Quote from emg:
why do people believe day trading will get them rich quick? hope this thread will help newbies and amateur ask themselves if they really want to trade.
It has been done and it can be done.
A human can run a sub four minute mile. Before this was achieved, some believed it could not be done, but one man ignored this and just did it.
It is possible to make millions starting from thousands (to reference cheese, I'm not talking about making withdrawals to "jack away on living").
Stratification is the natural order of things. In every competitive field, there are those who redefine the limits of what is considered possible. Almost every competitive field presents the opportunity for the truly excellent to become wealthy in addition to expert in their field.
The goal, however, is excellence in the field itself. Money is simply a measurement of performance. An excellent trader will become a rich trader. If an excellent trader is not already rich, he may choose to make himself rich through trading. In instruments such as futures, high leverage and frequent opportunities enable staggering returns to be generated until liquidity becomes an issue (at which point the rate of return slows, but does not interfere with becoming rich).
There is an order to all of this. The markets will allow a method to be applied to them for the extraction of consistent profits. There are day traders who have gone years without a losing day in futures. Fact.
That the markets facilitate this opportunity is not the issue of concern here. The issue you refer to is that the masses have unjustified expectations of success. The majority who attempt trading do not have the ability to be the best at anything, let alone highly successful. Many aspire, few succeed. Therefore, survival of the fittest.
We could discuss this endlessly, but the fact is that certain interests are served by the unending inflow of guessers and gamblers. Coupled with what might be called "human nature", but more accurately abdication of personal responsibility and a herd mentality, we find ourselves discussing those who are condemned to be unsuitable for this profession.
They will not thank you for making any attempts to dissuade them. Any astute operator will understand the reasons for this. Why does the individual aspirant believe
they will make themselves rich quickly? The more incapable they are, the more strongly they believe this. We know why.
"Never try to teach a pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig."