Day trading for a living - Almost impossible

Thank you for your replies, I was never expecting any of you to prove that you are profitable, essentially because you are not. It was only to double check your excuses.

The most obvious excuse is "I am not going to waste my time with you". Such a classic.
That was sent twice, in three messages.

I have to admit that it was surprising that someone asked for money to send a statement, that was hilarious.

Still we need the last excuse to appear, a made up statement without any name of reference to an actual trader. That might appear, pay close attention. The comedy is still on.
I created a thread recently to have a "serious" convo about trends and ranges. And what exactly happened? It turned into a damn circus with everyone being their own guru and critic. Now imagine I actually provide all the documents that you demanded. Do you really believe others would accept me as a successful trader? Don't be so damn naive. Personally, I don't give a fck about it and, more importantly, they don't either.
 
I don't understand the fight. Are some really saying is not possible to make money day trading???

I have had a group of day traders for over 15 years and we are profitable almost every month, and know many other successful day traders too. No I will not send statement to prove, not because I can't but because I don't care if you believe or not.

Is it easy? No of course not, we work very very hard, all of our traders have been doing this long time, are very knowledge, very focused, very smart. When I start trading floor many years ago and train new traders, most fail because is very hard but some do very well and some I train even much better than me now.

Stop believe stupid youtube people who say "day trading easy to make millions" or "day trading impossible", both are lies to get you watch video.
 
Not a reply but a demand.

Are any of you wankers able to prove that you are profitable at day trading?
Not with a shitty screenshot or a link to your journal, something that we can actually believe, a statement from your broker i.e.

Maybe we can agree on a two years statement from your live account. It should show trades and balances. That will settle it. The statement should be coming from the broker directly, ideally in pdf format so we can see that has been signed by them.

Let's see where these big day traders stand at. I have a feeling that we know the answer already.
Is your demand because you want to convince yourself that you're not worst than the rest of the crowd? That if you cannot make money day trading, it's because it's impossible?

Usually, money losers want the proof that others can make money. Kind like 'if I cannot make money, then no one else can. I'm a loser, so everybody is.'.

Money makers usually don't care about how others are doing.

To conclude, a free advice that you won't take (because you're that type of person!). You should put your effort on trying to make money, not find excuses why you don't make any.

To conclude the conclusion, base on you assumption (no proof, then it doesn't exist), you will reach you goal, cause no one here will give you a proof that he's profitable.
 
Cost of entry for trading regardless of day/swing trading is low. The number of people who have edge is low. The size of the edge and significant capital + savings are required to make a living from trading.

It's not a surprise most people have failed to become a profitable trader, let alone make a living from trading.
 
I don't understand the fight. Are some really saying is not possible to make money day trading???

I have had a group of day traders for over 15 years and we are profitable almost every month, and know many other successful day traders too. No I will not send statement to prove, not because I can't but because I don't care if you believe or not.

Is it easy? No of course not, we work very very hard, all of our traders have been doing this long time, are very knowledge, very focused, very smart. When I start trading floor many years ago and train new traders, most fail because is very hard but some do very well and some I train even much better than me now.

Stop believe stupid youtube people who say "day trading easy to make millions" or "day trading impossible", both are lies to get you watch video.
Most people who have failed in this endeavor have never personally met traders who have made it in real life.

Some people have made it without ever personally met traders who have made it in real life.

Only people who have made it understand how hard it is.
 
Is your demand because you want to convince yourself that you're not worst than the rest of the crowd? That if you cannot make money day trading, it's because it's impossible?

Usually, money losers want the proof that others can make money. Kind like 'if I cannot make money, then no one else can. I'm a loser, so everybody is.'.

Money makers usually don't care about how others are doing.

To conclude, a free advice that you won't take (because you're that type of person!). You should put your effort on trying to make money, not find excuses why you don't make any.

To conclude the conclusion, base on you assumption (no proof, then it doesn't exist), you will reach you goal, cause no one here will give you a proof that he's profitable.

You might want to read the whole thread and find out that I said that I don't do day trading.
 
I created a thread recently to have a "serious" convo about trends and ranges. And what exactly happened? It turned into a damn circus with everyone being their own guru and critic. Now imagine I actually provide all the documents that you demanded. Do you really believe others would accept me as a successful trader? Don't be so damn naive. Personally, I don't give a fck about it and, more importantly, they don't either.

Don't look at me, I replied to that thread with a serious message. I actually gave you the title of one of the best books you can read about trends vs ranges. And you didn't even thank me for that, too bad.

I guess daytraders only care about their gambling shit and when someone point them in the right direction they can't even see it.
 
This content is all well known. I am just opening this thread for any newcomer to the forum that might want to get into gambling their money.

