I started at 31 and it took me about 7 years, shit load of money, couple of good friends, little health....hmmmmm...shall i continue?
Taking on day trading would be a little bit like taking on many competitors in a high performance sport, (it's not a team sport by the way, you are doing it alone.) Similarly, if you think you would enjoy taking on peak gamers in a gaming arcade over a long period of time, betting your own money, go for it. Others would prefer the Warren Buffett style of things, slow and steady, however Buffett is an exception none can match, guy must be a genius how he does it with such ease.
it is important to keep that foolishness to stay young of mind. But you should know when you can be foolish and when you should be serious.
Impossible to know in just a few months. I knew after a few months that is was going to work... till I found out I had a problem. Solved that problem and knew that from then on it was going to work. This scenario repeated for many years, till I understood that you never know if it will continue to work. The only thing I did was every month make an objective analysis of the progress (or the lack of progress), so that I knew if I could continue or not. Sometimes when things went really wrong and had to start again from scraTch, I overruled the obejctive analysis and continued. I have the mentality of a pitbull, I never give up (too difficult to me). I was lucky I was so stubborn because I finally arrived at the point (or even beyond) I was aiming at. But for the same money I would have lost lots of money and time in something unachievable. Only in hindsight you will know what you had to do. So trying can make you happy or be dramatical for you (and also for your wife and children).
This. (And I think it usually turns out to be different things for different people, too - which makes it even harder for people to advise helpfully.)
Exactly, it is a personal and for each person a different journey. My son will start trading when he graduates in a few months from university (degree computerscience). He is now "playing" with crypto's. I am now already afraid about the result of his attempt in which I will help him with all I know. An older daughter from me tried already before and it was a complete failure. So even with coaching you are never sure where this will end.
Profitable day trading is far more profitable than buy and hold, but it is also not very likely he'll be able to get there. If you need 5000-10.000 hours of study to become a day trader with no guarantee that it'll turn out successful in the end - what's the opportunity cost here if he had done something else instead? Like pursuing some other career where it's more or less guaranteed that you'll get paid? Both per hour, but also increased salary...? No, but it's a good benchmark for what he should expect to happen. If most people don't make it, nor should he expect it to.
Anybody can become a successful trader at any age. As to the notion of daytrader.. that depends upon exactly what you mean. Used to be that meant "scalper"..... wouldn't recommend that... too manic plus other concerns. But "day-swing" trading is viable. That is, look for where you can "risk a few points with the reasonable expectation that you might make 3x or 4x of what you're risking". That, and to "swing trade" the daily charts. And once you learn it correctly, you will always have money for the rest of your life.
You should do this in your free time, while having a regular job. Do you calculate the opportunity cost of: sporting going out holidays ... also? That would mean that you should just work 24/7 to avoid any possible opportunity cost. You will then be happy if you will die to get ride of this opportunity cost. How much was the opportunity cost of posting this on ET for you? Almost all billionaires, successful sportsmen, successful traders, lottery winners, etc... should not have expected it to happen. But they in REALITY did it. Stats are only good if applied on lots of data to have any value. Each single data point can not use the global stats to define their individual chances of succeeding. Benchmarks are based on statistical calculations of a lot of data and can only be used on lots of data to get a reliable result, within certain limits. I am one of the living proof that the benchmark did not work for me as a reliable prediction in trading. So is Zuckerberg, Siegel, Buffett, Gates, Tudor... They all did what statistically was almost impossible in their area.
Not all its cracked up to be for those who are still carrying the dna of hunters and gatherers and need to go out on the hunt everyday and kill something and bring it home to be happy. Some days you eat the bear and some days the bear eats you. It's a beautiful thing. Of course, in hunting and gathering societies there are those who are best suited for just chewing leather all day to make mocassins for the hunters. Their modern day counterparts will be happy in all the corporate meetings. On their deathbed they will remember all the great meetings they went to and the great quarterly reports they wrote. If you can make that work, do it.