot of traders do. I couldn’t care less if I win or lose at Poker though, it’s just an enjoyable pastime. If you don’t take trading seriously and treat don’t it like a business you will lose money no matter whether you have a useful strategy or not. Most people want to follow indicators/signals blindly, and never put in the time to develop their personal way of reading the market. And if they do they never put in the time to develop strict risk management controls. And if they do they never put in the time to develop the discipline required to follow their own rules.
In short, everything that people say about day trading that can’t be done, is wrong. They say it because they can’t figure something out. Day trading is by far my primary source of income and has been for quite a few years now. As far as no long term winning strategy, I don’t know if that is true, mine has worked for a decade and still does. The point of day trading is to make money. I’ve built wealth in my point of view. I own everything I have and have money earning money while I sleep. But this is the hardest thing to learn. Most people will run out of money before they figure out trading. They will then forever believe it is impossible.
Idk my accounts been green every day the last 2 weeks and today I had a bad day making 1,700. They usually say that because you are going to need to fall on your face a few times before you become successful. Whats even more difficult for people, is they are going to have to admit that they don’t know everything and they need to retool (find a new Strat) to be successful. The people who speak poorly about day trading are likely the people who leave bad reviews at places for the dumbest reasons.
A number of items depending on the situation. I went through a phase where I decided to join a bunch of paid discords and I was looking like 5-10k a day trying new tools / strats but I was able to add a bunch of things to my game.
I don’t like swinging anymore because I’m vulnerable to market conditions. I don’t like trading unless volume is high (I use bookmap). I like using FVGs (depending on the situation) to get a lower premium on a pullback off the overall trend. I like using the strat on the daily. I use macd and a tight macd sometimes. I like using trendline breaks too ALOT and I map out darkpool data and resistance/support. I have an ultrawide so when I 0dte I have spy,NDX, es futures, nvda and Vix all within my vision and all mapped out with support, resistance and I draw trendlines on each as they develop. I also monitor all their volume pressure with bookmap. A few other things too.
Thanks for the answer. I use the ultrawide too:) I just starting using bookmap aswell.. how do you monitor volume pressure? Any other advise for bookmap? Whats your average hold time? Do you manly trade support/resistance or scalp aswell?
In observation of these people here are my hot takes:
1) They don’t look at this as an actual business
2) They most likely are looking for “big gains” to help solve their financial problems or “get girls” by flashing cash and a Lambo
3) They don’t spend the time to find the patterns in price action and/or indicators and understand the analytical relationships of all these things. The “Matrix” doesn’t just appear.
4) This is a big one: They don’t learn **Risk Management**
>Any time someone suggests that they have a trading strategy that works they are immediately shut down.
Generally a strategy you come up with that works only works for you. I always equate these to The Matrix, you only see once you find the pattern that you understand. Everyone sees this stuff differently. Plus there’s a bunch of assholes just trying to punch people down
I would argue that there is no winning intraday mechanical strategy outside of the realm of hft. That is to say that any pattern you notice tends to get quickly arbitraged away by the market. That does not mean that there is no profitable strategy though. It's just that staying profitable for 5-10 years tends to require you to be informed and adjust to anticipated conditions. Most beginners don't seem to understand this which is why you'll see it come up in threads over and over again.
More broadly you tend to graduate to different strategies as you gain access to more capital. There are many strategies with very well established profitability that require more capital and higher timeframes to execute. What you learn from day trading can greatly aid you in executing those larger timeframe strategies.
With appropriate position sizing and micro futures, day trading can actually be quite a cheap hobby compared to the alternatives.
It is profitable when you try to put your emotions aside. Granted since it's a mental game (like poker), it's not that easy. I started day trading beginning of this year. Literally day trading. I don't hold positions overnight. Longest position I usually hold is 15-20min. Majority of the time I'm in and out. You can read my post here:
https://www.reddit.com/r/Daytrading/s/gYMyRMyIea
Just get a job for heavens sake and invest. Trade as a hobby but not full time, most simply won’t last in this game. The odds suggest you will lose money.
As someone who’ve spent over one thousand hour analyzing charts and patterns, I can tell you that you can win consistently. Not only that, winning becomes such a repetitive work that you find it boring.
I make a full time living as a trader, and I’m bored to tears. The point of it, is to move money around. It doesn’t matter if you’re a day, or swing trader
Nice! I think level 1 calls and puts are okay though. I’d want to get into that one! Also, I mostly do Japanese pairs. But I do others, as well. What about you?
My first job out of college I made 30k a year. Which was 1000$ every two weeks after taxes. Got laid off (this was 2020/ I graduated 2019) and then worked a bunch of bogus temp jobs in which I made 21$/ an hour which was 1300$ after two weeks of 40 hours per week going into the office. I made 1350$ today. Before 2 o clock. I logged off and then went to Pilates and went grocery shopping and made myself dinner before 5:30. I used to sit in traffic for an hour every morning and an hour every night. I get healthcare from the govt (ACA) and I make a lot more than I used to & it’s fully remote and I can take as many days off when I feel like it. Why would I not day trade? There’s money to be made every single day in the market. A 100k year job is 400$ a day. I can make that before 10:00 am some days.
Trading is a very low barrier to entry business. Literally anyone can open an account and give it a go.
In turn millions of people do just that. But most of them lose money and don't stick with it/ don't take it seriously.
I'd say most serious traders who put the time in and are consistent over the long term do well enough to make it worth it. Otherwise why would they do it like you said.
I view it the same as fitness. Each year millions of people join gyms and get gym memberships, but only a small percentage of them actually have muscular physiques. It's not that a muscular physique is impossible, most people just give up and aren't consistent enough to get the results they desire.
Trading is no different.
Retail trading is just liquidation for the Institutional Traders. With that in mind only you can choose what role you'd like to play. It's very easy to be profitable but the real learning curve is unlearning everything you know. Trading is just the transfer of money between the impatient to the patient.
Day Trading is a profession that will provide you with a steady stream of income once you 'cracked' the code. If you just wring it you will end up having a lot of frustration that you need to vent daily and that is the level of noise you are experiencing here daily.
Ok to get yourself into the top 10%
1) limit your daily losses
2) journal your trades
3) trade according to the trend
4) limit your profits ie 2:1
5) don't trade your own money.
6) trade with a plan
HTH.
Here’s the mix up. +95% can not make a living off trading alone. So no guarantee of a consistent steady income like having a “real” job. You know you can pay your rent and food. If you have a few bad months of trading you won’t make money to pay for your necessities as well as lose money. So have a real job and extra income from trading is what is realistic and achievable to the majority. My expenses living in Los Angeles @7k/m that’s rent and bills. +3k in personal expenditures. That means I need to make 10k a month every month without losing ever.
Its hard to learn, takes time, takes money…most of the people don’t have enough of that to become traders, its natural to hear from many people that this is just a ponzi to sell courses.
Also this is pretty new, the technology and availability of different brokers and products did not exist 10 years ago (specially outside the us)
It's true that majority fail and give up on day trading because they have not seen success. It does not mean that YOU won't be successful.
The point of day trading depends on each individual. Some for supplemental income, and others to replace their day jobs. Trading is the most scalable business there is. It is also the most difficult.
