Many smaller gains or fewer larger gains....matter of choice. Personally, I like to be active during the day and in cash at night.
This is also inaccurate. I'm offered twice the leverage for daytrades vs. overnights. The math works out the same way for P&L. I also have no overnight risk. The key is getting a decent grasp on intraday mechanics. Most give up, and I can understand why. It's hard work, and very time consuming.
I can't do it so nobody else can blah blah blah.... if you cannot make money daytrading then just stay in your lane but to say everyone else must be losing money is just amateurish. Many traders just want movement/volatility and could care less in which direction while you sit on your hands hoping to go long a stock.index.
I don´t know why people say this... I know of as much successfull daytraders as I know of successful investors... The problem is that sometimes the "luck" of some alleged investors sometimes just takes longer to run out compared to the luck of a daytrader, which gives them a false impression as to their trading or investing abilities.
Knowing how to find volatility is a daytraders lifeblood. Also, neophytes and less informed daytraders tend to focus on the extremes. A professional knows he needs to be inside the mean zone of price action. Every level of price movement works on it's own merits regardless of where price is, or has been. A later entry in the mean zone is superior to an earlier one around an extreme.
day trading has nothing to do with what i said earlier as a matter of fact on many instruments one would not be able to say the difference between 5-min bar chart and daily bar chart so if one trades on daily, weekly or even monthly charts everything i said earlier applies but you have to realize that you are not trading, you are investing (since you talking about valuation, growth, etc etc) nothing is wrong with investing, in fact it is not easier than trading but one has to realize the difference: trading - speculation on the price fluctuation, investing - speculation on the value fluctuation unless we talking about currencies real investors rarely short , so it is possible that there will be periods of time when investing becomes unreasonable.. one have to wait, to get out of all his positions and to wait, and wait, and wait... that is the major issue with investors - lack of patience, which usually comes from lack of money, investors should be much much better capitalized than traders (if we talking about investing for a living)
"yet trying to short S&P or bonds is usually death by a thousand cuts." you are a masochist if the above is true for you or you are clueless about entry points.
Don't you see that he has mental problems with his ego. He wants confirmation that everybody else has the same problem. According to him the problem can be anything except himself. He does not want to be a loser, he thinks he is a victim of a conspiracy against him. "every dip is being bought until the dip buyers suddenly disappear and then we plunge. SAME OLD SH*T." If that is true he should take advantage of it and buy the dips and dump it at a higher price. And even go short. But even that he cannot. And even if the market is crap, wait till it will change. Markets never stay crap forever.
I do both, day trade off one minute timeframe and very Long term Stocks and Commodity trading-some kept for five years, lots of rollovers on weekly/monthly bars. I use zero fundamentals, they useless to me, too easy to cheat and little accountability, so long as you can read a chart, you can trade. Seven years ago 80% of my account was from long term profits, it took a staff and ton of automation to have it 50/50%, just goes to show me, but I always knew that long term is where the money is at, much less commissions and I make out well with gaps. Adding options/commodity spreads now to be more of a monthly trades, but again, less fees to have to pay, longer you stay in. Day trading, if you don't know how to trade chop, you losing out as one day that time will come, will you be able to make money in 3 point ranges? Crying about HFT, that is a trader who doesn't know how to adapt, there will always be something traders want to whine about, either learn to make an enemy your friend or ... But it takes money to make money, margins are huge in some instruments,& for good reason, and many simple don't handle risk well. I know a buddy who lost his house long ago when he was on wrong side of Lumber trade as that market went limit up thirteen days in a row. I can only imagine if more people traded long term commodities if that get messed up like stocks are today with so many false moves. You have to keep back testing and not use stops.