You can litter this thread as much as you are used to, I won't reply to it.

https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3423101
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=529063


I am going to ignore your comments and the video you posted since that is just ancedotal. Focusing on the paper you yourself cite:

___________

"Consistent with prior work on the performance of individual investors, the vast majority of day traders lose money. In the average year during our 1992 to 2006 sample period, about 450,000 Taiwanese individuals engage in day trading. There are thousands of occasional day traders, but in the average year 277,000 individuals engage in day trades in excess of $NT 600,000 per year (about $US 20,000) 2 and about 20% of these day traders earn positive abnormal returns net of fees (commissions and transaction taxes). Of course, some outperformance would be expected by sheer luck.

But luck is not the whole story. Our main result documents the presence of statistically and economically large cross-sectional variation in trader ability. In the average year, about 4,000 day traders are able to predictably profit net of a reasonable accounting for transactions costs. Specifically, we sort investors into groups based on their day trading returns in year y and analyze the performance of each group in the year y+1. We document that only the 4,000 most profitable day traders (less than 1 percent of the total population of day traders) from the prior year go on to earn reliably positive abnormal returns net of trading costs in the subsequent year. But, the stock picking ability of these investors is remarkable. The top 500 day traders (based on prior year ranking) earn gross (net) abnormal returns of 61.3 (37.9) basis points (bps) per day on their day trading portfolio, while the tens of thousands of day traders with a history of losses in the prior year go on to earn gross (net) abnormal returns of -11.5 (-28.9) bps per day.

___________

So we have 4,000 "most profitable day traders" but that should not be compared to the universe of 277,000 active daytraders as those also consist of people who try daytrading for a year, do some YOLO and then quit.

What's interesting is, the paper has identified "tens of thousands of day traders with a history of losses." So these are the traders who have stuck with day trading over the years and can't become profitable. This should be the comparison.

So 4,000 make it, versus "tens of thousands" who don't. Pretty good odds if you ask me. Higher than the acceptance rate at Harvard of 3%.
 
Cost of entry for trading regardless of day/swing trading is low. The number of people who have edge is low. The size of the edge and significant capital + savings are required to make a living from trading.

It's not a surprise most people have failed to become a profitable trader, let alone make a living from trading.
Yes is true, except with good prop firm you can trust, I think capital is not as important since will give good leverage for day trading if show good risk management. Big thing is savings needed while learning to trade since will not make money right away.

When I start floor, I always tell new traders they will not make money for at least 1st year, maybe longer, and some will never make money consistent. They all believe me, so many don't take opportunity because can't afford to live, some take 2nd job to pay for life while learning, but they all understand is true and try at least a year. Then years later, I say same thing but people see "Get rich quick" video on youtube so don't believe me, then they leave after 2 month because they thought they can make money right away and then can't live without money for 2 months. I stop training new traders then, waste my time and money
 
I am going to ignore your comments and the video you posted since that is just ancedotal. Focusing on the paper you yourself cite:

___________

"Consistent with prior work on the performance of individual investors, the vast majority of day traders lose money. In the average year during our 1992 to 2006 sample period, about 450,000 Taiwanese individuals engage in day trading. There are thousands of occasional day traders, but in the average year 277,000 individuals engage in day trades in excess of $NT 600,000 per year (about $US 20,000) 2 and about 20% of these day traders earn positive abnormal returns net of fees (commissions and transaction taxes). Of course, some outperformance would be expected by sheer luck.

But luck is not the whole story. Our main result documents the presence of statistically and economically large cross-sectional variation in trader ability. In the average year, about 4,000 day traders are able to predictably profit net of a reasonable accounting for transactions costs. Specifically, we sort investors into groups based on their day trading returns in year y and analyze the performance of each group in the year y+1. We document that only the 4,000 most profitable day traders (less than 1 percent of the total population of day traders) from the prior year go on to earn reliably positive abnormal returns net of trading costs in the subsequent year. But, the stock picking ability of these investors is remarkable. The top 500 day traders (based on prior year ranking) earn gross (net) abnormal returns of 61.3 (37.9) basis points (bps) per day on their day trading portfolio, while the tens of thousands of day traders with a history of losses in the prior year go on to earn gross (net) abnormal returns of -11.5 (-28.9) bps per day.

___________

So we have 4,000 "most profitable day traders" but that should not be compared to the universe of 277,000 active daytraders as those also consist of people who try daytrading for a year, do some YOLO and then quit.

What's interesting is, the paper has identified "tens of thousands of day traders with a history of losses." So these are the traders who have stuck with day trading over the years and can't become profitable. This should be the comparison.

So 4,000 make it, versus "tens of thousands" who don't. Pretty good odds if you ask me. Higher than the acceptance rate at Harvard of 3%.

Someone posted the same shit before on this thread, same numbers and same comments.
If you believe that a 5% is a good rate of success then I can see the problem.

I am not saying that you are not a killer daytrader, that is why I asked for a proof. Since you haven't sent anything on the matter I can include you in the vast majority of losers. That is fair.
 
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