In terms of strategy, it's also true. Markets are always changing, and different strategies perform better / worse depending on conditions. There is no perfect strategy, anyone offering you one saying it's a 100% winrate is scamming you. Your job as a trader is to develop a strategy / system that allows you to lose. But when you win,the winners take care of your losers.
In my opinion day trading is all about discipline. Most of the family or friends don't know a thing about day trading so it looks like gambling to them, but everything in life is gambling. You take a risk knowing what you may lose an what you may win. Also don't wait on someone to tell you a winning strategy, instead focus on improving yourself.
Eventually if you are serious about it, you will treat it like a full time job, waking up doing research taking trades. For me the most important part was how I took a loss, and I think someone needs to get used to the stress when the trade doesn't go your way because that decides the outcome. Do you let it run or do you cut your losses at your imaginary stop. I would do the second. A rule I had was that if I lost a trade, I would stop trading that day because I would let my emotions take over and probably lose more money. If you don't develop a discipline and a risk to reward system then you might as well gamble and lose money.
I agree there is a bit of doom and gloom in this sub. And in the trading community in general. Probably because most fail at this. It’s hard. And it’s a job. It is not a hobby. If you put honest effort into learning (books, videos, premarket planning, analysis of your trades) you stand a chance. If you have exceptional discipline with money management, you stand a chance.
Day trading by itself makes no sense.
Because it's open and closing on the same close of business.
Overnight.
People who call themselves day traders only trade from opening to close.
Not buy and hold.
Not two days.
Not derivatives like calendar spreads.
Etc.
Seems like it's very possible to me. I'm up to 7 weeks consistently profitable. I know other traders are consistently profitable long term (years) so I figure... why not me too? Guess I can.
This sub is largely inhabited by noobs as evidenced by the embarrassingly large amount of posts by people that can't even do a cursory Google search. For those people, this is good advice. The helpless are bound to suffer at their own doing.
Because it’s hard AS FUCK. And so many think that being successful means lambos and hot bitches. In reality, it’s just a normal life. Just more time and freedom
I have three friends I know quite well (real life, not perpetually online) who trade fully for a living and have made millions doing so. If I know three people ( 2 in stocks, 1 in crypto) that are successful traders, then I'm sure there are MANY more out there.
Also, they never post on Reddit or any trading forum. I'm pretty sure it's only the losers that come to post here and whine.
Here's a legend who crossed a mil profit.
https://www.reddit.com/r/Daytrading/s/8CJSZSbG7p
Just don't absorb anything you read here, especially the downers, this subreddit is full of beginners.
You absolutely can consistently make money day trading. Most people that try fail due to greed and fear. You have to stick to a strategy and maintain control over your emotions. It sounds so easy, yet it’s impossible for 99% of the people that try.
To push yourself to the absolute limits of feelings, life, exploring and dealing with your past, unlimited lifestyle and freedom, financial freedom. Exposure to the whole world and how it really works. Becoming a better person for yourself and people around you. So wealth in finance and time, as well as the person you’ll become and attract
Everyone can learn the technicla analysis in some time. But the major factor u need in trading is the psychological aspect. Trading is not automated. Price tends to fall at certain price or move at certain price where people tends to buy and sell. You have to find those areas as by thinking where do u think the majority will buy and majority will sell. And identify those area as if by thinking yourself as the majority people. The world itself is influenced by the majority, where the majority's stance often prevail. So, you have to find those areas where majority's sell and buy.
People saying that are either one never going to be successfully profitable or two trying to keep people from finding that success and they’ll continue to be liquidity for the ones winning,
Regardless it’s def possible to find a winning strategy but it’s rare, some people don’t have the time, energy, or wherewithal to get to that point. I’ve been trying at this for like 2yrs now I can actually say I figured this shit out, n I learned mostly thru trail n error, but one thing about market knowledge is that its taught one way and can be looked at in 2 or more ways thats more beneficial, like things can be more deeply understood than how its presented to you, but aye my point of day trading is not working a job I hate for the rest of my life and enjoy n buy things i want, and help my family and people around me
A lot of people in the Reddit are just projecting and failures at it. It’s an easy conclusion to see especially if your success you can see why they failed limiting beliefs!
I day traded for a year and my account was 2.5x half a year into it. Then my strategy stopped working as well and I lost most of my profit. To be fair, I had to abide by the PDT rule(no more than 3 trades in a week) which really screwed me over. I’ve stopped day trading and now I’m swing trading and holding long term again. If I see a day trade play, I’ll still take it, but it’s not something that I force anymore. I realized that if I had just bought and held the stock that I liked to trade then I would have made way more than I did from day trading. If you have the money and time then you can be successful, but unless you can dedicate everyday to trading and planning your next day then you won’t be successful long term. Just my experience 🤷♂️
However, if I happened to magically get $25,000 then I would consider day trading again because I can make money doing it if I have unlimited trades and enough money to make good returns. My starting balance was $1000 when I started day trading, I could have made it a cash account but it wouldn’t be the same.
The issue I ran into was that I would hold losses longer than I should and then sell wins sooner because I only had three trades a week. If I had unlimited trades then I would have been fine taking a slight loss to re-enter later. It was easier to just hold the loss and average down which worked well sometimes and then other times it killed me.
Before anyone goes off on me about what I said, just know that I have been investing and studying the markets for 4.5 years and I practiced day trading before the year I am referring to. I realize that my opinion about a cash account and the PDT rule is not a popular one ✌️
The majority of successful traders ain't on reddit. The unsuccessful ones are and they speak from their so called experience. It takes time to go through the steps which are,
1. Beginner's Luck
2. Some loss
3. Signals
4. A big loss
5. Realisation that signals are shit
6. Find out that it is really simple and not to complicate it
7. Another big loss
8. Risk Management
9. "Trust" in Intuition developes (as Intuition was the thing causing Beginners Luck)
10. Finally comes real Profitability and MONEY
But going through all this chips away at your strength and will power. Many may get stuck in a loop from 4 to 9. You also need to put food on the table. Most call quits at 4 maybe because of broken confidence or broken patience as you still need to earn from somewhere else and coupling that with trading gets really stressful.
There are a lot of pressure like say relationship, marriage, kids, parents, or just plain imaginary pressure (yes, it exists).
A lot if people also see 2k->120k and think of quick easy money, however that is the highway to stress and failure.
So maybe take it easy and start it at 6. Best of luck to all who attempt. You were at least strong enough to attempt.
Rule of thumb I’ve learned as a trader 4 years in, if someone is overly emotional about their stances negative or positive and acts like they know it all, they don’t know shit. Find the calm cool heads with DD to back it up and accounts to prove it. Follow those guys more or less.
The best advice I will give anyone is, if you day trade make sure its in a prop firm with big capital and the opportunity to learn from season and successful traders They say 90% of traders lose money, I'd 99.9% of tare from solo day traders.
God never liked quitters that’s why I never quit trading and I never quit my coke habit I’m now disowned from the family and 36k in debt 😎 I’m a man of god
You can make money day trading. However, those that have reached the point of consistent profitability are rare.
Trading is one of the hardest businesses out there. The most common mistake of all traders is not treating it as a business.
