hopefully you covered 59`s while typing & doing the mashed potatoe.... as it looks like they`re going to try & squeeze the short leaners from the lo 50`s....to hi 60`s.
Who knows what you mean when you say "big guys"! However, if by "big guys" you mean the guys who make and trade "big money", I'd say they don't day trade. In fact, I believe it was Paul Tudor Jones who said day trading was for suckers. Probably not the answer you want to hear. OldTrader
Not really. Most people knew that stocks would react positively either way. If the number was low, stocks rally because that supports rate cut policy. If the number was high, stocks rally because it's a sign of economic strength. It was a win/win. The market is still exhuberant over the rate cut, so it was more likely to be positive in this case. I didn't long the news prior, but some people don't have my risk aversion. Now, where I will agree with you is that I often see a jump in the correct direction like 2 seconds before I get the number, and believe me I have very good, fast data. So, somebody out there is getting it faster than me, if only by a second or two. But that's enough.
Well, Marty Schwartz, also of Market Wizards fame, is or at least was a very short term trader. I don't think you can regard him as a sucker by any stretch. He may not be anywhere near as "big" as PTJ, but how big do you need to be to be happy? While PTJ is to be respected and admired for his notable accomplishments in the market, if he did indeed say what you said he did, then he was expressing his opinion from his own perspective. Not everyone wears the same hat at the same angle. A person's own trading should tell him more about what is possible than someone else's generic remark.
He said that 95% of day traders are losers, which is the commonly accepted wisdom. He did, however, start out on the floor, so he might not have been talking about short term trading in general. However, to make truly big money you have to trade longer pulls. Eventually, no market can take your size.
Just a couple of comments. The NYSE have been the consumate "day-traders" for centuries, and have generally made good money. Some say from "stealing" some understand that it's mostly "providing liquidity." My brother and I spent a decade or longer on various exchange floors, options, futures, and equities. We provided liquidity, we "scalped" (day trades), and we got involved in serious longer term positions. When trading a couple thousand options daily ( a lot back then, LOL), we would always have a few thousand open positions. Not everyone traded that way, but many did. Some simply day-traded. When people ask me what kind of a trader I am (Scalper, day trader, momentum, Technical, Fundamental, automated, pairs, mergers, relative strength, break-outs, contrarian, etc.)... I simply say "yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes," (you get the idea, LOL). The really successful traders I know, both within and outside of Bright Trading, tend to not limit themselves to "day trading" or simple swing trading, but tend to use excellent entry/exit techniques in all types of trading, long and short term. For example, "pairs trading" is a strategy, but proper entry is like the tactical aspect of how you execute the trades. Some basic people think you find a spread price on a pair, and then simply execute both sides, not good, and can be costly in the long run. Trading is definitely multip-faceted, from quick reflexes for some, to accurate record keeping, to tape reading, IMO. FWIW, Don
I stand corrected...I believe he used the term "loser" rather than "sucker". And by the way, if you search the internet you may find a speech or interview that he gave where he made this statement. He was given a word association type of question. One word was "day trader"....his response was "loser". (I believe). Anyway, you can google it and hear it for yourself. For TDog, certainly Swartz was not a "loser" by any means. Obviously some people are capable of this type of trading....he was one. But, think about this.....the really big traders like let's say PTJ...a guy worth billions, do not day trade. And while Swartz fits my category of success....he's nowhere near worth "billions". And by the way, I was around when many of the trading contests that Swartz more or less dominated took place. There was him and Frankie Joe, maybe a few others...that was it. The rest did in fact lose money. What made Swartz particularly good was that he traded a larger account....at one time he entered with $250K. So his rate of return was on a much larger base than most of the other guys. Some of these guys entered with $5K. That said, I think it would "generally" be true, that the "big guys" trading "big money" are not "generally" day traders. OldTrader
Just another comment, sort of a pet peeve. When people say 95% of traders lose, that just plain nuts. Even if 95% of new people don't make it (like in most business ventures), the long time traders virtually all make money or they wouldn't continue to trade now, would they? Sure, it may take a year or 2 to "get it" (some never do), but when we have well over 50% of our people with us since 2001 or before, there is an obvious long term career for those that make it. The turnover on the trading floors was and is pretty bad, again, just like most business ventures. FWIW, Don
The reason for this is simple. You can't day trade with the size these fellows trade. What I can do with 1-2k shares is not the same as moving 100,s of millions around. He speaks from his experience (moving large sums of money around), as with Buffet, Soros, and the like. They have no interest in making 250k to 500k in a year day trading. For many of us, that is a good living. In fact for most of the population that is a good income. For the trader with less than a $1-2 million stake day trading is a very viable strategy.