You could becan astronought with no training at all most of the time nothing goes wrong and not an issue. Daytrading is hard at it for years, think I've had it mastered a few times to fail and start again Used to do the few hours, but trying to adapt to less scalp more intraday swing, so longer but less attention required.
I think new retail should forget about scalping at the dollars per trade is very tight, and unless you have automation for split second timing, but scalping IMHO is the toughest trading to master. Best to do deep retracement entries so risk is smaller and profits larger and try to stay in for longer profits. Less signals and have some type of alarm in case you drift off to nap.
Yeah its the old 80/20 rule, you end up making 80% of your profits from the trades placed in the premarket/first hour and a half, then spend the whole day stressing out looking at the market tick for tick to grind for very little gain. Its absolutely draining doing that day after day when you need the money, and thus have to be a part of the afternoon grind. The guy whose my mentor comes in in the morning hits the first couple hours, enjoys his day then comes back for the close, much more balanced life, but the size hes comfortable swinging and not even paying attention too is ridiculous, been trying to learn and convert more to his style of trading, but its hard to convert to just holding everything and only paying attention to daily charts when i cut my teeth as a scalper, slowly but surely im extending my time frame, trying to get where he is, but like everything its a process, i still put far too much weight into every single intraday move.
Yeah scalping is just a dead game imo, if your moving over 200k shares per day your probably doing pretty decent averaging a cent a share, with algos forcing you to hit the bid/offer instead of adding liquidity when the market is moving fast in the morning, the margin is so razor thin its not even worth it anymore.
I have friends who know what I do and they want to try it too. So for them the question is not silly as they try to find out what it is all about. They try to find out what to do: try or not try. And to know what is needed to have some chances to succeed. I think the answer is not complete. The answer depends on the person who asks the question. Each person has other abilities and disabilities. So what is difficult for A can be easy for B. So difficulty depends on "who is trying to do something" and "what is he trying to do". The combination of both factors defines the grade of difficulty for that person. He wants to know HIS chances not the statistically probability of thousands or even millions of people. So becoming an astronout can be more easy or more difficult, depending on the person. Same applies to all the other examples. Usain Bolt runs without doing any efforts much faster than 99.9% of the world population. So not difficult for him but impossible for the others. Depends on the person. With this I complelety agree. I never watched global statistics in life. I started businesses that statistically where risky, but I made good money. I started daytrading, where over 90% seam to lose, but I make money. Most rewarding things in my life where things that statistically where not a good thing trying to do. To make good money you should be able to do something that not many people can, as then you have a good profit margin because of lack of competition. If you do something everybody can do, you will work hard for small money as there will be lots of people offering what you offer. Then prices follow (huge) offer and (smaller) demand resulting in low profits. You want to do something that is not difficult? Flip burgers at Mc Donalds. Statistics are only reliable coming from a statistical representative amount of data, and projected on a statistical representative amount of data. You can never use it reliably for 1 person. In my personal life most of thes stats were completely wrong. If people live on average till the age of 79, how old will you become then? Nobody knows. Theoretically you can die the day you are born or in 100 years. There is no reasonable probability to tell you with high certainty the outcome for you. The same is valid for the question posted by OP. Only future will tell what the correct answer was.
I agree, Like with any ... field or job or quest or endeavor...only truly 1% will succeed fruitfully, while the rest of the other 99% will be wondering why God touched you with Success while they struggle or fail, Answering or explaining that answer can be quite complex,
If you have the following skills 1. Analytical 2. Logical 3. Mathematics 4. Engineering 5. Problem Solving 6. Motivation 7. Persistence 8. Discipline (for Discretionary Trading) You don't need degrees but you need to have a flair for these skills. I didn't know I had engineering skills until I got into trading. You also need a lot of time. Some people never get there due to circumstance and they simply dont have the time that's required.
Usain Bold is uniquely talented but what we don't see is his extreme training schedule. Fortunately, we don't need to be the best trader in the world...good will suffice.
If you have the talent, it is easy. If you develop the talent, it becomes easier. If you neither have the talent nor develop it, it's impossible.
Daytrading is easy. Anyone can point & click. Reloading your account is the hard part -- you'll need a day job for that.