I have to strongly disagree, probabilities change greatly due to knowledge, risk control management and time. I do much better trading futures markets long term than stock markets because the margins are so low, hedging and dancing options around positions. But by using one year for stats, the data is useless. Your data is like comparing it to brokers all make money and just have to sit and answer the phone, but the fact is if they don't have well funded large traders doing size, all the baby accounts won't even pay the monthly rent on building as they drain precious time to find larger traders away.
I think it depends more on the trader than the market. The stock market is not as heavily margined as the others so while the possibility of doubling your account is there so is the possibility of losing your account in a short time. I have traded both stocks and futures. Day trading, swing trading and position trading and am now mainly position trading stocks because I don't find I am giving up that much on the return side and I definitely have a lot less stress. Half an hour a day (if that) spent in front of a computer as opposed to six or seven hours with my finger on the mouse poised over the send order button.
Agreed that the tax advantage is great, but making money in general is better. And, all cash settled index and VIX symbols on the CBOE are 1256 too.
"the stock market is the easier market to trade" Trading instruments do no matter options or futures (derivatives) are highly leveraged. Stocks are not leveraged, the only exception being some ETFs like the 2x or 3x variety which give you some leverage, still far less than pure derivatives. The stock market is not a zero sum game. Derivatives are a negative sum game when you factor in the trading costs. Futures has good tax advantages for short term trading, stocks have a much lower rate if you hold a year or more. It's always amusing how some claim it is easy to make $ in the stock market, they always chime in well into a long bull market neglecting the fact that the prior bear wiped out the majority like it always does before a new bull emerges. The same people that claim the stock market is a walk in the park when hitting all time highs are the first to proclaim the stock market as a one way ticket to the poor house during a bear market.
I started trading local stocks > 3 decades ago. Then I migrated from local stocks world wide stocks to options on index futures using various strategies to day trading index futures to spreading financial futures to day trading various futures like index, commodities, financial, currency futures. My conclusions : 1. stock market is the hardest market to earn money. day trading is the easiest market to earn money. 2. Don't listen to financial experts / news. There are lots of worthless/useless/inaccurate useful news. We have to develop our own holy grail as we have different subconscious mind, capability & competency. ____
Not only that, but the government encourages you to buy and forget through favorable tax treatment. For the average person, buy and hold SPY is probably the best strategy assuming that the Fed is able to blow up each successive bubble larger than the previous.
A very misleading article. The author has established the bias using timeframe periods. That doesn't mean one cannot establish a bias using other methods, a moving average for example.