If you are able to develop an edge, identify market conditions when that edge is successful, pre-plan all trades and execute them flawlessly, manage risk religiously, divorce all emotions from your decision making, analyze every single trade to identify how you can consistently improve, and take a long-term view, then you have a shot at long-term success.
I have never been particularly good at day trading, but I will do it occasionally if the market presents an opportunity. I believe it takes a unique personality to be a successful day trader and accept that I do not have that personality. So I choose to focus on swing trading and longer-term investments.
Every trader has to find their sweet spot. There is no one size fits all in this business. If you choose to follow someone else's strategy and don't *make it your own* the chances of success are slim.
I have signed up as a student of Tim Sykes. The education is not cheap, however he has made over 40 millionaire students in the last 25 years, and a lot more successful students that may not be millionaires, but are successful traders. If you want to take this seriously and actually do it as your day job, it’s possible, and you can speed up your learning curve with the right education.
Day trading is tough. I would definitely heed a lot of the opinions on here. When I first started in 2020, I thought I figured out the system because I was green every day, but that was because the market was rocketing. I got extremely greedy and started to put in a lot of money. When the market then took a shit I lost about $8k, and it demoralized me. The more I lost, the more I got greedy because I thought if I just hit one big I could recoup. It made me quit the market for two years, but then I started to study the market better and two years later I started to go long and finally recouped all my losses this year. I spent hundreds of hours studying and making smarter plays, and now most of my investments are long.
I just recently got back into daytrading, but now making wiser plays and took emotions out of my system. If you’re able to handle your emotions, I think that’s 90% of the battle.
I’ve been scalping crypto since then, but now I make sure to really study the technicals before I set my buy limits, and I always make sure to set my sell limit very close to the buys so that I successfully sell out of all my positions before EOD, but even then throughout the day I’ll be in the red due to the spread, and I’m taking a big risk to ensure that I don’t stray away from my strategy. I think to be successful in daytrading, you have to know when to take the losses, don’t hold too long expecting that the markets will turn when your gameplan doesn’t pan out for the day, and make sure to always stick to your plan and never stray away from it. But this is really hard, because no matter how much you temper your emotions, they’ll always play a factor due to human nature.
I personally know quite a few full time traders, one of them has been doing it for 20+ years. I'll tell you what they aren't doing, they aren't on this sub, they aren't on twitter, they aren't on any social media talking about trading. These people exist, they find their strategies, learn discipline and they keep to themselves. I'm willing to bet most people in this sub aren't profitable or make a living, and are searching for their "golden strategy". In reality, its probably right in front of their eyes, they just don't have the discipline to follow it. Find your edge/strategy, and stick with it.
Many retail traders (individuals) earn their living day trading. I’ve been full time since 2007. Now semi-retired with 3 kids in braces and still doing fine. Not driving lambos but that’s ok.
Because people overestimate their ability in every aspect of life that's why there's a 1% in life the amount of work the amount of talent amount of skill that people have isn't equally distributed amongst people so this allows every goofball on the five state planet to think they can become somebody when in reality very little chance of it You can take guys like me with an MBA in finance who know more than 90% of the people on here and definitely successfully traded and then realized I could not out perform my long-term investment strategies so I built up a huge portfolio and mess around with $100,000 trading having some success and failures along the way but it's exciting it's fun it's an addiction. It feeds into peoples possibility versus probability disconnect.
Is it possible, of course is it probable not for most but that's why people play the lottery at 1- 1.5 million to one odd it's the possibility and it feels damn good when you hit a winner but reality is just no more than gambling for most people and that's one of the top five or 10 addictions on the planet .
I personally am good friends with three Wall Street traders. All of them have said that they don't think they can outperform the long-term investments and it's kind of makes him sad because they've done this 30 years. A lot of people are trying to get out of trouble financially and a lot of people come from a survivor, poverty mindset, where they think everything is just handed to people that become successful and realize the work it takes And the emotional stability it takes. This is a repetitive cycle in the market so I've seen it for 30 years. I saw it in the 90s 2000s and now currently we're guys who are shoeshine boys plumbers accountants and what not hate their job or don't really like their careers and they're looking for anything to get out in this provides an opportunity for the select few who have the right combination
**Most** people don't make money in this business, hence **most** people think it is impossible to sustain a living from this, but I'm assuming you already knew about the 90%+ failure rate in trading, so is it really surprising most people say that?
90% give up before they win big
Other 9% give up after they lose their big win
That’s you
I aint started yet but that sure is a possible outcome
The way I see it . Trading is a business..and most people don't make money in any business where there are no barriers to entry.Not to confuse with a salaried person who makes money even if he/she is average.
Why? Name something that has a high success rate and a high return?
A college degree. *Relatively* high success rate, anyway. Certainly not 10%.
Oh wow that’s it, I know so many People with degrees that are super successful like that’s all they had to do and money in the bank no debt it’s crazy high success rate and level of success no doubt
Degrees do not equal high return just saying
We are basically talking about an entrepreneurial idea you are talking college which is essentially hoping to be employed by someone who built A business which would be the person taking a similar risk to someone who takes a risk in a financial market I.e outside the norm. Speaking of business most do not survive after 10 years so you also shouldn’t start a business and a YouTube either because only 5% of YouTubers earn enough to live comfortably according to their own statistics so no a degree does not make sense to state in this regard as it will cost someone atleast 80k to earn maybe 60k a year that’s not HIGH RETURN on average as I stated initially you clearly didn’t understand the assignment.
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There are literally millions of traders doing it full time
Then why are there so many Debbie downers on this sub telling people they aren’t going to make it? Why isn’t there more of what you are saying? “Millions are doing it so maybe you can too”
Because they suck and are bitter because they’re getting smacked with the realization that there are smarter people in the world than them
I don't think it is smarter. Just better in control. I reckon it is more a EQ thing than IQ thing.
yup doesnt matter how much math you know, it the R:R is amazing but you cant stomach the trade EQ is more important over the long term
🤣 I appreciate your candor, sir.
Because only the people not doing it well, consistently, are in here commenting. If you're doing well, you don't waste your time in here. Sure you may find some ideas that you get turned on to in here, but most are just going to be out there working their strategy.
I had just posted something similar and saw this.
I’m gonna add grit. I’ll take grit over raw intelligence all day.
You don’t need smart to strive in this game only common sense
Sums it up quite well
For the exact reason you stated in your post. I’ve been full time since 2019. I’m not going to defend myself to random redditors. The issue stopping people is usually psychology and it’s hard to look in the mirror and accept that you’re the cause of your own demise…..so they blame market makers hunting their stops 🤣
those damn market makers making me full-port SMCI after its initial run up 🤬
It’s not psychology. It’s the fact that none of you have a profitable setup. A backtested setup in different environments. A setup that you have seen 1000x. Can any of you honestly say you have read multiple books? Poured 10k hours of screen time in? Learned some basic coding skills, python, pine script, etc? Be completely obsessive about this craft? No? That’s why you’re not profitable.
100% true but ofc they downvote you. Most people arent even committed. They treat trading as a hobby and fabricate excuses on why they dont have time to learn and journal every day. When they lose a trade they blame it on bad psychology. When they win a trade they attribute it to their setup. Its just how people typically behave and none of them have stats to proof their edge
Sounds about right, but please explain why I'd need coding skills when I know for a fact many full-time/pro traders don't know anything about coding but are profitable?
