Why is day trading considered dangerous?
- Thread starter kfir
- Start date
In a few sentences;
People are
Not predisposed to be disciplined / consistent / repetitive / focused / detached / opinion-less / ego-less - for an entire session
Not predisposed to accept losing easily
Not predisposed to focus on a routine - rather than an outcome
Not predisposed to separate self - from outcome
Not predisposed to embrace uncertainty
Admittedly all above apply to longer term trading
What separates day traders;
Not predisposed to shift mental gears quickly = think quick / act quick / move on / remain open to what is occurring / consistently willing & able to exploit it
While remaining calm..., relaxed..., unaffected
day after day - week upon week - month over month
Mkt is unrelenting - we..., more so
RN
Sounds a bit like all-or-nothing thinking to me. So because an intraday trader cannot compete with HFT firms at the millisecond level, he must increase his time frame by a factor of many thousands? Nothing in between?
As for transaction costs and churning, again, all or nothing? Hanging tough when a trade is going against you is the safe play? So then, where exactly do you draw the line? And more importantly, why do you get to draw it for anyone other than yourself?
You liken an individual intraday trader to a start up, but imply in your mention of the fourth problem that the person should have employment elsewhere. So the hobbyist with no information edge or the time to closely monitor the market is your ideal individual trader?
You are basically making the case for everyone here to just buy an index fund to capture upward drift (issue number two).
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Simple: when people do not know what they are doing (and most people do not) daytrading will kill their account much faster (usually in a few month) than investing or long term trading, not leaving them any room for the illusions that otherwise can last many years, sometimes till the end of their life...
nobody has it...
for the the 1% that think they have , the day will come
i generally dislike the word "plan" (not because it reminds me the ineffective 5-year plans of the Soviet era, but because it assumes that we know what will happen in the market and consequently that we know what we will do, which we do not),
I like the term "method" , it does not assume anything, just give us set of rules how to react on what is happening on the market now
but those rules are not bulletproof, regardless of how many times they been tested, and how much consistent money they helped to make...
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You are making false inferences as you focus on my view only as a potential challenge to your viewpoint - not the substance of my writing itself. U ascribe to me powers i don't have, for example "why do you get to draw it for anyone other than yourself".
Such a silly comment - i only expressed a viewpoint, my own, and nothing more. Which is based on the facts of the game, nothing more. If you paid attention, with an open mind, you might learn something - how the real traders think.
nobody has it...
for the the 1% that think they have , the day will come
i generally dislike the word "plan" (not because it reminds me the ineffective 5-year plans of the Soviet era, but because it assumes that we know what will happen in the market and consequently that we know what we will do, which we do not),
I like the term "method" , it does not assume anything, just give us set of rules how to react on what is happening on the market now
but those rules are not bulletproof, regardless of how many times they been tested, and how much consistent money they helped to make...
Depends on the rules. Or method. Or approach. Or tactical set.
As long as one focuses on what's in his head rather than on what's in the market, he will have problems.