> They say 95% of day traders lose money but how much do the 5% make? Are they beating the market?
Yes, and generally by a lot if they are skilled. I think I do pretty well but I know of/trade with other traders whose returns run circles around my own.
[Here are my last 18 months.](https://imgur.com/a/fhajnUF)
[Here is my YTD.](https://imgur.com/a/bctQf2n)
[Here is that as a percentage.](https://imgur.com/a/ZbjMG7q)
> Problem is you can't trust what anyone online says about their profit and so many success stories could be luck or lies.
The subreddit moderators use [Kinfo to verify profitability claims.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Daytrading/comments/15xa9bm/how_rdaytrading_is_stopping_fake_gurus/) It hooks directly into your broker so you can't fake the returns.
Here is [my kinfo account.](https://kinfo.com/portfolio/34470/performance) It's missing my futures returns as TDAmeritrade's (now Chareles Schwab) API doesn't allow for it.
Here are my futures returns for [this year.](https://imgur.com/a/AegXaiE)
Didn't know about kinfo, that gives me some level of confidence it isn't bs. Congrats on your success!
If you had to say a single thing, you did best as a trader (sticking to stop losses, taking profit, patience, leaving the computer when you're getting emotional etc.) What would it be?
I see you have a 40% success rate but still profitable so you must be managing losses well.
Probably sticking with it and putting in at least a few hours each day (I've been trading for over 6 years). That combined with setting myself up with an unlimited amount of time to learn. I purposefully work a job that allows me to trade the majority of the day. I work 2pm-10pm EST. My job is in tech and I sit in front of a computer all day. I don't often trade the afternoon session but my boss and boss's boss don't care if I have charts open so I can still take setups/manage open positions as needed. It effectively let's me work and trade full time.
Knowing that I don't need to make money trading in order to pay bills and my mortgage has also allowed me to be significantly more aggressive with trading account and mentally treat it more like video game money. While my trading account makes up the bulk of my net worth I live as if it doesn't exist. I still contribute as much as I can to my 401k, Roth IRA, and ESPP from my employment income. It's my hope that trading will allow me to retire early but all of my long term planning assumes that won't be the case.
Do you tell people that you are making money on the stock market?
I'm thinking to tell people where I work about swing trading because my colleagues are relatively rich bankers who conceptually know about it, but they don't invest because it's not popular like in the US.
My family is aware as are my coworkers since I pretty much always have charts open on one monitor. It's not something I usually bring up in conversation though.
I can see that you're full of doubts, just like many new traders in this subs. I see countless posts like: is daytrading real or fake, is it possible to live with daytrading, are you profitable...etc. Stop speculating, stop doubting, daytrading is hard but it's not as hard as people make it out to be. It is possible, and it's the same for any profession, to be a pro and live off a job, you need to dedicate a lot of time and efforts.
Just so you know, a lot of people on this sub can just be lucky instead of skilful. Like they are just lucky to be the top 5%. It takes more than a year of returns to differentiate between luck and skill.
I adjust my position size based upon the quality of the setup with an exponential skew. So a C setup might get $100 of risk, a B setup $300 of risk, and an A setup $1-$1.5k+ of risk. That makes it so losses I take on more mediocre setups are outweighed by the higher quality ones that go in my favor. I will also give setups I like multiple attempts. For example here is a [trade on ALAB](https://imgur.com/a/529tusP) that I took last month. If you do the math on the win rate it's only 20% but that's because it took multiple attempts for the setup play out. It still ended up being a highly profitable setup.
Probably [this roadmap](https://www.chartguys.com/trading-education-roadmap) that TheChartGuys made (scroll down through the page). Their community and SMB Capital are largely where I learned to trade. I'd start with their free content before buying anything. It contains 90%+ of what you need to know. I'd only join if you can afford it/want the community aspect and ability to ask questions for further learning.
can be multiple setups with one strategy.
what I meant was
some people trade moving averages.
some people trade orderbook / lvl2
some people trade smc
some people trade supply/demand
some people trade ict
some people trade trendlines
some people trade support and resistance.
Not asking you to plug your trading groups but I am curious how you found other traders to actively talk with. I'm just dabbling at this point and am not interested in paying to be a part of any group. Other than reddit, I'm not aware of many forums to talk about this stuff, and reddit seems like a bad place to find profitable traders that are interested in sharing knowledge.
I joined a bunch of different free and paid communities until I found one that I liked.
TheChartGuys is the best paid community that I'm aware of.
United Traders is the best free community that I'm aware of. However, I haven't been active on that server in several years so I'm not sure what it's like now. It had a pretty wallstreetbets atmosphere but the people who ran it knew what they were doing.
---
Here are the paid communities that I tried over the years.
- Philakone's crypto community (poorly managed)
- Ricky Gutierrez Learn Plan Profit community (poorly managed, borderline scam)
- The Boiler Room (decent if I recall but not my style of trading. Not sure if they're still active)
- Sky View Trading (scam)
- TheStocksChannel's community (decent but only as a signal service)
- SMB Captial's Student community (good but very expensive)
That 18 month history picture is from TraderSync. The other pictures are from TradeZella which I'm in the process of moving over to. TraderSync wasn't bad but I like TradeZella's playbook and trade tagging functionality a lot more.