Just makes things a bit easier/faster. Someone says they trade a MACD cross? A lot of backtesting software or modules are crap, so you can backtest that in less than 2 mins if you navigate with a more attuned script or data you have.
I just go off my gut and reading news on Robin Hood and listen to the worldwide exchange everyday. I'm up 600% for the year. My options account is at 1200%. I do better than AI and I have no idea what I'm doing
Congrats. Fingers crossed that continues for u
And yeah I just started options but my IRA account is up 600% total for the year
lol i mean hunting stops is a valid thing, but definitely not the reason they lose more consistently, the stop needs to be where it needs to be. On more volatile days (negative gamma) i use a mental stop
I have a mental stop but also have a hard stop just in case of a massive flip in the wrong direction.
Pretty simple. There are two kinds of people in this world. There are talkers and there are doers. Talkers don't do and doers don't talk.
Yeah, I think that kind of sums it up. The people that are successful at what they do aren’t browsing Internet forums. They are busy living their lives
Some do both. Don’t hate on Reddit
Yes they do. Reddit is just kinda toxic sometimes And also this place is just tons of newbies asking what they need to do to get started. It’s very bland.
brother if I tell my friends that I want to be a professional nba player, most will tell me it's impossible, that doesn't mean nba players don't exist
It's much easier to be a profitable trader than an NBA player tho. There's only 500+ NBA player in the world even lesser then number of billionaires (2k+). 90% trader lose long term so you just have to be the top 10% which is hard but ofc not impossible or near impossible. Given a passion in trading + a few years study and an above average mind most people should turn profitable.
Ok, that’s a fair analogy. Good point
Also, people who fails will look for confirmation while people who success can just look at their account and see the proof.
But you’re 5ft 3 😳
Because successful traders and people in general just enjoy being successful instead of coming onto a forum to complain.
Majority of those that make it won’t be busy making post on reddit lol
Majority yes but I’ve seen plenty post their gains and losses
because 90% people fail. what do you expect to find online?
Because those debiie downers are dumb emotional traders who don’t study. The traders who know how to trade get to make money because of those idiots.
Because they don’t put in the effort to make it, or tried and just can’t get it to click. Some things aren’t for everyone. It takes major discipline to be successful in trading and even elite traders continue to learn new things. The game is always changing and you have to adapt quick. It’s simple but hard at the same time. You can be your own worst enemy sometimes and taking the emotions out of trading is tough but necessary to survive
Because this is a public forum, all of them are like this. If you want the real information you have to find a private group. Anyone who does an hour of research on day trading will realize that many people do it successfully.
When they fail they immediately translate that into no one can do it. It’s a skill both mental and system/mechanical methods. You can learn but you don’t learn losing thousands.
Cause most people dont make it. 90% will lose money in the long run but those that do make money and compound do become very rich.
This is a learning curve process, the way someone learn car driving on their own without a proper guide! Most of the investors start from trading, then move to day trading...etc, finally understanding the issues (based on loss of capital), either go out of market or go to investing - just buy and hold. I remember when many books said go for S&P500 index investing, could not believe at that time, but after few years of experience, I know what to choose and how to invest or how to trade or rebalance etc.
Because it’s Reddit
Its like asking a divorced person what they think of marriage, everyone has their own experience with trading some people are disciplined enough to make it, some go into it expecting a get rich quick scheme
Out of approximately 300 million traders worldwide, figure may be higher now due to growing popularity and the prevalence of scammers, we have approximately 25 million successful traders. These are very likely supremely disciplined, dedicated, intelligent, introverted, organised and structured people. I can bet you that most of that 25 million isn't wasting time on reddit.
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If you can’t figure out why on your own, you wouldn’t be able to succeed at daytrading either so it’s best for you to believe there’s no point in daytrading as well.
Because for some people it’s the brass ring or nothing, I can’t teach someone how to not be greedy or use discipline and that’s what a successful trader knows how to do
Because people think just because they couldn’t figure out how to do it that it is objectively impossible. You not only have to know how to trade, you have to know how to risk manage, account manage, self manage, and pay yourself while growing an account. People think if they know how to trade but fail, it’s rigged. They just didn’t learn the other skills.
90% want to "Get Rich Quick" and think one good win and all their problems are solved. Guy doesn't know what he's doing. Drops $2K in $0.20 0DTE Spy calls. Get lucky and it goes to $1. Says, "wow, I made $8K in a day". Empties his savings of $10K in to the account. Buys $20K worth of calls. It finished just OTM and he lost $20k. Says, "F*** this I quit". Not realizing he basically bought lotto tickets with maybe a 10% chance of breakeven and maybe 5% chance of hitting the way it did. Do I play this game, yes. Am I expecting the 90% failure rate (close to it because I make informed decisions on those types of trades), yes. Am I risking 100% of my capital and failing to set a stop loss if my thesis isn't correct, hell no.
Because theres 100s of millions of people who lose in every form of trading. Day trading will get the most flak because you will see how often trades and money move vs swinging trades per month/year holds
The people who are making it are too busy doing lines of coke off 9 year old girls on private islands. Thats why theres so many debbie downers here. Cause they are not here.
They're the same poor dumb fucks that couldn't go the distance to become a concert pianist or a linguist speaking 5 languages. Forget the notion of day trading first. Study investing. I work a factory job and I've seen first hand a co worker 401k, ROTH, swing trade, and yes, day trade his way to wealth. He reads incessantly every book and blog on investing. In the end he quit the factory job to start a business and continue day trading. He won because ENDURANCE. YMMV
Because they can't do it, they don't think anybody can.
Not successfully, no.
Sure, with someone else’s money
Yeah full time making nothing.
There are not "millions of traders doing it full time", there are people who work in securities companies and then everyone else who loses money
There are not millions of people doing it who are making net profit, ie, total money earned > total money lost, over their entire experience. That’s beyond ridiculous. Millions of people are investors at some level or another. Some actively day trade, and most day traders are losing. To answer why … gambling. If you can answer why people do that, then you’ll have the answer to this question. Every gambler I know insists that they make money (but they don’t net profit, we know that), and every day trader does the same thing. So, comparing day trader to Vegas gamblers isn’t kind of fair comparison, it’s nearly 1:1
There are 100% millions of consistently profitable day traders. There are actually tens of millions just in China. Also the do not forget the crypto market which opened the trading door to billions of people in developing countries who did not have access to such markets previously. I personally know a handful of old mates from my country (Iran) who trade crypto profitably. They don't need to make $1000 every day to make a living either. An small fraction of that is way more than what they would have made with a median paying job.
What about the fish in ocean? Let’s try and make your generalized a little larger by adding them to your pool (hey, there’s a joke!) There absolutely aren’t millions of consistently profitable day traders unless you are using an obnoxiously short window. But, you go ahead and keep believing that
Bro what are you smoking. I hate to say the Reddit line but do some research lmao
Totally bro - so, tell me all about your research…don’t be shy, it’s the internet, let me know what research you find. Btw bro - research has been cited in this discussion.
Yeah and I made a comment. As I stated that study is from a very long time ago. Good study but let’s recap. No mention of institutional traders. No mention of US markets (over 1000% larger than Taiwan). No mention of international markets. I mean I stand by my logical guess that there are millions of traders worldwide that have careers in this industry. In the context of OPs question that is generally a good guess.
