A lot of bad traders blame everything on outside forces. Most traders are simply bad traders, it has little to do with being a retail trader. Of course, there are certain disadvantages you have as far as execution, and in some cases commission (both can be mitigated to a certain degree), but just realize that trading is tough, 80-90% will fail and most of you complainers will likely be part of that 80-90%.
Or the ones who blow their accounts many times get hired by wealthy boutique firms as risk managers because they have a MBA or PhD in Finance. I personally know two guys with gambling problems, they that lost millions trading options and biotechs. Now they make sure hedge fund traders don't implode as risk manager. How can that be, it's like a square circle or a married bachelor.
Daytrading only makes sense if you have a demonstrable edge. Finding that takes time and an out-of-pocket investment in tools and services. Of course there are exceptions. Most people bring to daytrading false ideas of how charts move. By the time they un-learn those ideas, their account is gone.
Sell-siders look like geniuses bc they have access to institutional flow and trading off of sell-side research (uh huh, Chinese Wall). 95% of sell-siders wouldn't make a dime trading retail.
And you can't make a dime trading FX. It's not your fault. Nobody can make any money in FX. We're over 40Y into institutional FX trading. It hasn't been a profit center for banks since 1990 and you're somehow going to make bank in FX at 4-5% realized vol. Right.
[ Give a highly profitable trading system to 100 traders and a lot of them will still find a way to blow up their account! The trading edge is not enough if the trader has no money management rules and discipline. In fact you can turn ANY winning system into a losing system just by messing with the money management part.