The actual title of this thread should be "Another TRADER bites the dust"
It's common knowledge that ALL time frames of trading can be profitable if one has the appropriate skill.
The easiest level is to just buy and hold an index fund and do nothing. Everything else can be considered short term trading, whether it's on a time frame of months, weeks, days, or minutes.
Is short term trading more difficult than just buy and hold? Absolutely, but there is a difference between difficult vs impossible. I know of few other fields where someone has the EGO to make a declaration that something is not possible simply because they can't do it or everyone they personally know failed at it.
You also have people in academia that says ALL trading is impossible because of Efficient Market Theory not allowing people to to capitalize on market fluctuations.
So the OP chooses to disregard EMT but then makes his own proclamation of what is "impossible".
Patterns exist in all time frames but having the skill to find and exploit them is the key ingredient for success.
This thread is a clear example of repeat patterns of people posting day trading isn't possible followed by people challenging those posts.
The problem that guy had isn't "day trading". Letting an account go from $450K to $0 in 18 months is horrible risk management, period, regardless of the time frame.
We live in an age where sim trading is identical in all aspects to real except for the risk, and yet this guy supposedly put all his money on the line in his real account rather than seeing if he could actually succeed in his new time frame? That points to bigger problems than just being bad at trading.
OP joined ET in 2009 and made ONE post, then ten years later makes another post in 2019 that day trading isn't possible. He repeats his PATTERN about a year later with another anti day trading post.
There are trading horror stories in ALL time frames. Just ask the folks that loaded up on some company stocks and held onto them through their glory years, only to lose it all when the company went on decline into bankruptcy.
A person with BAD RISK MANAGEMENT is a disaster waiting to happen, no matter what time frame of investing/trading. It just becomes apparent faster in shorter time frames.
Don't blame the time frame, blame the TRADER.