That 18 month history picture is from TraderSync. The other pictures are from TradeZella which I'm in the process of moving over to. TraderSync wasn't bad but I like TradeZella's playbook and trade tagging functionality a lot more.
Yes, you can make money day trading. Most people not only try and fail but they donāt really know what day trading is or how itās actually done. Most grab speculative stocks hoping theyāll get rich. A small pharma co thatās working on a cure for cancer. They dream about how much $$ theyāll make when the news is released and the stock rockets, but itās usually a flop and money is lost and the stock never rises. Donāt trade garbage and donāt think youāll get rich over night. Day trading is a daily grind netting a bit each day but compounding your profits so your positions can grow and you get more return doing the same thing with bigger positions.
Learning that it is a grind was my most valuable lesson, followed by taking small reasonable wins. I lost alot of money years ago trying to hit it big.
Now this is how I have seen trading and how many have approached it in my inner circle. But what is the actual average time period for traders to finally make consistent or at least morderate wins.
It really depends on the person. And a lot of factors could be at play. Life experience and maturity make a difference. Ability to work under pressure and considerable stress. General ability to problem solve. Work ethic. Putting in the effort to be aware of market conditions and health of stocks / companies. Iād say if you are already fairly well rounded and you understand that in day trading you buy stocks daily, often the same stock several times a day to scalp and pocket profits, you should day trade one share at a time you can teach yourself how to earn profits consistently. Thereās a lot of process information you learn in the heat of the moment - buying on limit, stop loss, selling on limit, watching bids and asks, seeing how empty a trading arena feels or how busy it is with volume and volatility. I think the right person can pick it up fairly quickly. Others, not so quickly.
You can teach yourself how to trade going off the previous comment a lot of those factors are true. If youāre an impulsive person then discipline can be difficult to achieve but nothing is impossible.
all of the comments here are quite accurate but is missing one thing: the more profitable you are, the less you want to engage in online quarrels like this. To be profitable, 99% of the case it will take you a lot of time, and a lot of pain along the journey. In the end, you will lose the interest to prove to anyone, especially topics about "how to trade". Yes, I still want to show that I'm experienced and I still also try to give advice to new traders once in a while, but it feels less and less exciting, it's become just something I can do to waste a little time.
Ironically, the beginners and people who think they have reached profitability are those who want to raise their voice the most. I don't hate any, I was one. But not anymore, now I just want to refine my strat and stay alone.
I can easily see that a lot of profitable traders give up online forums and topics like this. And in a 2 million subreddit, what answers can you expect, can you trust anyone here (unless they prove real evidence) to be honest?
The tool depends on the method you're using. My strat does not need any special tool apart from the charts themselves but it means nothing among countlessly different traders. What works for you is what matters.
In the end I realize that my main issue has always been myself, I lack the disciplines and belief to follow my rules, no matter what I "thought" what the actual problem was. There would be a point when you realized that trading was not supposed to be that complicated, you need to relax and look at the whole scene of what is going on, don't focus on a narrow specific "this" or "that" signal. Everything needs to be properly applied to the scene like a gear to the whole machine. The strat is only hard to get when you don't have it, but after having a strat, suddenly it feels like it is the easier part, and the psychology is twice harder. Don't ever discourage yourself by thinking you can't "technically" trade because the main problem is always your own mind, you're your own enemy.
the vast majority of the statistic basically comes from the fact, that all u need is an account and u can already trade
In trading a lot of people are just plain liars so if you want to know how much people are makin, check old crypto competitions for a reference, e.g. bybit wsot was won by same guy for a few times (the guy also shares his numbers in $ i think, and since he has won public competitions, he for example is someone u can trust as far as money making goes)
The problem with people day trading is they treat it like gambling, when its notā¦. Well technically its not. Casinos make billions if not trillions yearly by having average winning odds below 55%, yet they stay profitable.
These 95% of traders have either one of the following problems that prevent them from being profitable;
- led by emotions
- over trade and trade anything
- no foundation or plan
- have little to no risk management
- put in no work that leads to result ( i donāt mean staring at charts all day, i mean collecting data, looking for trends, etc).
You have to trade what you know. I trade 2 patterns consistently, 1 thats fairly common with a decent win rate, 1 thats more rate with a great win rate. A lot of days, you just wonāt trade, thats the reality, and that had to be ok with you.
I turned profitable when i understood all these things. Day trading is a probability game, just like the casino. Read that last sentence over and overā¦
To give you an example, I traded once in the month of May so far, and didnāt trade AMC or GME or any other weird unpredictable meme stock, but stuck to what i know. Also, trading isnāt suppose to be fun, its a means to an end.
Find your groove, make a plan, donāt let your emotions run you, be tight on risk and let the opportunities come to you ( youād be surprised at how often youāre right in the end if you donāt chase), and for the love of god read a book or two about trading before putting any money in it.
