Is day trading worth it?

Quote from Laissez Faire:

I'm just thinking that swing trading may be just as rewarding, less stressful and even more financially rewarding than day trading, while at the same time leaving time to pursue other interests (which I have a lot of).

Any thoughts on the subject?
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In my experience day trading is operationally much more difficult. I keep drifting back to it mostly because managing an entire portfolio of swing positions takes only a few hours per day (at the most), leaving me with a large amount of free time which I feel I'd like to use productively.

It comes down to a) whether you can make enough from swing trading, and b) whether there are other activities or pursuits that would be more rewarding to your personally than the potential extra money from adding a day-trading strategy.
 
Quote from Ol' Yella:



I think this idea of an average person daytrading from home for a living is an internet urban legend.
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If the average person could do it...there wouldn't be any money to be made.
 
Thank you all for your replies and considerations.

It seems that the consensus here is that day trading is not worth it considering the effort put in both to learn the craft and actually execute it day after day, month after month and year after year.

Maybe it's different with accomplished and successful traders, but in addition to the actual trading hours, I found myself spending a lot of hours outside market hours to annotate charts, take notes, calculate and plot levels, market research, reading up on new things and preparing for the next session.

I think what I will do from here is:

1) Focus on school.

2) Start swing trading and investing my own money in the stock market here in Norway, utilizing my 'simple and stress free' method. : )

3) If my schedule permits, I think I will try the TST Combine one last time this fall, since it seems like it's twice as easy now as when I tried it. In fact, I was up nicely with only winning days after the first 6 days, but blew my shot to make it on day 9 since I had to swing for the fences to reach the profit objective at day 10. With the new model giving 30 days to achieve the same objective and not having any pressure to extract income, maybe I will be more relaxed in my trading.

Best regards.
 
Quote from Laissez Faire:

Thank you all for your replies and considerations.

It seems that the consensus here is that day trading is not worth it
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the consensus is based on small traders (losers). too bad there is no consensus on big/large successful traders. but, that can all change if or when u learn the art of HFT trading


Math = HFT



More than 90% of small traders lose! They just lose!


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-...-seen-profiting-at-small-firm-expense-1-.html


2sanifm.jpg




P.S

small traders are giving u consensus day trading is not worth it because they just lose based on

Lower educated

u don't want to be with small traders (losers), u want to be with the HEROs. And rhat requires Higher Education. Higher Education is the key to become a successful trader.

Higher Education!

Dummies will be dumb while intelligence will be intelligent. Afterall, trading is rocket science. Only small percentage will be successful while the rest will lose and reload their accounts non stop. They are mastering their reloading technique.
 
Quote from emg:

the consensus is based on small traders (losers). too bad there is no consensus on big/large successful traders. but, that can all change if or when u learn the art of HFT trading


Math = HFT



More than 90% of small traders lose! They just lose!


http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2012-...-seen-profiting-at-small-firm-expense-1-.html


2sanifm.jpg




P.S

small traders are giving u consensus day trading is not worth it because they just lose based on

Lower educated

u don't want to be with small traders (losers), u want to be with the HEROs. And rhat requires Higher Education. Higher Education is the key to become a successful trader.

Higher Education!

Dummies will be dumb while intelligence will be intelligent. Afterall, trading is rocket science. Only small percentage will be successful while the rest will lose and reload their accounts non stop. They are mastering their reloading technique.
More...


Finally, do not forget. Small Traders are the laughingstock in this industry because

they don't know how to trade. They come up with all this shamwow trading technique
 
Quote from emg:

Higher Education!

Dummies will be dumb while intelligence will be intelligent. Afterall, trading is rocket science. Only small percentage will be successful while the rest will lose and reload their accounts non stop. They are mastering their reloading technique.
More...

Fantastic!

Not sure if it's intentional, but this is funny as hell AND true.

:p
 
I recently read a thread over a BMT-- a guy was asking if there was any proof of small at-home daytraders who grew their account into something they could make a living from.

No responses, until finally one guy chimes in and claimed to have done it. Said he made roughly the same as he made in his old job, and lives a relaxing life enjoying his freedom. It smelled like BS to me. So I read on, and the OP posted a link to the guys posts from several months earlier where he claimed to be a struggling newbie who trying to come up with a strategy on sim.

Whoops - looks like he was fibbing with his trading for a living story! :D

LOL! Another one bites the dust!
 
Quote from Ol' Yella:

I recently read a thread over a BMT-- a guy was asking if there was any proof of small at-home daytraders who grew their account into something they could make a living from.

No responses, until finally one guy chimes in and claimed to have done it. Said he made roughly the same as he made in his old job, and lives a relaxing life enjoying his freedom. It smelled like BS to me. So I read on, and the OP posted a link to the guys posts from several months earlier where he claimed to be a struggling newbie who trying to come up with a strategy on sim.

Whoops - looks like he was fibbing with his trading for a living story! :D

LOL! Another one bites the dust!
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Day trading is an extremely challenging thing to pursue. I personally rate successful day trading over at least 10 years to be harder than completing a PhD in engineering from MIT or Stanford. It is very easy to underestimate what it takes to become a successful "at-home" day trader. Actually, pursuing day trading from "at-home independently" probably makes it 4x harder than if someone works out of an office with a colleague.

Your comments are welcome and have a lot of truth in them. I am curious what do you do for a living?
 
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