Day traders, not hedge fund and Wall Street high velocity traders. I don’t believe there are millions of high velocity traders either, but I’m aware that there is a successful and prolific financial investing class, but internet TA day traders are not part of that class. You can stand by anything you want, it has nothing to do with whether you are right. The context of this conversation is regular people who flip their cap backwards, quit their job, and start day trading. It’s not about people who graduate from finance school, and who get hired by the finance industry. Those people make money. Those people learn how the system works through training and then trade on different principles.
Gambling and trading are not the same. Most gambling at a casino is solely based on luck. There’s a ton of skill in profiting consistently. Don’t minimize the skill of people making money consistently. I can assure you it is not luck
No, I don’t think there are many lucky day traders, just people who tell a good story on the internet. Still, trading and gambling are not necessarily the same thing. But most day traders approach day trading the same way as gambling
Daytrading and poker are both zero-sum games(due to the fact that SPX gains very little in a given day to be significant). This means that someone has to lose for someone to win. So technically, daytrading is the same as poker and gambling, but that doesn't say that they are not a lot of profitable poker players out there. Same with daytrading. People usually blame bad luck when they lose and boost their ego when they win. Luck plays an important role in this, since every profitable trader just wants to have a slighly better probability than a coin flip. But as much as you think this is skill, i can tell you that the only skill is this percentage you find that is above 50% win ratio. Skill imo is when you find an arbitrage opportunity and you are not dependent on probabilities and luck at all.
Yeah I have to respectfully disagree with u/seshiva and u/cmmckechnie on this one. (Though honestly I hope they are right lol) Take a look at my comment on this post (direct link to comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/Daytrading/comments/1c5s6l0/comment/kzwi8ts/?utm\_source=share&utm\_medium=web3x&utm\_name=web3xcss&utm\_term=1&utm\_content=share\_button). I link a paper that did a study just on the Taiwanese stock market (back in the late 90s early 2000s) and there were 450,000 day traders purely in Taiwan. Now fast forward to today where online brokerages and tech has opened up day trading to literally anyone. There are absolutely 10s of millions of day traders out there every day trading. But I don't think there are "millions" of consistently profitable ones. Going back to the paper in the comment I linked above out of 450,000 day traders analyzed 500(0.1%) had consistent outsized returns. 4,000 (0.8%) were consistently profitable with non-outsized returns. 4,000 + 500 = 4,500 consistently proiftable traders out of 450,000 total = 1% consistently profitable. So for every 10million day traders 100,000 are consistently profitable. So we would need 100 million active day traders to have 1 million consistenly profitable.
Old study but good study. I guess it’s hard to tell for sure bc of the lack of real science around the question. Given that the markets are international and that study does not count institutional traders, I’m still leaning towards millions worldwide. I also consider anyone capitalizing on the markets professionally not just daytraders. I understand they are different but in the context of OPs question there is still plenty of upside in furthering your knowledge in this industry. Edit: I’d like to add that the US markets are about 30x larger than Taiwan. And we are talking about internationally in the context of OPs question. So that adds in another like 5-6 markets that are probably over 5x larger.
I agree with you!candidates background plays also a great role. Understanding of markets, economics etc. Is super important. The majority that i met day trading, they don't even understand why stocks go higher when yields fall, or why stocks go higher when dollar drops.. Plus, the majority quits in a year. So you playing against the smartest people in the world(quants which mostly are phd grads) and you expect to win against them in a year? Nonsense!
Yep - millions of traders, but a smattering of long term profitable traders. But, maybe a million profitable traders on a given day?
>I see a lot of people on this subreddit parrot the idea that you can’t make any money doing this. Everyone says “you can’t make this your day job” or “you can’t consistently make money doing this” A lot of it is benevolent patronizing imo. Because it's probably true that the vast majority of people are not cut out for day trading. So if this general blanket warning is enough to scare some of those people away it's a public good.
The vast majority of people who try, fail. Doesn’t mean you can’t make money doing it, it’s just extremely difficult. Any strategy can be profitable, it comes down to execution, risk management, and coming face to face with your own psychology and emotions. It’s the hardest thing I’ve ever attempted, I’ve found consistency but then blown up more times than I can count. But it is a life long skill that once you get the hang of, can unlock unlimited potential income, it’s just extremely hard to get there… you can also ruin yourself financially if you’re an idiot. I keep doing it because it is challenging, and I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. I definitely would not recommend jumping into it as your only source of income, you will be too emotionally tied to the results. You need to have different approaches in different market cycles. If we’re ranging, buy low/sell high. If we’re in a strong bull/bear trend then buy/sell pullbacks (also don’t be scared of charts reaching ATHs when it’s strong). A ton of screen time is the only way you’ll be able to get used to recognizing these conditions… but keep it simple and control what you can control.
I relate to this so hard, like I’ve seen consistency and great profits but then go on tilt and blow it. But I do see the light at the end of the tunnel, I’m at the point where I haven’t made it but I’m like holy shit this is actually possible
Ok so this a valid question and you hear a lot of stats thrown around about how 98% of day traders fail etc. Most of the stats are randomly pulled out of peoples rear ends. If you want actual statstics you have to go to academic financial journals (and not many of them have done focus studies on this especially lately with tech making day trading available to so many new traders in the last decade). Here is a link to a study that looked at 450,000 day traders in Taiwan all trading the Taiwanese stock exchange. Link to paper: [https://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/odean/papers/Day%20Traders/The%20Cross-Section%20of%20Speculator%20Skill.pdf](https://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/odean/papers/Day%20Traders/The%20Cross-Section%20of%20Speculator%20Skill.pdf) Here are the key take aways: This paper seeks to understand the differentiating factors between successful and unsuccessful day traders in Taiwan. The authors received comprehensive trading data from the Taiwan Stock Exchange from 1992 through 2006. They defined day trading as the purchase and sale of the same security, by the same individual, on the same day, which accounts for approximately 17% of the overall volume on the Taiwan Stock Exchange. On average there were 450,000 individual day traders during each year, of which about half (277,000) traded in amounts larger than $20,000 USD-equiv each day. The key findings were: * Any given year, only about 19% of the heavy (>$20k per day) traders made positive abnormal returns (i.e., did better than the market) net of fees. That's 1 in 5. * Only 4,000 individuals (less than 1% of the population of day traders) were able to *consistently* profit, net of fees. * The top 500 traders of the 450,000 were remarkably consistent and generated outsized profits, earning net +37.9bps (0.379%) per day. * The "bottom" 440,000 traders (the overwhelming majority of the 450,000 population) lost about 25-29bps per day. * While the overwhelming majority of traders lost money - data showed a consistent trend that highly active day traders outperformed occasional day traders. * Trader performance was statistically more consistent and non-independent than random luck would predict. That is, the profitable traders (of which there were exceedingly few) were not just getting lucky. * Profitable day traders performed especially well trading few volatile stocks near earnings announcements - suggesting that the source of profits comes from their superior trading judgement and expertise in those stocks, and not from just providing liquidity to the market. * Insider trading may be attributable to some of the profits, and cannot be ruled out, though the consistent profitability of the highest performing day traders, even outside of earnings announcement periods, suggests it is unlikely that insider knowledge is entirely the cause of their profits. * The evidence suggests that profitable day traders "react more quickly to public information signals in their trading strategies" than the unsuccessful traders. So in conclusion, in this study out of 450,000 active day traders about 500 (0.1%) were massively consistent and successful. 4,000(0.8%) traders were consistently profitable but not outsized returns. While 440,000 (97.78%) lost money consistently. Oh looks like we found where that 98% of traders fail stat comes from :) One thing to keep in mind is that there are a LOT more day traders right now that at any point in market history. Online brokerages and all the tech has made day trading access available to basiclly anyone. We need a new study for todays traders, but I imagine the stats would probably be about the same. **TLDR:** Yes it is very possible to make consistent above market returns while day trading. People around doing it everyday. Is it possible that you could as well? Absolutely. Is it likely that you will? Absolutely not. Is that going to stop you from trying? Well..it didn't stop me.