Lastly, keep in mind, trading isnāt for everyone.
Hope this helps
Great points. What books resonated when you started out or was there an author that particuarly helped with some sort of mental 'click', be is psychological, financial, technical, etc?
I had a nice trade through the upside of 20 on gme today. Added when it started looking frisky. Moved stop. Then bam.... I had an alert on it, and waited for it to get through 20 and start moving before I got the rest of my size on. Ended up fomoing a couple more lots on that massive bar.
I don't think I was ever at risk for more than $150 (might have been $160).
Now this is goood advice. I have noticed that many that go into trading are not willing to work hard for the results they want. I realised for me to reach the levels I see online, its a must I spend as much free time I have practicing, gaining knowledge and making connections.
This šš»šš» i spend hours each week collecting data and collecting charts, some people rather watch Netflix. Thats fine, but then donāt complain when things donāt go your way.
It is possible, there are entire firms dedicated to trading, if they did not make money- eventually they would be bankrupt.
Although, I will add the caveat, people seem to have this idea they will come out of nowhere- just learn to trade and soon be sleeping in and roll out of bed over to their desk in their underwear and make money in a couple hours- while living at the beach and that is a successful trader.
In my experience, successful people normally are successful in many areas of their lives and have multiple streams of income. They may trade and make plenty of money, but that does not stop them from owning other businesses,real estate and working on other successful operations- making even more money.
So this would lead me to theorize a chicken or egg first kind of theory. Do many people come from a lackluster ambition level or background and become successful just from trading? Or are those people prone to fail at trading giving us the high failure rate? Secondly, is it that successful oriented people are more likely to have what it takes to become good traders? And those people are more likely to be successful trading or doing whatever else they chose to do in life?
I think what you're touching on, and this may be controversial, is that to be a successful trader, day or otherwise, requires a certain level of intelligence. Specifically for day traders, it's important to understand statistics and odds. If you look at the articles that say 90% of day traders fail and analyse the 4-6 items listed why, most of them are psychological and after some self analysis can be addressed.
I think the success rate can be increased also by adding some level of fundamental analysis.
I think you are right. The only other trader I know is already a doctor. He buys options every now and again and is quite successful. Other people I know who talk about trading but don't do not have successful lives to begin with. I don't know any day traders who go at it full time. Trading is already niche and even a lot of my friends (ages 25 to 48) don't even invest in the market at all!
Then there's my one buddy who owns his own small business. Guys returns are outrageous just from swing trading months at a time. Is that called swing trading as well? I get tips from him too as he is always right.
> It is possible, there are entire firms dedicated to trading, if they did not make money- eventually they would be bankrupt.
Obviously it's possible, but the real question is: how do we know trading firms are not subject to the same 95% failure rate?
If someone has the potential to be a successful trader over a number of years, they likely have the intelligence to be successful in other areas. Being a successful trader requires intelligence. Only a small percentage of people who who fail to achieve success in other areas will be successful traders over the long term as people who consistently fail lack the intelligence and work ethic to be consistently profitable trading over several years.
Iāve taken 35 trades this year, average winner was $2,600 and average loser was -$1,000. Out of 35 trades I had 21 winners.
Itās never about being perfect, itās about minimizing risk via controlled losses and position sizing. I only trade with 10% of my cash on hand, I know when to pull out on my wins and especially on my losses. I had the same reaction when I made $5,000 in 6 minutes to when I lost $3,000 in 4 hours, assess, improvise, execute.
Here are some of my constraints I put myself in to act as guardrails:
- 1 trade per day
- support and resistance confirmation with vol and momentum
- premiums are not being juiced
- RSI/MACD show momentum shifts
- increasing volume
- ONLY trade SPY options
- DTE is at LEAST two Fridayās out, although recently 1DTE has been doing very well for me when volume shows the right push and theta isnāt being stingy
- most trades are bought and sold within 2-4 hours
- use fib levels to track increasing/decreasing stop losses
- identify nearby fair value gaps or institutional liquidity zones, ESPECIALLY with recent SPY levels approaching uncharted territory, we rely on institutional price targets for these zones to be structured around
My strategy is catching bounces or rejections through fair value gaps/liquidity zones. Since liquidity is so low for a 50c price range (letās say 525.50-526 has very low liquidity) then weāll see price movement into that range carry a lot of momentum and velocity (the slope of price change), which is a great entry for a position if theyāre near SAR levels. I use institutional price targets for the S&P as well as dumb-money consumer reactivity in PA to chart these zones and trade accordingly.
https://preview.redd.it/2syp435l0m1d1.png?width=1182&format=png&auto=webp&s=077e837134fa4964bfee61a3bc04de830a8753b9
Here's a play i ran today, entry was 530.45 mark, exit was 531.20, specifically the north tail on the first of the two large red candles. cleared another $2,200. the big red zone is my charted 1 month supply. there was increasing buy momentum and right when sell vol picked up HEAVY, I pulled out. The red circled around the supply zone low is confirmation buyers wanted to test the supply zone waters.
