Why market wizards are not day traders?

comagnum said:
The day session LLD (locked limit down) is at -7%, -13%, & -20%. The extend hours secession LLD is -5%. You can take far larger losses in a shock event on the day session than on the extended session. The flash crashes were on the day session.
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That's theoretical. I daytrade over 20 years and NEVER had a LLD.
So question is: how big is the risk in reality?
If you follow the trend you will never take big risks. Problem is that most people have no clue about how to find a trend. I never had a day without a trend that was exploitable.
 
schweiz said:
That's theoretical. I daytrade over 20 years and NEVER had a LLD.
So question is: how big is the risk in reality?
If you follow the trend you will never take big risks. Problem is that most people have no clue about how to find a trend. I never had a day without a trend that was exploitable.
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Same for me. after soo many years, I had never experience LLD.
 
schweiz said:
Yes, but do they go broke because they don't go overnight???
Would they NOT go broke if they would go overnight???

That's the question. And then the answer is probably that they go broke during the day, not because they refuse to stay overnight, but because they are unable to make profits intraday.
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Almost nobody makes consistent profits daytrading. I just think its a style too difficult for true beginners to start with. Sure, they might still go broke holding overnight, but of all the people we've heard of over the years who went broke, I bet only the tiniest fraction were wiped out by an overnight gap or suchlike. The rest just bled dry in the sunshine.
 
schweiz said:
Yes, but do they go broke because they don't go overnight???
Would they NOT go broke if they would go overnight???

That's the question. And then the answer is probably that they go broke during the day, not because they refuse to stay overnight, but because they are unable to make profits intraday.
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I accept I'm generalising, but although its a generalisation to say it but I like generalising and I'm generally not wrong.
 
I went to the book of linda raschke which is called "Smart street"
Most of her techniques is from 1 day to 5 days.she want to reduce her exposure to the market.
I wouldn't call that day trading !

I know she has few techniques in her book about daytrading but doesn't seem to me the big deal for her.


for Marty Schwarz, I think he made most of his money when the market was crashing and there were much volatility ! . He was focusing on the S&P if i remember correctly !
I don't think he said anything about day trading ! maybe he take a position for 2 days !
 
presumably because even successful day traders suffer extreme stress and health problems from their 'work' and so the clever ones (all of them) stop doing it and stick to the easy money
 
Seems to me the notion of "day trading" came from the dream of "sitting in front of the computer screen, making a few mouse clicks... and making bank".... you know, easy money. Turns out, not so easy.

Nevertheless, some day trading has the potential to make the effort worthwhile. (If you can learn to "trade well"... build your capital up to the point where you can day/swing 20-lots on the ES and average 2 points per day... that's $250K/year. If that's not a worthwhile goal, I don't know what is. And that's not the ultimate goal. If you can do the above, you can lever up and make multiples of $250K/year... but the key is "learning to trade well".)
 
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