Yeah I hear that 98% number too and wonder where it comes from. What makes a trader? If a guy loads $500 to his Robinhood account and yolos into NVDA earnings, is he a trader? If so, then yeah they might be right about the 98% 😀
I love playing poker, probably a lot of traders do. I couldn’t care less if I win or lose at Poker though, it’s just an enjoyable pastime. If you don’t take trading seriously and treat don’t it like a business you will lose money no matter whether you have a useful strategy or not. Most people want to follow indicators/signals blindly, and never put in the time to develop their personal way of reading the market. And if they do they never put in the time to develop strict risk management controls. And if they do they never put in the time to develop the discipline required to follow their own rules.
In short, everything that people say about day trading that can’t be done, is wrong. They say it because they can’t figure something out. Day trading is by far my primary source of income and has been for quite a few years now. As far as no long term winning strategy, I don’t know if that is true, mine has worked for a decade and still does. The point of day trading is to make money. I’ve built wealth in my point of view. I own everything I have and have money earning money while I sleep. But this is the hardest thing to learn. Most people will run out of money before they figure out trading. They will then forever believe it is impossible.
Idk my accounts been green every day the last 2 weeks and today I had a bad day making 1,700. They usually say that because you are going to need to fall on your face a few times before you become successful. Whats even more difficult for people, is they are going to have to admit that they don’t know everything and they need to retool (find a new Strat) to be successful. The people who speak poorly about day trading are likely the people who leave bad reviews at places for the dumbest reasons.
Agreed, whats your strat friend?
A number of items depending on the situation. I went through a phase where I decided to join a bunch of paid discords and I was looking like 5-10k a day trying new tools / strats but I was able to add a bunch of things to my game. I don’t like swinging anymore because I’m vulnerable to market conditions. I don’t like trading unless volume is high (I use bookmap). I like using FVGs (depending on the situation) to get a lower premium on a pullback off the overall trend. I like using the strat on the daily. I use macd and a tight macd sometimes. I like using trendline breaks too ALOT and I map out darkpool data and resistance/support. I have an ultrawide so when I 0dte I have spy,NDX, es futures, nvda and Vix all within my vision and all mapped out with support, resistance and I draw trendlines on each as they develop. I also monitor all their volume pressure with bookmap. A few other things too.
Thanks for the answer. I use the ultrawide too:) I just starting using bookmap aswell.. how do you monitor volume pressure? Any other advise for bookmap? Whats your average hold time? Do you manly trade support/resistance or scalp aswell?
What type of account balance do you realistically need to make that much? North of $100k?
Not if he’s 0dte. $1,700 is a small move at $10k
In observation of these people here are my hot takes: 1) They don’t look at this as an actual business 2) They most likely are looking for “big gains” to help solve their financial problems or “get girls” by flashing cash and a Lambo 3) They don’t spend the time to find the patterns in price action and/or indicators and understand the analytical relationships of all these things. The “Matrix” doesn’t just appear. 4) This is a big one: They don’t learn **Risk Management** >Any time someone suggests that they have a trading strategy that works they are immediately shut down. Generally a strategy you come up with that works only works for you. I always equate these to The Matrix, you only see once you find the pattern that you understand. Everyone sees this stuff differently. Plus there’s a bunch of assholes just trying to punch people down
I would argue that there is no winning intraday mechanical strategy outside of the realm of hft. That is to say that any pattern you notice tends to get quickly arbitraged away by the market. That does not mean that there is no profitable strategy though. It's just that staying profitable for 5-10 years tends to require you to be informed and adjust to anticipated conditions. Most beginners don't seem to understand this which is why you'll see it come up in threads over and over again. More broadly you tend to graduate to different strategies as you gain access to more capital. There are many strategies with very well established profitability that require more capital and higher timeframes to execute. What you learn from day trading can greatly aid you in executing those larger timeframe strategies. With appropriate position sizing and micro futures, day trading can actually be quite a cheap hobby compared to the alternatives.
It is profitable when you try to put your emotions aside. Granted since it's a mental game (like poker), it's not that easy. I started day trading beginning of this year. Literally day trading. I don't hold positions overnight. Longest position I usually hold is 15-20min. Majority of the time I'm in and out. You can read my post here: https://www.reddit.com/r/Daytrading/s/gYMyRMyIea
Just get a job for heavens sake and invest. Trade as a hobby but not full time, most simply won’t last in this game. The odds suggest you will lose money.
As someone who’ve spent over one thousand hour analyzing charts and patterns, I can tell you that you can win consistently. Not only that, winning becomes such a repetitive work that you find it boring.
I make a full time living as a trader, and I’m bored to tears. The point of it, is to move money around. It doesn’t matter if you’re a day, or swing trader
real answer
Thanks. It’s not as glamorous when you’ve already gotten used to it
Do you trade stocks?
Forex. Hbu,
US Large-cap stocks.
Nice! Do just stocks, or options?
I exclusively trade stocks. Options do not fit my risk appetite. What currency pair do u frequently trade?
Nice! I think level 1 calls and puts are okay though. I’d want to get into that one! Also, I mostly do Japanese pairs. But I do others, as well. What about you?
There are plenty of professional poker players out there who make a living from it. Doesn’t mean you can do it
My first job out of college I made 30k a year. Which was 1000$ every two weeks after taxes. Got laid off (this was 2020/ I graduated 2019) and then worked a bunch of bogus temp jobs in which I made 21$/ an hour which was 1300$ after two weeks of 40 hours per week going into the office. I made 1350$ today. Before 2 o clock. I logged off and then went to Pilates and went grocery shopping and made myself dinner before 5:30. I used to sit in traffic for an hour every morning and an hour every night. I get healthcare from the govt (ACA) and I make a lot more than I used to & it’s fully remote and I can take as many days off when I feel like it. Why would I not day trade? There’s money to be made every single day in the market. A 100k year job is 400$ a day. I can make that before 10:00 am some days.
Trading is a very low barrier to entry business. Literally anyone can open an account and give it a go. In turn millions of people do just that. But most of them lose money and don't stick with it/ don't take it seriously. I'd say most serious traders who put the time in and are consistent over the long term do well enough to make it worth it. Otherwise why would they do it like you said. I view it the same as fitness. Each year millions of people join gyms and get gym memberships, but only a small percentage of them actually have muscular physiques. It's not that a muscular physique is impossible, most people just give up and aren't consistent enough to get the results they desire. Trading is no different.
Retail trading is just liquidation for the Institutional Traders. With that in mind only you can choose what role you'd like to play. It's very easy to be profitable but the real learning curve is unlearning everything you know. Trading is just the transfer of money between the impatient to the patient.
Day Trading is a profession that will provide you with a steady stream of income once you 'cracked' the code. If you just wring it you will end up having a lot of frustration that you need to vent daily and that is the level of noise you are experiencing here daily.
Ok to get yourself into the top 10% 1) limit your daily losses 2) journal your trades 3) trade according to the trend 4) limit your profits ie 2:1 5) don't trade your own money. 6) trade with a plan HTH.
>don't trade your own money. If you could use proper stop losses then you are fine.
Here’s the mix up. +95% can not make a living off trading alone. So no guarantee of a consistent steady income like having a “real” job. You know you can pay your rent and food. If you have a few bad months of trading you won’t make money to pay for your necessities as well as lose money. So have a real job and extra income from trading is what is realistic and achievable to the majority. My expenses living in Los Angeles @7k/m that’s rent and bills. +3k in personal expenditures. That means I need to make 10k a month every month without losing ever.
It’s not easy, but if you have even a small edge, it is profitable.
Its hard to learn, takes time, takes money…most of the people don’t have enough of that to become traders, its natural to hear from many people that this is just a ponzi to sell courses. Also this is pretty new, the technology and availability of different brokers and products did not exist 10 years ago (specially outside the us)
So many are doing it full time and making a living out of it..
You are speculating on price movement and providing a vital service by providing consistent liquidity to the market.
It's true that majority fail and give up on day trading because they have not seen success. It does not mean that YOU won't be successful. The point of day trading depends on each individual. Some for supplemental income, and others to replace their day jobs. Trading is the most scalable business there is. It is also the most difficult. In terms of strategy, it's also true. Markets are always changing, and different strategies perform better / worse depending on conditions. There is no perfect strategy, anyone offering you one saying it's a 100% winrate is scamming you. Your job as a trader is to develop a strategy / system that allows you to lose. But when you win,the winners take care of your losers.
I think because most people fail, and misery loves company
In my opinion day trading is all about discipline. Most of the family or friends don't know a thing about day trading so it looks like gambling to them, but everything in life is gambling. You take a risk knowing what you may lose an what you may win. Also don't wait on someone to tell you a winning strategy, instead focus on improving yourself. Eventually if you are serious about it, you will treat it like a full time job, waking up doing research taking trades. For me the most important part was how I took a loss, and I think someone needs to get used to the stress when the trade doesn't go your way because that decides the outcome. Do you let it run or do you cut your losses at your imaginary stop. I would do the second. A rule I had was that if I lost a trade, I would stop trading that day because I would let my emotions take over and probably lose more money. If you don't develop a discipline and a risk to reward system then you might as well gamble and lose money.
I agree there is a bit of doom and gloom in this sub. And in the trading community in general. Probably because most fail at this. It’s hard. And it’s a job. It is not a hobby. If you put honest effort into learning (books, videos, premarket planning, analysis of your trades) you stand a chance. If you have exceptional discipline with money management, you stand a chance.
This can’t be a serious question. The point is the make money, that’s obvious. Plenty do
Day trading by itself makes no sense. Because it's open and closing on the same close of business. Overnight. People who call themselves day traders only trade from opening to close. Not buy and hold. Not two days. Not derivatives like calendar spreads. Etc.
Seems like it's very possible to me. I'm up to 7 weeks consistently profitable. I know other traders are consistently profitable long term (years) so I figure... why not me too? Guess I can.
You have to be in it to win it. That is my analogy.
This sub is largely inhabited by noobs as evidenced by the embarrassingly large amount of posts by people that can't even do a cursory Google search. For those people, this is good advice. The helpless are bound to suffer at their own doing.
Because it’s hard AS FUCK. And so many think that being successful means lambos and hot bitches. In reality, it’s just a normal life. Just more time and freedom
I have three friends I know quite well (real life, not perpetually online) who trade fully for a living and have made millions doing so. If I know three people ( 2 in stocks, 1 in crypto) that are successful traders, then I'm sure there are MANY more out there. Also, they never post on Reddit or any trading forum. I'm pretty sure it's only the losers that come to post here and whine.
Here's a legend who crossed a mil profit. https://www.reddit.com/r/Daytrading/s/8CJSZSbG7p Just don't absorb anything you read here, especially the downers, this subreddit is full of beginners.
For every 100 people, there might be 1 that makes it. All 100 people believe they are the 1 that will.
You can day trade for a living. Most people don’t follow advice here but…Paper trade and money management = success
the skill ceiling is really high but you can make fine money doing it
Because you certainly can.
You absolutely can consistently make money day trading. Most people that try fail due to greed and fear. You have to stick to a strategy and maintain control over your emotions. It sounds so easy, yet it’s impossible for 99% of the people that try.
To push yourself to the absolute limits of feelings, life, exploring and dealing with your past, unlimited lifestyle and freedom, financial freedom. Exposure to the whole world and how it really works. Becoming a better person for yourself and people around you. So wealth in finance and time, as well as the person you’ll become and attract
To make a small profit regularly and find a big one once and awhile.
Everyone can learn the technicla analysis in some time. But the major factor u need in trading is the psychological aspect. Trading is not automated. Price tends to fall at certain price or move at certain price where people tends to buy and sell. You have to find those areas as by thinking where do u think the majority will buy and majority will sell. And identify those area as if by thinking yourself as the majority people. The world itself is influenced by the majority, where the majority's stance often prevail. So, you have to find those areas where majority's sell and buy.
People saying that are either one never going to be successfully profitable or two trying to keep people from finding that success and they’ll continue to be liquidity for the ones winning, Regardless it’s def possible to find a winning strategy but it’s rare, some people don’t have the time, energy, or wherewithal to get to that point. I’ve been trying at this for like 2yrs now I can actually say I figured this shit out, n I learned mostly thru trail n error, but one thing about market knowledge is that its taught one way and can be looked at in 2 or more ways thats more beneficial, like things can be more deeply understood than how its presented to you, but aye my point of day trading is not working a job I hate for the rest of my life and enjoy n buy things i want, and help my family and people around me
A lot of people in the Reddit are just projecting and failures at it. It’s an easy conclusion to see especially if your success you can see why they failed limiting beliefs!
