U can do day trading in one acct, swing trading in another, longer term stuff in another, etc. No need to restrict oneself. ...I try to change my style (of investing) to fit the conditions ~ George Soros
You do understand that to daytrade with large positions one can split those positions up, right? No-one in their right mind will send a big order as whole. Daytrading doesn't have to mean you're competing with HFT. Saying most can't make money daytrading, is that even worth mentioning? That's like saying the sea is blue, obvious. Do you think most people make money swing trading? I don't.
Right, you can split up positions and trade multiple time frames, but that isn't what most people do here. The big time successful traders and fund managers are not daytrading ES, EURUSD, or AAPL. They are taking positions to try to make large gains over weeks and months, not hours. I bet there are a much higher percentage of swing traders making money than daytraders. Still a minority, but definitely better odds than daytrading.
Well, fund managers and traders are completely different animals. One manages very large amounts of money, has relatively low returns and is also a salesman - the other is the opposite, a guy in boxer shorts who answers to nobody and suffers with the results. One reason the big guys swing trade is because they are...big. You cannot get in and out of trades in stocks within minutes if your position is in the hundreds of millions, without slippage. Why is swing trading special? There's nothing to indicate this.
Best to just stick with the typical comparison of ET retail day trader versus ET retail swing trading. If you do that, most traders are losing regardless if day trading or swing trading. Yet, anyone worrying about which one is prettier than the other...you're already behind and worrying about the wrong things. Simply, don't lower yourself to kindergarten like comparisons. Just trade (position, swing, day trading, scalping) and try to be one of the few making it. Yep, some trading days are miserable and some are great.
I suspect that profitable day traders make all their net profits for the year from less than 10% of the days that they trade.
Most people cannot make money trading daily charts on fundamentals which are often disconnected from what is actually happening in the market. Despite the relatively low VIX the market has had some nice swings even on daily time frames. Not sure why it is so crappy...