At least in its previous form. It used to be that you could be in a trade for 5 minutes and make money. like 30 or 40 cents on 5k shares.
Now most stocks are in a 5 cent range for 5 minutes. So you really have to sit in a stock for 30 minutes or even the whole day. So basically day trading (at least for me) is more about calling the "long term" trend for the day.
When i started as a day trader it was more like playing an archade game. Picking off large bids and offers at the right times was a big part of the game. That is all gone now.
Now you have to be a market strategist. Example friday you had to guess correctly that interest rate sensitive stocks would go down and cyclicals up.
If you have the capabilitly of pulling up intra day charts from 2 years ago you can see how the 5 minute volatility is down 70-80% in most stocks as is the liquidity. I used to trade 20-40k shares of CTX daily and almost always be profitablely. There is no way to do that now unfortunately.
Now most stocks are in a 5 cent range for 5 minutes. So you really have to sit in a stock for 30 minutes or even the whole day. So basically day trading (at least for me) is more about calling the "long term" trend for the day.
When i started as a day trader it was more like playing an archade game. Picking off large bids and offers at the right times was a big part of the game. That is all gone now.
Now you have to be a market strategist. Example friday you had to guess correctly that interest rate sensitive stocks would go down and cyclicals up.
If you have the capabilitly of pulling up intra day charts from 2 years ago you can see how the 5 minute volatility is down 70-80% in most stocks as is the liquidity. I used to trade 20-40k shares of CTX daily and almost always be profitablely. There is no way to do that now unfortunately.
