I mean how can you not? Someone's got to be making that $10M/day(!) in intraday daytrading profits...
In medicine or other professions you have to pass many exams and do lots of training before you can do it in the real world. Even so they still make mistakes. In trading, there isn't any restriction. You know what will happen if a guy try do a brain surgery without any medical training.
The study was in 2004 - that is right before HFT's exploded onto the scene. Note how they talk about how much volume day traders generate - these days the HFT generate the vast majority of volume. Pre 2004 you traded mostly with another human, a highly skill trader could often take the bid-ask spread in that era - not anymore. https://vantagepointtrading.com/archives/13922
Sounds about right, if it was easy, we'd all be doing it, we'd all be billionaires nobody would have real jobs and we'd all starve as no body would produce food. Get good at it, get in that 1.6% and a nobody could become rich person.
I've always stated that traders should be require to learn basic things like risk management, issues about proper leverage & margin and such after opening a trading account and then be require to pass some kind of test on these issues. In addition, maybe us even required to pass a simulation trading exam on whatever it is they're trading while applying what they learned from risk management and such. Sounds ridiculous and it'll most likely hurt the broker industry, charting vendors but even something as "driving school" is required to be passed prior to allowing someone to get drivers license and get on the road to drive. Simply, there should be a restriction in the form of test (series) just like professional financial institutions review about their traders (employees) to ensure the new hires have passed so that there's a level of competency. Currently, to trade...you just need money, identification and some other paper work to be completed. No tests and that's why there's a revolving door of us retail traders.
No other professions are strictly a zero sum game except perhaps the gambling joints. Those that made the rules are professionals and MM, why would they restrict us when by doing so they decrease the amount of dumb money in the pool and so reduce their profits? You don't need a test to be a gambler either. Regards,