The great Sin: Day trading and can it be profitable?

Yeah, that’s why I didn’t really criticise you opening the thread :grin:

I think it’s good to talk it through.

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“Is it possible…”

Yes, it is. The question is whether through pure random luck (is it possible to be right when flipping a coin 100x?) or with a real structural edge.

Am curious whether research has been able to filter out those two paths.

Oh man, they are going to destroy you with that idea of a 25% average per week return :grinning_face_with_smiling_eyes: brace for it …

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My understanding is that day trading can be a bit like poker in that you can play against other players by trying to get their psychology that could be derived by the movement of some stocks.

Unfortunaltely for me, it would be a game where I would be a perpetual short stack. Being permanently bullyed by bigger stacks in order to try to chip away what would constitute a significant amount of money for me sounds like high risk and no fun to me.

If I wanted to make a go at it, I would create a simulated account and take a simulated go at it to see how I fare. Advice I would get on a forum with mostly a “the market can’t be beat” philosophy would be of low value to me, unless I’d be doing it for entertainment purposes, like I enjoy talking about poker at times when I’m not playing it.

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The people I have seen pnly do technical analysis and have like 10-30K trades. I think the coin flipping stage is over at that point, no?

So they seem to have found a way to swim in the market and make profit by doing so, but that still involves luck, as every single trade in itself is unpredictable, no matter what people say, no matter what signals you get - it’s just that over longer periods of time, you can in fact be profitable.

Ross Cameron for example also has an audited statement from a US accounting firm, where he built up a 600$ account to like 12M or so… absolutely crazy, BUT the dude already was profitable before doing that, so it’s not representative ofc. It’s like a FIRE person reaching FIRE a second time, while knowing exatöy what you need to do from the stage of an infant (a bit of a reach example).

Ok, reiterating 2 questions:

  1. Do you really believe it’s not necessary to be able to predict the market in some capacity (even if only statistically, call it alpha, whatever), for successful daytrading? If so, why not?

  2. How high do you think it’s the probability of you/someone beating the market (synonym: being successfully daytrading) after the suggested (or even any) amount of studying/training?

That was a number both active traders I talked in person and Ross Cameron (YT guy) mentioned. I wonder if it’s some sort of “honor among thiefs” or something… but if you don’t do that with a small account you lose out on profitability due to opportunity cost of time.

I am not sure that can be reliably concluded just because they put a lot of effort into it.

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Yes it is.

You won’t get it, newcomers come here to learn how to shave $0.1/decade on VT costs, dumpster dive behind LIDL for not-completely-rotten vegetables, share Netflix/Spotify accounts across the globe etc. That sort of discussion would violate the holy rule of this forum: first do no harm, it’s like pushing crack outside schools.

I hope my answer to the first question counts as substantive, and Moderator Saw That It Was Good :wink:

(I’ll delete this post soon)

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Someone please calculate how long it would take to own the whole market at a 25% per week return if one starts at 2k.

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I personally don’t beleive or don’t beleive anything - I have seen two people in person and a few online that are profitable by only doing technical analysis of the momentum of price movements. I think this can work ofc, because I have seen people that made it work. That does not mean I want to quit VT and chill, just explore the idea day trading.

I have absolutely no idea to be honest :sweat_smile:. I think there is a chance to do so, but not how high that chance is… Before I’d use even 1$ of real money I’d want to be profitable in a simulator.

Okay my bad - this would go pretty quickly ig - but I think the idea is to make 500$ per week on 2K and ofc you won’t make 25% a week when you have 10M - no one of the traders I talked to do this. In fact, they all became more conservative with later trades (percentage wise) because if you trade high momentum stocks that are small caps for example, you can’t just sell 10M shares at once without crashing the price ig.

The 25% per week was a recommendation based on a 2K $ account value, not a general rule. I don’t think many traders do that in practice, would be insane.

ChatGPT: Using a rough global stock market value of about $120 trillion at a constant 25% return every week, $2,000 would compound to roughly $120 trillion in just over two years (111 weeks).

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Pls don’t delete lol :smiley:

I do not think that a black and white view is a good approach to life. I too invest most of my money in VT and a flat for my family. I shop at Aldi and Lidl, because I don’t like paying the “Swiss tax” - that doesn’t mean that I can not explore certain ideas from time to time.

Maybe the 25% are a bit too much though :sweat_smile: let’s say 10% per week or 1% per day or so.

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Ah ok, I understand the pitch / the mind game these people are playing.

I think we can agree that making a 25% profit on a one week trade is a gamble that can be won and lost like a casino entry.
Anyone who “suggests” to their followers to make 25% on their “first 2k” trade is a scam artist at best.

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Yes but let’s get realistic now, you have good NW and yet sound like you’re either ignorant or pretending to be, because you spoke to two content creators claiming stuff online. That’s probably triggering some people here (not me!).

I spoke to 2 traders IRL living here in Switzerland and watched a few content creators, of which 95% are garbage. I don’t think just talking a bit and asking is that bad - 90% chance I’ll not even follow through on this idea, because I’m a lazy dog and it’s just something that came up by chance.

Suggesting is not really the right term - the “serious” sources (either books or content creators) mainly talk about risk management and how to not lose money, as that’s apparently the biggest problem. Stuff like “I had some money and then lost 90% in 1 trade” shouldn’t even happen as you likely won’t risk more than maybe 2% on a bigger portfolio and maybe 10% on 2K (per day).

What I do beleive however is that, since there are people doing the work and effort to optimize markets, it has to be at least somewhat profitable for some people and not everyone day trading (in my case more like minute trading) is something not only “get rich quick” scammers do.

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Even 1% per day is 3678% per year. You’re gonna be the most successful trader there every will be.

I think you have completely unrealistic expectations on what is possible and what not.

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I think if you are daytrading with such a small account, that is the profit level you need to justify your time and effort. Also, you can not really do that with larger accounts as moving a large amount of shares would potentially disrupt movements of the markets.

for a 20% YoY return, you don’t really need to day-trade - imho (especially not with 2K$ lol)

But what would you think is a more realistic expectation or rather goal to strive for (beause ig real performance will most likely be lower than that).

Yet another one from the “scam artist* argument list” imo.

*Let me make money from selling you how to day trade - scam artist

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I would not follow through. From what I read, if day trading can even reliably be done successfully, it requires a lot of discipline which means efforts and sticking to the plan even when it temporarilly but for what potentially feels like an eternity looks like it’s not working.

Lazy dogs’ money is dumb money. It gets eaten for breakfast.

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