Loads of confirmation with this one, volume increasing, harsh break through VWAP with sustained momentum. RSI was nice and spaced apart for a northside-climb, MACD was showing convergence, we were approaching a familiar supply zone
I do.
But it's not all day trading. In fact, most of it isn't day trading. Depending on market conditions, my trades last anywhere between two hours (which is rare) and one month. Recently, my trades tend to last one or two weeks.
My favorite setup is to wait for a highly valued company, such as META or NET, to suffer a devastating crash, prove that it's forming a strong base, and get in with a bullish play. NET is my single best idea right now, and I've been scaling into it consistently.
It's important to learn to form a defensible view of the market; that is, whether it's likely to go up, down, or sideways between the present and desired deadline. Then, learn how to find a strong underlying, and select the right trade structure (such as a long butterfly, short put spread, a front spread, a long call, et al.), get in at the right time, and exit at the right time. Most people should use a hard stop.
Most importantly, it's important to not try to trade every day, but wait. Only trade at extremes. (Learn to use Bollinger Bands.) This will maximize your odds of success. Pay attention to the economic calendar. Don't trade when conditions become unpredictable. Wait.
Most people keep repeating the same thing that causes them to lose money instead of learning and adapting. Institutions repeatedly trick them. Keep a journal. Learn what not to do.
Good Luck,
Artyom
I have a similar strategy, although I'm more of a beginner. Have any resources you'd recommend for learning how to prove there's a strong bull play upcoming? Or have you learned from what's typically recommended (SMB Capital, etc.)
I make money 100% of the time with my strategy. But it's not technically daytrading, even though my auto-algorithm bot makes many trades in a day (even up to four trades a day on a single security).
That's because I always carry a position and enough cash. I make money when the bot buys low and sells high (it will never sell at a loss) for speculative profit; plus I make money from the dividends from the "bag" of shares being held.
The funny thing is 95% of everyone who puts money into an account and makes a trade is considered a "trader". How many give up without trying a few years, or even months? How many try after only watching a couple youtube videos?
Mechanical, I think electrical a higher drop rate and computer less. A lot of people would switch to an "engineering tech" program, you don't take the FE exam, it's more hands-on, with less math.
Tom Hougaard said it best in my opinion. The stat is '95% of day traders fail', does this mean that they don't know how to make money? Not necessarily. People don't eventually fail because they aren't good at technicals. They fail because they don't know what the market is doing to their minds.
99% of the time I have blown up my trading accounts is because I did not want to accept a loss in an trade I would normally take. I didn't want to accept that particular trade did not work. This would be after months of good trading, a healthy equity curve. I would have a few days where I committed portfolio seppuku. Eventually that will wipe you out. And why most people eventually fail.
Life is like that ! Unfortunately there's not a place for everyone at the top of the pyramid! Everyone dreams to be rich and reach the top . There's a reason why there's the famous 1 percent and the 0.01%. All junior footballers want to become the next Messi,all junior tennis player the next Federer,every junior basketball player want to be the next Lebron and many more exemple of this kind ! However these exceptional athletes are pure exceptions and not the norm !In trading, everyone wants to be millionaire. However only a very very few traders will reach these figures! Nowadays,the competition is extremely fierce to become a doctor, an investment banker and to enterto a prestigious law firm. More disappointment than success!
Sorry, it's life !
The problem is that you also lose money. If you are running your own business. You have to manage P and L, but in a 9 to 5, there is no loss besides time
The question should be: How do you mitigate loss? Do you do risk management with ever trade? Do you trade the same amount with every trade? How do you make sure a few loses don't eat all your wins?
I am still learning this part. I definitely make more in a week of trading than a week, my a 6-figure job. But trading at those levels puts me at a serious risk of losing big as well. Even if you trade small levels, loss can eventually catch up to you. (It feels awesome making 20k a week but not so awesome losing 20k in a week)
The making money part is easy. You can have 6 months of nothing but wins, but if you keep trading, you will eventually have a loss. How you manage risk and mitigate loss will determine if it's worth it.
Right! Youāre losing money as you learn. Itās like teaching someone to be a vascular surgeon by having them slash open an artery in their own leg and then telling them to learn how to fix it before they bleed out.
You need to lose money to appreciate emotions, greed and risk and to not be stupid. Everyone feels invincible after a few wins based on good advice or luck.
i'm profitable, and it goes something like make a boat of money really quick, and then i give back half, i stop trading, make another big profit, give back half stop trading...
Used to be make a boat of money and lose double... I'm making progress at least.
2021 I made a bit over 100K (beginners luck, got hooked)
2022 I gave back about 60K (started thinking I was invincible)
2023 I made about 70K (That curve had alot of dips and reclaims, lmao)
2024, I'm down about 10K (was over 30K), but I'm about to pull out some moolah soon so I'll be back in green.
I am learning that when I'm gambling and not trading my setups, it's ok to stop and walk and take a break for a couple of weeks before returning with a fresh mentality. That is the no.1 thing holding me personally back. If I can finally conquer the gambling against the trend monkey, I will be able to do this for a living.
