It's only stressful if you have a poor relationship with money and or are trading scared money. Otherwise , its a great hobby.
Pros and Cons of Day Trading
- Thread starter FatMensch2K
- Start date
It's only stressful if you have a poor relationship with money and or are trading scared money. Otherwise , its a great hobby.
Yes I think if day trading was a professional business with a team it would be much fun, as a hobby at home and you were an employee elsewhere it can become a nightmare.
I tried futures trading as the latter.
I recall when i started the venture, up at 2am approx, coding, going to work during the day, coming home 5pm, coding until 7.30pm, drink a can Guinness and eat canned food, go to bed, rinse and repeat. Worked all weekend on coding, never went out (or very rarely)
Trial by fire.
Did this for about 3 years, but ultimately it was the frustration with IB platform glitches and bugs which made me throw in the towel.
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Robert Morse
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Not a fan of Guinness and canned food. Maybe that was it? I never coded. When I was home, I did some work but spent a lot of time with my wife and daughter. I think balance is important.
Done!
L
lovethetrade
I'll reword this
Day trading is A LOT more stressful when relied upon as a sole source of income and with limited capital and traders underestimate the importance of this.
Silly me thought the underlined was a given.
I trade intraday fluctuations with my own money, and my advice is to stay away. I've become a psychotic retard with no desire to socialize. The money means nothing now that my soul is sucked away. Once you find an edge, and properly manage trades, there is no end to how much data you can analyze. You can have many profitable variations of an approach, but your optimal zones constantly shift. You end up becoming a data scientist. I run a nearly fully automated operation with endless hours of input entry and data priming. One machine trades and ten others run automated data entry tasks round the clock.
Yes, the birth of the perfect monster. Well done!
Monster takes over while the creator becomes the zombie.
I know the feeling.
There are a handful of traders I have personally spoken to who have extensive industry experience and exposure to a larger group of traders, including visibility into their trading P&L statements. I always ask them the same question ... "How many day traders are consistently profitable?" The answer is always the same ... ZERO. Not even 1%, but ZERO. So before taking the leap to day trading, I suggest you find another trader who is your proof of concept that it can really be done.
Hey Fat,
You can find out your own answers very easily instead of listening to anonymous folks that have different backgrounds in comparison to each other.
Try full-time trading on your days off from work, vacations or ask your boss for a temporarily change in work schedule that will allow you to day trade during the day or just take a "leave of absence" from work. Repeat/Rinse and do the same for the others (swing trading, long term trading)...then compare your results.
Simply, keep your job until until you have saved enough money to equal 2 years of income, already tested day trading as explained above and you're profitable and you've discussed/approved by your family (if you have one) to switch careers.
The 2 years of income that you've saved....its not for trading. Its strictly to support yourself while you're trading if/when things go wrong.
I mentioned your family because many come to this forum and fail the mention they have a family or engaged or whatever.
Thus, those replying to you may not know the entire picture of the situation you're in because its common for traders to come to this forum and not give a complete story of their situation.
Everybody is different which is why you're going to get different answers. Some are wired for day trading (holding position minutes to all day until the close) while others are wired for swing trading (holding position overnight/days/weeks) while others wired for long-term trading (holding positions weeks/months) and then there are others wired for scalping (holding a few seconds/minutes).
Nothing shameful about trading fulltime on your days off, vacations or change in work schedule.
Keep your job
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One is dealing with massive headwinds in the short term--the predatory machines are just a part. Asymetrical information on all levels, lack of relative capital, etc
Not to mention an entire ecosystem designed to attract you into the game
Once again, daytrading is fun but its a stupid way to try to make a living.
Going longer term and different derivative strategies are the only thng that makes sense.