Is day trading worth it?

[Maverick74]

I think daytrading is worth it if you happen to have an 'edge'. Higher frequency of trading give more opportunity to explot the edge and make more money.

Problem is, practically nobody here has an edge, so whether 'swing trading' or 'daytrading', you'll lose either way in the long run.

Swing trading more infrequently makes it hard to build up a sample of any statistical significance and might fool people into thinkin they have an edge when it's just random luck.

There's a trader on trade2win called 'dowjones' who posts his statements who seems to one of the few with a genuine edge. Seems to trade about 50 times per day on the dax making a good few K per day.
Probably doesn't use charts/TA ect (all successful traders don't use the things we are aware of, but don't tend to let us know what they DO use! )

Only time I had an edge and was printing money for a period, was when exploiting a slow feed of a european spreadbet company and I was making lots of money every day until they closed my account a month or so down the line!

It's about edge rather than swing vs day trading. Look at the PNL thread nowadays compared to years gone by. Basically nobody is making money.

+1

Spot on. You need to have an edge. And daytrading around doji's and moving averages is NOT an edge. Although ET has their fair share of snake oil salesmen peddling that crap...for a fee. But you are correct, it matters not what your holding time is whether you trade stocks or futures or options or FX, one is not better or worse. You need an edge. Now some of those markets it's much harder to find an edge. I find it beyond laughable that people here claim to have an edge trading ES, the most efficient market in the world. But to each their own.

 

[cornix]

What were the reasons you couldn't make a profit any more. Did the market change or was it you weren't following your rules any longer?

I have yet to find the true cause. At the moment it's hard to clearly say if it was me or the market. Currently I am in the research mode to find the causes of decline in day trading profits and re-group to improve my overall performance in the financial markets (in the form of intermediate-term speculation or day-trading I don't know yet).

 

[cornix]

+1

Spot on. You need to have an edge. And daytrading around doji's and moving averages is NOT an edge. Although ET has their fair share of snake oil salesmen peddling that crap...for a fee. But you are correct, it matters not what your holding time is whether you trade stocks or futures or options or FX, one is not better or worse. You need an edge. Now some of those markets it's much harder to find an edge. I find it beyond laughable that people here claim to have an edge trading ES, the most efficient market in the world. But to each their own.

I may be wrong, but it looks to me that lower relative cost of making a trade also makes it easier to find an edge worth trading on the larger time-scale. Also good macro view is clearly an edge if one is able to combine it with decent timing and statistics. After all it's a matter of who sees something right before everyone else does and piles on.

I am not a living proof of that theory yet of course, but that's my thinking on the matter.

 

[austinp]

For day trading to be "worth it", you'd definitely be wanting to get paid for it though and comparatively more so than what you would swing trading.

But I may be repeating myself by now...

Yes, you have been repeating yourself for awhile now.

If you have no edge, no trading is worth anything because all you will do is lose money regardless. Is that an over-simplification?

If you have an edge AND at the very least, you can match the best potential net income while day-trading from whatever else you are capable of with outside employment, then day-trading from home is a no-brainer choice. How couldn't it be?

Assuming you can match net-incomes including all benefits, 401K contributions and everything else factored in dollar for dollar net-net, who in the hell would think day trading is not "worth it"? How brain-dead would someone have to be in order to think outside employment anywhere is superior to day-trading at home with parameters outlined above?

So in other words, if you can make $5,000 monthly net income thru whatever source of employment OR the best you can manage to do is $5,000 average monthly net income day trading, there isn't even a valid question to be asked from there. Answer to this never-ending circled thread solely depends on what YOU personally can or cannot do in the market.

Period, end of thread

 

[Maverick74]

If an edge is anything that allows you to consistently make profits over time, I disagree with the above statement.

That's mathematically false. By that definition simply being long a broad based index over the last 100 years has satisfied that criteria. Hell, having a simple savings account even satisfies that criteria.

 

[RedTankEra]

I think daytrading is worth it if you happen to have an 'edge'. Higher frequency of trading give more opportunity to explot the edge and make more money.

Problem is, practically nobody here has an edge, so whether 'swing trading' or 'daytrading', you'll lose either way in the long run.