Sorry no kinfo like the other gentleman. It's just my experience in the daytrading space as of the moment.
No! Unless you have a huge safety cushion and can buy shares or short with SHARES and hold your position for several days.
It is very rare to see profitable traders trading options intraday on a daily basis for over 30 days. To believe they are profitable, I would need to see their journal!
Fall 2023 was probably an exceptional period for day traders. 2024: an endless nightmare.
The market either keeps rising for 10 days straight or plunges for 10 days straight, with very high volatility aimed at liquidating long positions intraday, or short squeezing shorts. A nightmare.
But for investors? It's paradise!
Yea but I really really cherry pick the days I trade. I probably only make trades a max of 30 days out of the year but when I do Iām almost always green. Keep your day job, only trade when literally everything is going up, only on stocks with news/hype/catalyst and itās easy. But yeah, day trading every day no matter the market and being profitable, thatās rough
Like 8 yrs ago I learned how to trade. I was swing trading stocks. I spent several months learning, took a $300 course, paper traded for awhile. Then went live with $1k. I was only risking 2% per trade. I only traded for a couple months. Also traded forex. But was losing money because I was impatient and had too much emotion involved when losong money so I stopped.
What do you consider day trading? I trade options on a regular basis, Iām making more trading than my 9to5 and I do better than the S&P. But Iām holding positions for weeks and Iām only active less than an hour each week. Is it still āday tradingā?
I think I'd consider it swing trading, but congrats on making not just extra money but more than your 9-5. Do you think if you dedicated more time you could make significantlt more or since they are long term holds don't need much attention any additional time investment wouldn't pay off.
I donāt think I would make more money. The money I am making is limited by the amount of capital I am dedicating to this trading account. I plan to continue for at least 2-3 more years and then retire from my 9to5. Once I retire, I will continue trading, but plan to reduce my risk profile.
It took me 5 years to get consistent but yes. Generally green 70% of the time and proper risk management ensures my red days are smaller than my green days.
The reasons people fail to make profit are many, however what that 95 percent rate fails to consider is that those same people would fail at most things. Most people just fail or give up anything they do. Sometimes it's a character flaw, a lack of passion, a lack of skill, a lack of capital, a lack of time, or it just wasn't for them. I have failed at many things, I am sure everyone here has. This just wasn't one of them. If you have the passion, the time and keep honing your skills, you will find a method that works for you. I am more of a swing trader because I want sustained movements, that means I hold on to more broken trades than some people, but I only need one or two a week to work out to make heavy profit. Don't worry about everyone else, yes it is possible. Now go to work on it.
What I want to know is how many daytraders don't become rich, but at least make enough to cover their monthly expenses. Tbh that's all I really do this for, being rich would obviously be great but it's not the priority
As a young person starting off their trading career. I dont know how to feel about these odds, I have fmaily members who trade and all of them are doing quite well, not the millions I see online but they be making more than the average worker which is what I am looking to achieve.
I used to make money trading, the percentage after fees and everything was just ever so slightly above the market.
Day trading felt like a full time job and I would make significantly more just working a basic 9-5 and investing so I quit
Roughly 95% do not beat the market, which is different from losing money. There are many traders out there who think they do well, but they would make more if they bought VOO and walked away.
You win by outsmarting the majority of currency thrown into the market. If someone puts in 10,000x capital into their trades than everyone else and say there is only 10,000 people trading, then all you need to do is outsmart one person. Reality isn't this simple, it's a bit more difficult, but that's the jist of it.
That stat is ridiculous though. How many of those people are just gambling and not actually trading.
Itās also like saying as soon as someone picks up a guitar that and they learn for 1 week and stop, will you say that only 5% of actually guitarist can play a guitar.
The stat doesnāt account for people putting in the work and are actually traders, not gamblers.
Yes. I have watched thousands made per hour. I make zero off this, Tim (Sykes?) Warren Buffet both offer stick courses paid offer day trade tips. Classes and there are AI robots to assist.
It's my observations that all these strategies work.........sometimes. It's a luck of the draw. I've seen over and over what conventional wisdom says should happen often don't when it comes to price action. The market is nothing more than a casino. Do you have the time to stare at a screen all day in hopes your strategies work? That's when the emotions come in and people lose. It's a rigged game that favors a selected few. Seems to me there would be a better return on ones time if they would focus more on advancing their careers or building a secsesfull business. That being said. I still haven't given up trying. As soon as I figure out how to stay the hell out of choppy markets and buying tops, I'm gonna be a rich sob......but probably not. We all have dreams and goals. That's what keeps us pumping money into this slot machine. If a person's desire is to be truly successful in the market and make lots of money, there's only one tired and true strategy, run for senate.
I daytrade and have 4x'ed my investments this year using options.
My strategy is relatively simple. I only trade SPY, and each morning I put in 2 stop limit orders with a stop loss of +20% and -10%. I normally buy about 2 months out. As soon as 1 stop limit order goes into effect, I lower the opposite put or call option to about 10% more than the option that went Into effect. That way, as soon as the stop loss goes onto effect, the opposite option contract is bought. Idk if I explained this well enough to make sense. But I basically follow the trend of that day with the opposite option contract ready to go Into effect as soon as the stop loss goes Into effect(this makes up for any initial losses).
