Many people have these perceptions : chances of being a successful day trader: < 5% chances of being a successful swing trader: 20% chances of being a successful long term stock investor: 50% Of course, I don't believe this number. ________________ Lots of traders have up-ed their trading level by migrating from investing in stocks to swing trading to day trading. Almost all the traders in trading houses / hubs are day traders. These are the people who work very very hard to be successful. But why day trading? Because lots of movements happen within a day and just one day only. Let's say the above 3 groups of people work very very hard. This is the more likely scenario. chances of being a successful day trader: < 5% chances of being a successful swing trader: < 3% chances of being a successful long term stock investor: < 1% __________________
Yeah I blew ~6 figs and thousands of hours trying to learn this trading thing. Got it done. Proof: https://www.elitetrader.com/et/threads/prediction-based-trading.351176/page-28#post-5270344
i read my first book in 1994........so i have read over a 100 books i found Brooks book in 2007 and since then that is the only book i have read.....and read and read. you have to get on the right road as far as trading short term is concerned..........i was on the wrong one for long.
people say oh i was so good as a engineer or teacher or parent or software developer but i suck at trading but the fact is there is no measurement to say how good you are as teacher or parent....... in trading there is clear and undisputed measurement about how good you are..........there is no escape
if you get the right guidance then it is easy. if you think in the right way then it is easy. chances of both of those coming about :less than 2% trading is ridiculously easy if you focus on some things. it took me over a decade to do that. so do i think that is the truth about day trading?. yes i do because the wrong things get the focus. and the wrong things get the focus because 99% of all education send you on the wrong road
It's always been claimed that the failure rate of day traders is very high, so this is no surprise, although that article was a poor one and didn't even link the study. Consider how low the barrier of entry is in day trading. Pretty much everyone can open an account and start trading. How many of these individuals actually spent years of study and research to formulate a trading strategy before funding an account and starting to trade in a live market? I bet that's less than 10 % - which would be the other side of the coin of the 90 % who do fail.
100 % agree. As an engineer or software developer - you're allowed a margin of error. Basically, you can do mistakes (which you may correct or not) and you can have a bad day at the job and you're still paid. In day trading - the margin of error is very small. You basically have to bring your top game every single day (and be smart/disciplined enough to stay away when that's not possible). You're not paid if you're almost good enough. Winner takes all. Finally, as an engineer or software developer, you have a written curriculum to follow. It's basically a science where you're gauranteed to learn what you need to know as long as you do what's required. When you graduate, you typically have colleagues and mentors on the job who will guide you and who you can ask for advice and lean on. In (day) trading as a retail trader you're alone. Be prepared to spend the first 1-3 years just to figure out and get an overview of the curriculum. And then another 3-5 years of research to start getting anywhere. Not to mention all the snake oil vendors and teachers who gets rich selling you educational material as they wasn't able to make money themselves. It's incredibly hard to have the persistence and dedication to go through all this alone and act both as trader, risk manager, coder, bookkeeper, business manager and so on as serious trading is a business which consists of many parts. Not even comparable to taking a degree. One of the things that surprised me most when I took my engineering degree was the amount of dumb people there who actually got through and even got well paid jobs. But I guess the degree is planned for such that the average person can get through it with some effort.
yes that is undoubtable the reason.......... but it is also a huge opportunity which is, like you said, open to everyone. unfortunately regulators are trying to change that .... they are also trying to educate people wrongly saying that it is highly risky :they should be telling them that unless you work hard to learn what it is about..... you will lose money. knowledge does reduce risk. and a man does deserve a chance to earn his daily bread: but he should do that with his eyes not tightly closed and with blind hope. unfortunately you cannot capitalize hope