I did some day trades last week and went flat at the close, no open positions. What is very revealing is that I had no reason to keep up with things after hours, before market hours, overnight futures, etc.. In other words it is more like a regular job. Since I trade options (yes I changed on that ) the hours are 6:30 am till 1:00pm Pacific USA time.
When I am in an option on a stock, etf, etc.. I would watch like a hawk till 5 pm, and then watch the futures.
bottom line, I can see the better lifestyle from day trading and being flat at the close and open each day.
Daytrading used to be the way to go until recently, I would say within the last year or two with the Asian markets becoming more and more active, I am seeing HUGE and I mean HUGE swings in the overnight futures market. So if you have realtime futures data and enough capital and stomach for huge swings, the overnight market can be very very lucrative if you feel like staying up all night up and then all day during the North American market, basically staying up for 20 hours.