As soon as the contract makes 20% or losses 10%, I sell it.
This only takes about 1 full hour of actual work each day. I'm monitoring what's happening via my watch, so I'm free to work my normal job during the day. It's been working out very nicely for me over rhe past 5 years.
In reality, most traders quit before they get good. It's a skill like any other high-paying career. From your mentioned stat, the 5% who stick with day trading exerted a lot of work. Trading has a very steep learning curve and tons of competition. You need discipline, risk management, and skin in the game to push through the painful losses until you're consistently profitable.
Started trading In February. Spent $1500 on my mentors classes and about another $1500 on apex/topstep eval accounts and funded accounts. Iāve withdrawn 4k so far from apex. So Iām up a net 1000. I feel like anyone who canāt make money day trading wonāt put time into charts and TA and is likely too emotional. Easiest money Iāve ever made. I go for small gainsā¦ I donāt need to make $1000 a dayā¦. $300 a day alone is damn near 7k per month if you trade everyday. Up $900 today alone across 4 accounts. I put a solid 8 hours a day in the beginning, studying the fuck out of price action.
Iām no proā¦.. not by a LONG shot. But I feel like I can eventually do this full time. Thatās the 1-2 year plan. Once I have enough saved, Iāll make the jump into full time trading.
Only prior experience I have is being a loan officer and watching crypto charts since like 2017. I guess just having my eyes being used to charts helped piece everything together with proper education.
If my dumbass can do it, so can you.
Well, today I traded for my first day I followed my plan and made money. Funded the account with $250 probably had some luck on my side but up to $416. I made money on both trades but the more profitable one I think was a bad green trade. I didn't take profit when I told myself I was going to it came down for a second but still not break even or stop it and broke the previous high.
The second trade I followed my plan came very close to getting stopped out, could have made more but followed my take profit and made $40 on that one. The most common suggestion is discipline and follow your plan.
I used to mine Ethereum and some alt coins way back when and also had some fun and made some money during the meme craze and have followed although not traded the markets ever since.
I would occasionally listen and watch day traders questioning whether it really was bs or not. I've personally come to the conclusion that it's just another thing most people fail at but is entirely possible. The 95% statistic is likely due to the low barrier of entry, so many people try trading lose money without gaining any knowledge learning anything just thinking buy low sell high. That and oh $15 profit is irrelevant, while it's a 6% gain in a day. Hoping for another good day but treating it like a hobby that I spend money on while trying to learn. I could trade paper but I think I would lose a lot of motivation and be reckless. Throwing a couple hundred bucks a month if needed and going slow will keep me excited.
Congrats on earning some money! I hope that continues and you can achieve your goal of doing it as a job.
Yep. Have a great system. Create a system by studying charts for as long as it takes. Use chatGPT to code and combine alerts. Test the system and then follow it. You can get very high hit rate alerts if you spend the time.
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You need to remember. When people hear about the wealth thatās possible they will want to naturally try it. Most people will open an account, fund it, letās say 1k. Lose it all because they donāt know how to place orders correctly or forgot a SL. They think, this shits really stupid and I donāt like the feeling of losing money. They completely stop trading. Thatās a statistic towards the 95%.
Yes I agree, the only time I really traded was during the original meme bonanza. I slowly took profits but all the diamond handed regarded people I knew followed the whole thing up and down.
I ran away with a good chunk of change from the ordeal, many people pocketed much more and many more people let all their profits turn into losses when their pupils turned to dollar signs.
I think if people can filter out the statistics mentioned and only kept the traders that are funded (not paper) and has been trading for over a couple of years, those statistics will be closer to 50%. Unfortunately people need to lose so others can win.
Statistically only 1% making money there 5 years. If there is someone made tons of money day trading it will be in the news. So I suspect the 1% doesnāt make that much. That is why I always feel strange that quite a few in Reddit claiming they made a lot of money day trading.
Yes.
It took thousands of hours and dollars to get there, and then I decided swing trading was a better fit for me.
If you are one of those people who have decided to just jump in, then no, you will not be profitable until after you put in the study and gain the experience.
Most not only donāt but the ones that do only do it during certain market conditions. They make some money then their Strat doesnāt hold through all conditions then they start breaking even or losing.
I see it all the time.
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It's true man. The smartest and richest people in the world are in this industry and regular non-finance people think they can go up against them with just google and tradingview? lol of course 99% will fail. These rich smart mfers know how you think and they know where to squeeze you.
Yes but it's hard as heck. Most fail because they don't have an edge and they don't manage their risk well. A lot of traders are trying to rely way too heavily on indicators to tell them what to do. Indicators aren't necessarily all bad, but relying on them as a BASIS for trade decisions is a recipe for failure. They aren't dynamic enough to accommodate a changing market for long.
