Two main things.
First, I think it's easy to present as "information" a lot of statements which can't really be objectively verified.
Secondly, I think that in many cases the "facts" listed above are actually pretty misleading because there's no
context provided for them.
I'll mention a couple of specific examples and try to explain why they're potentially so misleading.
80% of all day traders quit within the first two years
My own guess (and these
are only "guesses": there's no way of knowing for sure, as figures for this can't be reliably monitored or collated) would have been higher. But even so, what would be relevant would be to compare the figure with that for "other forms of trading" and "other forms of self-employment" and "other hobbies with potential to make some money". Is it low, or high? Is it better or worse than one should expect? Who knows? It's all very interpretative, isn't it?
After five years, only 7% remain.
Again, the same comments apply. If you compare that 7% 5-year-survival figure with the restaurant business, for example (and there are many other available examples, too, for which information is
far more reliable than is so for trading), it's actually rather a
high figure. If indeed it's true in the first place.
I think it's a mistake, in principle, to let oneself be influenced by "facts" like the ones above, which are typically offered with an agenda (sometimes an overt one; sometimes concealed, depending on the context).
Do Day Traders Rationally Learn About Their Ability?
That's a different question, and one not really addressed by the "information" above. My own suspicion is that they generally don't -
just as is true of almost any other kind of activity you could mention instead of daytrading.
In other words, it relates mostly
not to daytrading,
per se, but more to "the human condition" in general.
For myself, even though my own knowledge of "psychology" is admittedly close to zero, my general experiences of everyday life and especially my experiences of educational processes (of which I happen to have quite a lot!) have made me a believer in
the Dunning-Kruger effect, anyway.
Call me a skepchick, but my own impression is that there are a lot of
very widespread misunderstandings about "daytrading", and that it isn't even a word that's used with the same meaning by everyone using it ... and even if everything said above is true, how surprising
or indeed significant would it really be, anyway? In summary, it may or may not be true, and what does it really demonstrate anyway, even if it is?
