Quite often, I hear invited guests on CNBC amd similar Television Channels saying that it is not possible to make money daytrading or intraday trading. I presume these people are fairly successful fund managers and/or analysts. As you might guess, I have not been able to consistently produce profitable results daytrading either, otherwise I would not be putting this post up! I have had successful runs but they were short lived. Sometimes due to my own fault at overruling my rules and sometimes the model that was working stopped working. I am sincerely curious is there any one out there daytrading and producing regular income out of it??
I've been daytrading 8 years, last 7 have been 6 figure years (low 6's). Have not had a down month since 2001, havent had a down week since 2005. So....yes people make money daytrading. Is it easy, of course not. Well, not until you know what you are doing. Then it becomes a matter of trying to do it better!
I think that it is possible. I actually think in fact that it would be foolhardy to hold positions overnight since there is so much potential for disaster. To my thinking intraday trading represents far less naked risk to a trader. I think the only sure way to generate intraday returns is to test systems using a decent simulator that presents an accurate represnetation of slip in particular since costs are so much more a factor in successs when your opening and closing so many postions in a day. Only when your paper trading is consistent should you move on to real live trading. I also believe that only mechanical systems are long term profitable this way as I contend that the long term probability of success for discretionary trading is slim to nil since all trading by institutions and organisations is organised in such a systematic way that it can only be gamed this way. If theres one thing that a guy like Bill Gates knows its that in life and in all things there is a system of organisation for everything. Otherwise you have anarchy and chaos.
You're new to ET (alias registration shows Dec 2007) and you probably didn't notice the following thread that contains traders posting brokerage statements about their trading day.... Each trading day and some are profitable traders. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=83837 Therefore, to answer your question... YES, many are making money via day trading. Also, if you are a Blog user...there are a few trader blogs on the net in which profitable traders are also posting their brokerage statements. Simply, before ET, blogs et cetera...many traders out of the loop really didn't know anybody that was profitable at day trading... It was all rumors without proof. Those rumors have been put to bed the past 10 years or so. Note: I didn't see Dustin's commentary when I made my message post. Mark
Come on, of course they do..... this is ELITE TRADER! You'll quickly learn everyone here is just rolling in it. Good Luck!
It's IMPOSSIBLE to produce regular income by daytrading! The TV gurus are 100% correct; listen to them! And add a subscription to Money Magazine too. And don't think for one minute you can compete with those black-box super-computers and the lemming quants that do the programming. A daytraders sole purpose is to fund the day-to-day operations of brokerage houses and clearing agents through commissions and fees. Exchanges go public because data requires much more infrastructure funding than the data fees generated by daytraders. 3rd party software, newsletters, and systems, exist only to propagate the dream. Even uncle sam uses arbitrary definitions for equity daytraders. Daytrading just isn't feasible. I wish ET had a question of the year forum. Osorico
Losers always come up with excuses for why THEY cant do it. Its always someone out there holding THEM down. They almost never think to look in the mirror to find the source of the problem. Most people are too weak, bottom line