I keep hearing people say trading is the hardest way to make money. How would those people even know? It's not like they have tried every single way to make money. Off the top of my head, I can think of two professions which are harder than trading to make money at: 1. NBA. You can't teach height. If you aren't tall enough, you just ain't making it to the NBA, no matter what you do. The shortest player was Muggsy Bouges at 5'3, and a couple are at 5'7. That's about it in the entire history of the league. 2. Hollywood. You ain't making it unless you have connections. It's gatekeeping to the extreme, whereas any rando can open up a trading account.
Unless you get sued or something really unforeseen happens like that, when you provide a product or service within your given career or business, the money you earn is yours. There may be seasonal and/or sporatic ups and downs in the business which can cause business to pick up or slow down, but for the most part, the money you earn when things are stable goes right into your pocket for you to do what you want with. However, with trading you can actually go backwards, which means you can literally erase your past profits and trading successes with just a single poorly-managed trade. We've all seen stories of traders who were profitable over long periods of time and then wiped all of that success off the books with one bad year or a short-term string of poor decisions, especially if leverage is involved. So the reason why many people think trading is the hardest way to make money is because there's always a very real threat of undoing all of your past success and/or losing your capital if your discipline goes out the window and your emotions get the best of you, even if only for a very short period of time.
Just to make you happy ... Trading is the easiest way to make money. Why didn't many people know about it? Did they try every single way to make money? Did they just close their eyes and buy any stocks? Then HODL and they will retire filthy rich. Off the top of my head, I can think of two professions that are harder than trading to make money: 1. gambling 2. the President of the US. Only one American can be the US president.
the real issue with trading that separates it from other business is thusly: When you provide a good or service you have constant, relevant external feedback for error correction. When trading it is only you as the sole judge...the customer, the provider, the everything. If you work somewhere you have a boss or manager keeping your performance in check. If you own a business providing a good or service then you have a customer to keep your performance in check. when new to trading...often times bad goes to worse and you "try to make it up" throwing more good money after bad. ITs extremely challenging and requires insane dedication to make any business work...but trading has all of that plus the extra listed above. This is why having a legit, non charlatan bs mentor is the ultimate benefit to the neophyte trader. Lord how i wish i would have had a mentor.
You can go backwards in business too lol...and not only do you lose money, but you lose wages, labour, time, equipment, materials...it's way worse. You make a bad trade and you might lose $1600 one week spent mostly watching netflix ..that's a lot better than losing $1600 AND having to waste your time working on the job. Also trading is the only business where you don't have to be a professional to compete with professionals. You aren't going to roll out of bed one day and be an electrician..or a lawyer...but you could roll out of bed and make 50k in the market. I agree with the OP....making money trading isn't harder than any other business...but you have to know your business better than the people you are competing against..same as any other business.