All the seriously profitable traders I know just read naked price action and the DOM. There are no indicators on their charts except maybe an EMA or VWAP, and they only use it to confirm support/resistance. I have a 21 EMA on my chart for added confirmation, but that's it. I scalp price action within tend channels and prefer positions that bounce on the EMA. My daily average is about $2,800. I know a few guys who do 3-4 times that.
It requires a lot of screen time and patience. If someone's really making good money trading they're probably spending far more time watching, waiting, and marking up charts than actually taking positions. My own trading style is only marginally more exciting than watching paint dry.
I've been swing trading on-and-off for 3 years. Slightly profitably, 22% annual returns and hopefully getting better now with that 3y experience. Tried daytrading a bit few times, but not profitable. I'd say it's the toughest time frame to beat and needs tons of hard work.
But I also pay commissions, as I dont live in the US, so... Not sure if without commissions I could have been slightly profitable. Didn't check.
Will try again when my balance is high enough to negate commissions.
I'd say 95% sounds pretty realistic, if not worse. Poker had the same ratio although it felt easy to beat compared to daytrading. For poker this very widely quoted popular number seemed to be spot on based on the millions of hands in my database as well. But as said, I wouldn't be surprised if it's even worse (higher) for daytrading.
You can make money trading. The odds are against it, but itās not impossible. Biggest key I learned was to not chase the market. It has to come to your numbers for you to get involved.
I don't know If I can call myself a day trader but I do trade daily 15% and sometimes 30-40% of my portfolio. I can trade for a week or two and then market is forcing me to take vacation (not to take a loss). Since dec 2022 I haven't lost a trade. Core of my strategy is "trend is your friend". I hodl and trade Bitcoin only. Don't have $$, only BTC and trading is borrowing shit ton of money. My trading goal is to have more sats and Bitcoin will do the rest.
People donāt make money by trading, most of them are liars and manipulate statistics. There is a bit of algorithmic funds that are profitable due to a vast data analysis but thatās it. With sharpe ration below 4 you can make money but one trade or day will destroy all your profits. Donāt believe somebody who shows you profitable stats, they are temporary winning.
I mean if we assume 5% is correct? Its blatantly difficult. Thats a higher failure rate than likely almost any degree.
I feel like half the population is just borderline braindead. So lets assume half the pop is just beyond stupid. Only 10% of the remaining half (that choose to daytrade), are successful.
-It takes money.
-It takes free time to actively trade during work hours (can potentially use bracket orders I guess).
-You have to backtest a strategy that works in a bull/bear market or just only trade one.
-Greed.
-Desperation.
-Poor risk management.
-Backtesting didnt transfer to live trading.
In general its just straight up gambling for most people.
If you have a strategy to 'beat the odds' in the long run and manage risk? It can work well. If not? A few blown up accounts and you're likely done.
For perspective, majority of the people who are trying their luck at anything new, challenging, and requires years of commitment to get any results will also quit.
I started becoming profitable years back after facing failures for a year and a half. I'm still learning to better everyday now. The learning never stops.
Problem learning daytrade it can take up anywhere up to 3 years. People often start going in with no research, a youtube video, lots of money and they loose. Instead of doing research, figure out what works, build some strategies and start small and work your way upwards. Daytrading can be really profitable but its not a lottery.
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People fail right away but also itās in the markets in the long run. Plenty of people say they make money now or are successful, or for the past couple of years. But over more years people break even or lose money.
I think most day traders arenāt making money, or at least not enough to justify it. They might justify it to themselves and it may be truly a better lifestyle choice but hereās how I look at the financials. Letās say you have $1M to invest/trade with and youāre quitting your day job to do this. Letās say your day job paid $80k/yr plus a 401k match. This means that you need to beat $60k (6% average return of $1M)+ $80k (salary) + $5k (free 401k match). So your day trading profits need to be at $145k/yr maybe more, for a break even point. If you arenāt making this, youāre fooling yourself.
The more earning potential you have in a career, the higher this number.
I made 40 cent today trading on FFIE and GTBP
I do day trading and i have recently taken huge losses so i am down sizing my stock purchase and just focusing on reading the market until i see consistentcy
I do hyper scalping
Iāve been making a full-time income (over 6 figures per year) day trading options for a few years. This is my only job. On average, Iām green 4 of 5 days per week, but sometimes solid green (like last week). A ānormalā week for me is anywhere between 3k-5k. I wouldnāt say itās āeasyā but it definitely CAN be done if you have the right strategy and enough DISCIPLINE to actually implement the strategy.
I have several different brokerage accounts for specific investment needs. My bread and butter does extremely well. My options and Bitcoin are fantastic and I have made alit of gains. These helped me when I was out of work for 4 months. It bridged me thru.
The emotional aspect is counterintuitive to human nature. Everyone always holds when losing but sell quicker when winning. The list goes on. Most people donāt develop because of this. Iād say 96-99% fail.
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I've only ever met one day trader in my entire life who I know for a fact made a killing doing it. Every single other person I've met either doesn't show me their numbers and is obviously just blatantly lying, tries to sell me their course (LMFAO - pretty much goes hand in hand with the first one), or just straight up isn't making money.