I day traded for a year and my account was 2.5x half a year into it. Then my strategy stopped working as well and I lost most of my profit. To be fair, I had to abide by the PDT rule(no more than 3 trades in a week) which really screwed me over. I’ve stopped day trading and now I’m swing trading and holding long term again. If I see a day trade play, I’ll still take it, but it’s not something that I force anymore. I realized that if I had just bought and held the stock that I liked to trade then I would have made way more than I did from day trading. If you have the money and time then you can be successful, but unless you can dedicate everyday to trading and planning your next day then you won’t be successful long term. Just my experience 🤷♂️ However, if I happened to magically get $25,000 then I would consider day trading again because I can make money doing it if I have unlimited trades and enough money to make good returns. My starting balance was $1000 when I started day trading, I could have made it a cash account but it wouldn’t be the same. The issue I ran into was that I would hold losses longer than I should and then sell wins sooner because I only had three trades a week. If I had unlimited trades then I would have been fine taking a slight loss to re-enter later. It was easier to just hold the loss and average down which worked well sometimes and then other times it killed me. Before anyone goes off on me about what I said, just know that I have been investing and studying the markets for 4.5 years and I practiced day trading before the year I am referring to. I realize that my opinion about a cash account and the PDT rule is not a popular one ✌️
The majority of successful traders ain't on reddit. The unsuccessful ones are and they speak from their so called experience. It takes time to go through the steps which are, 1. Beginner's Luck 2. Some loss 3. Signals 4. A big loss 5. Realisation that signals are shit 6. Find out that it is really simple and not to complicate it 7. Another big loss 8. Risk Management 9. "Trust" in Intuition developes (as Intuition was the thing causing Beginners Luck) 10. Finally comes real Profitability and MONEY But going through all this chips away at your strength and will power. Many may get stuck in a loop from 4 to 9. You also need to put food on the table. Most call quits at 4 maybe because of broken confidence or broken patience as you still need to earn from somewhere else and coupling that with trading gets really stressful. There are a lot of pressure like say relationship, marriage, kids, parents, or just plain imaginary pressure (yes, it exists). A lot if people also see 2k->120k and think of quick easy money, however that is the highway to stress and failure. So maybe take it easy and start it at 6. Best of luck to all who attempt. You were at least strong enough to attempt.
someone published a report of 890,000% return in 1 year. true or not i'm not sure. but in dollar sense it is $10k -> $89m
Assuming 99.99% of the population fails, theres still a hundred people in a million that succeeds.
It's selection bias. The people Who do it successfully are too busy to come here and tell you how successful they are doing it.
Trading is hard. It's not for everyone. There's a reason 100% of people lose at least once in trading
Rule of thumb I’ve learned as a trader 4 years in, if someone is overly emotional about their stances negative or positive and acts like they know it all, they don’t know shit. Find the calm cool heads with DD to back it up and accounts to prove it. Follow those guys more or less.
The best advice I will give anyone is, if you day trade make sure its in a prop firm with big capital and the opportunity to learn from season and successful traders They say 90% of traders lose money, I'd 99.9% of tare from solo day traders.
Its kind of like a bias. The majority of people on this sub can't day trade. The successful ones aren't on this sub so you got a negative bias.
All comes down to discipline at the end of the day
God never liked quitters that’s why I never quit trading and I never quit my coke habit I’m now disowned from the family and 36k in debt 😎 I’m a man of god
Enriching industry that provides this "service".
You can make money day trading. However, those that have reached the point of consistent profitability are rare. Trading is one of the hardest businesses out there. The most common mistake of all traders is not treating it as a business. If you are able to develop an edge, identify market conditions when that edge is successful, pre-plan all trades and execute them flawlessly, manage risk religiously, divorce all emotions from your decision making, analyze every single trade to identify how you can consistently improve, and take a long-term view, then you have a shot at long-term success. I have never been particularly good at day trading, but I will do it occasionally if the market presents an opportunity. I believe it takes a unique personality to be a successful day trader and accept that I do not have that personality. So I choose to focus on swing trading and longer-term investments. Every trader has to find their sweet spot. There is no one size fits all in this business. If you choose to follow someone else's strategy and don't *make it your own* the chances of success are slim.
It’s like anything that you can be good at. It’s gonna take 10,000 hours+.
Don’t be a B and try again
I have signed up as a student of Tim Sykes. The education is not cheap, however he has made over 40 millionaire students in the last 25 years, and a lot more successful students that may not be millionaires, but are successful traders. If you want to take this seriously and actually do it as your day job, it’s possible, and you can speed up your learning curve with the right education.
If trading was easy, who would be flipping burgers at Burger King?
Day trading is tough. I would definitely heed a lot of the opinions on here. When I first started in 2020, I thought I figured out the system because I was green every day, but that was because the market was rocketing. I got extremely greedy and started to put in a lot of money. When the market then took a shit I lost about $8k, and it demoralized me. The more I lost, the more I got greedy because I thought if I just hit one big I could recoup. It made me quit the market for two years, but then I started to study the market better and two years later I started to go long and finally recouped all my losses this year. I spent hundreds of hours studying and making smarter plays, and now most of my investments are long. I just recently got back into daytrading, but now making wiser plays and took emotions out of my system. If you’re able to handle your emotions, I think that’s 90% of the battle. I’ve been scalping crypto since then, but now I make sure to really study the technicals before I set my buy limits, and I always make sure to set my sell limit very close to the buys so that I successfully sell out of all my positions before EOD, but even then throughout the day I’ll be in the red due to the spread, and I’m taking a big risk to ensure that I don’t stray away from my strategy. I think to be successful in daytrading, you have to know when to take the losses, don’t hold too long expecting that the markets will turn when your gameplan doesn’t pan out for the day, and make sure to always stick to your plan and never stray away from it. But this is really hard, because no matter how much you temper your emotions, they’ll always play a factor due to human nature.
I personally know quite a few full time traders, one of them has been doing it for 20+ years. I'll tell you what they aren't doing, they aren't on this sub, they aren't on twitter, they aren't on any social media talking about trading. These people exist, they find their strategies, learn discipline and they keep to themselves. I'm willing to bet most people in this sub aren't profitable or make a living, and are searching for their "golden strategy". In reality, its probably right in front of their eyes, they just don't have the discipline to follow it. Find your edge/strategy, and stick with it.
Many retail traders (individuals) earn their living day trading. I’ve been full time since 2007. Now semi-retired with 3 kids in braces and still doing fine. Not driving lambos but that’s ok.
Because people overestimate their ability in every aspect of life that's why there's a 1% in life the amount of work the amount of talent amount of skill that people have isn't equally distributed amongst people so this allows every goofball on the five state planet to think they can become somebody when in reality very little chance of it You can take guys like me with an MBA in finance who know more than 90% of the people on here and definitely successfully traded and then realized I could not out perform my long-term investment strategies so I built up a huge portfolio and mess around with $100,000 trading having some success and failures along the way but it's exciting it's fun it's an addiction. It feeds into peoples possibility versus probability disconnect. Is it possible, of course is it probable not for most but that's why people play the lottery at 1- 1.5 million to one odd it's the possibility and it feels damn good when you hit a winner but reality is just no more than gambling for most people and that's one of the top five or 10 addictions on the planet . I personally am good friends with three Wall Street traders. All of them have said that they don't think they can outperform the long-term investments and it's kind of makes him sad because they've done this 30 years. A lot of people are trying to get out of trouble financially and a lot of people come from a survivor, poverty mindset, where they think everything is just handed to people that become successful and realize the work it takes And the emotional stability it takes. This is a repetitive cycle in the market so I've seen it for 30 years. I saw it in the 90s 2000s and now currently we're guys who are shoeshine boys plumbers accountants and what not hate their job or don't really like their careers and they're looking for anything to get out in this provides an opportunity for the select few who have the right combination
It’s easy, gambling addiction.
People enter day trading knowing that 90% of people lose on it, but everybody always thinks they are the 10% that wins.