Swing trading more infrequently makes it hard to build up a sample of any statistical significance and might fool people into thinkin they have an edge when it's just random luck.

There's a trader on trade2win called 'dowjones' who posts his statements who seems to one of the few with a genuine edge. Seems to trade about 50 times per day on the dax making a good few K per day.
Probably doesn't use charts/TA ect (all successful traders don't use the things we are aware of, but don't tend to let us know what they DO use! )

Only time I had an edge and was printing money for a period, was when exploiting a slow feed of a european spreadbet company and I was making lots of money every day until they closed my account a month or so down the line!

It's about edge rather than swing vs day trading. Look at the PNL thread nowadays compared to years gone by. Basically nobody is making money.

Threads and posts like this give me a superiority complex, at least in the world of trading.

 

[butterfacetrader]

+1

Spot on. You need to have an edge. And daytrading around doji's and moving averages is NOT an edge. Although ET has their fair share of snake oil salesmen peddling that crap...for a fee. But you are correct, it matters not what your holding time is whether you trade stocks or futures or options or FX, one is not better or worse. You need an edge. Now some of those markets it's much harder to find an edge. I find it beyond laughable that people here claim to have an edge trading ES, the most efficient market in the world. But to each their own.

+1. Especially the part about some of the guys here thinking they have some edge day trading ES or the SPY.

In a bull market, and you bet on the long side. You let winners run and cut losses by honoring stop losses. You're bound to make money. Market has a directional bias and is going up after all. The chances of you doing day trades and catching a winning trade (i.e. being long) in a bull market is plentiful. The odds are on your side. Could as well have not day traded and entered long positions and sit it out over weeks or months. Reduces execution costs too.

Any kind of short term mean reverting trade would have been arbbed out by pros running algos and HFTs. Any 'edge' is likely just dumb luck the market moved in your favor.

 

[austinp]

when ES consistently trades inside <10 point daily range, no retail traders on earth with zero exceptions have a lasting edge. Price is too dead and too chopped for creating a consistent positive reward overall.

when ES consistently trades 12pt to 20+ point daily ranges, lot of traders have an edge. The market is not "efficient" when it's dead... it is merely freakin' dead, that's all.

 

[Scaleout.Scalper]

What about days where the net result came from shorting in a bull market that had a daily red bar?

What about days where the net result came from longs and shorts?

What's your argument now?

Still dumb luck or edge?

The market can do three things, up, down or range, once you determine that in your timeframe or timeframes of choice the rest is following a plan.

As far as holding a swing position vs daytrading, daytrading allows you to use leverage that would be seen as irresponsible as swings, something to consider.

The way I see it, too many inexperienced and/or failed traders giving opinions in public boards.

Yes it's a long road to making it, but it's not a pipe dream, and anyone that has not tasted consistent success should refrain from calling success particularly in index futures, impossible to attain.

Last but not least, got to laugh at the plethora of people blaming HFT and bots, only time I think about them is when I read public boards.

Fact is, understanding what needs to be done is an extremely long road, full of scars, sweat and even tears, one not only has to overcome that but in the end have the same will you had from Day 1, and sometimes even more, guess how many are willing to endure that? And suddenly the 1% does not seem so strange.

 

[Aj2014]

I think daytrading is worth it if you happen to have an 'edge'. Higher frequency of trading give more opportunity to explot the edge and make more money.

Problem is, practically nobody here has an edge, so whether 'swing trading' or 'daytrading', you'll lose either way in the long run.

Swing trading more infrequently makes it hard to build up a sample of any statistical significance and might fool people into thinkin they have an edge when it's just random luck.

There's a trader on trade2win called 'dowjones' who posts his statements who seems to one of the few with a genuine edge. Seems to trade about 50 times per day on the dax making a good few K per day.
Probably doesn't use charts/TA ect (all successful traders don't use the things we are aware of, but don't tend to let us know what they DO use! )

Only time I had an edge and was printing money for a period, was when exploiting a slow feed of a european spreadbet company and I was making lots of money every day until they closed my account a month or so down the line!

It's about edge rather than swing vs day trading. Look at the PNL thread nowadays compared to years gone by. Basically nobody is making money.

That's depressing, but in my experience, also probably all true!