Quote from NY0BScalper:
Let's agree on a classification for daytrading: someone who trades at least 500,000 shares per month and trades 200 or more trading days of the year. Yes, that does rule out some extreme pikers or some really talented intraday swing guys but by and large if you're not doing that volume you're not making a living from this.
There is no way there are anywhere close to 100,000 professional day traders. The number is less than 25,000, likely way less.
I believe I heard daytraders account for 2% of total exchange volume, which means, out of, say, 8 Billion shares per day, we are responsible for 160,000,000 shares per day.
Let's say your average daytrader does 40,000 shares (it should be higher) per day. 4000 guys doing that volume (40,000 shares per day) leaves us with 2% of the volume.
Even if we do 5% of the volume (we don't), instead of 2%, and you cut the criteria in half - saying 20,000 shares per day is required - that still leaves us with a max of 20,000 daytraders.
i have to believe that with all the prop firms out there, it has to account for at least 3x that amount.