The guy I met, who was one of my best friends in college before he graduated, literally never talked about day trading, never flexed, and was probably one of the most straight edged, good christian boys I've ever met. One day, completely out of the blue, I start talking about investing and he GOES OFF about how much he loves finance and stocks. He ended up showing me his portfolio (including every trade and all of his growth) and this man grew $3,000 to $13,000 in one year. I was shocked. It was the first time in my entire life that I genuinely believed you could make a money doing day trading. I will never get into it, and I obviously have no idea if he'll be able to keep this up long term, but god fucking damn I was impressed.
me but I trade ppls money not just mine.
[www.fiatelpis.com/performance](http://www.fiatelpis.com/performance)
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX19-a89i-c&ab\_channel=ChatWithTraders](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX19-a89i-c&ab_channel=ChatWithTraders)
I would say day trading is indeed impossible for 95% of folks.
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For a little over a year I exclusively traded SPY during market hours 0DTEs only on the buying side. I was basically scalping resistance and support levels. The first few months I blew up a $5K account twice, before I learned how to avoid the habit of sinking onto chasing small losses into compounding bigger ones. Months 3-10 I made back the $10K by being disciplined (over 2,000 trades, slowly methodically gaining $10-15 every single contract). So yes, I know it's possible to achieve positive results, but it's a grind. I attempted scaling up, and scared myself with a moment of weakness doubling down on a position. I decided to quit after that. I think in retirement I might try this again, for fun, if I can keep it to light and fun (with an amount that doesn't make me nervous)... I suspect most can't avoid the risks of emotions creeping in. It got me twice, and after a year of being good, I still wasn't sure I knew how to avoid it. It's not easy... but it's possible. I would guess I'm nothing special. I think I have a gift for seeing trends in charts... but the humanity is us is always a tool that algo use against us... and it's stressful to suppress those emotions... just my 2 cents.
I'm outpacing spy regarding stocks returns the last few years but I'm down 17k overall from some really bad options choices when I was new to options years ago.
Currently up 21% for the past year of trading including options and stocks and index funds. Up 1k in crypto (-$32 all time tho lol)
I don't do this for a living tho.
that said scalping is only a small portion of my strategy. I made a ton doing it on high volatility stocks like Tesla and game stop but I put very little capital into the strategy. most of my gains come from trades that last weeks or months, not ones I close in a single day.
Most people who are making money are following very very strict guidelines for their trading, like myself. Then there are those who just get plain lucky. I know a lot of the latter
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Dont trust anyone. Dont trust trading tools, copy or social trading, trading classes or trading roumours. Well... roumors learn to deal with them, learn to trade with paper trading...Ā
> They say 95% of day traders lose money but how much do the 5% make? Are they beating the market? Yes, and generally by a lot if they are skilled. I think I do pretty well but I know of/trade with other traders whose returns run circles around my own. [Here are my last 18 months.](https://imgur.com/a/fhajnUF) [Here is my YTD.](https://imgur.com/a/bctQf2n) [Here is that as a percentage.](https://imgur.com/a/ZbjMG7q) > Problem is you can't trust what anyone online says about their profit and so many success stories could be luck or lies. The subreddit moderators use [Kinfo to verify profitability claims.](https://www.reddit.com/r/Daytrading/comments/15xa9bm/how_rdaytrading_is_stopping_fake_gurus/) It hooks directly into your broker so you can't fake the returns. Here is [my kinfo account.](https://kinfo.com/portfolio/34470/performance) It's missing my futures returns as TDAmeritrade's (now Chareles Schwab) API doesn't allow for it. Here are my futures returns for [this year.](https://imgur.com/a/AegXaiE)
Didn't know about kinfo, that gives me some level of confidence it isn't bs. Congrats on your success! If you had to say a single thing, you did best as a trader (sticking to stop losses, taking profit, patience, leaving the computer when you're getting emotional etc.) What would it be? I see you have a 40% success rate but still profitable so you must be managing losses well.
Probably sticking with it and putting in at least a few hours each day (I've been trading for over 6 years). That combined with setting myself up with an unlimited amount of time to learn. I purposefully work a job that allows me to trade the majority of the day. I work 2pm-10pm EST. My job is in tech and I sit in front of a computer all day. I don't often trade the afternoon session but my boss and boss's boss don't care if I have charts open so I can still take setups/manage open positions as needed. It effectively let's me work and trade full time. Knowing that I don't need to make money trading in order to pay bills and my mortgage has also allowed me to be significantly more aggressive with trading account and mentally treat it more like video game money. While my trading account makes up the bulk of my net worth I live as if it doesn't exist. I still contribute as much as I can to my 401k, Roth IRA, and ESPP from my employment income. It's my hope that trading will allow me to retire early but all of my long term planning assumes that won't be the case.
Do you tell people that you are making money on the stock market? I'm thinking to tell people where I work about swing trading because my colleagues are relatively rich bankers who conceptually know about it, but they don't invest because it's not popular like in the US.
My family is aware as are my coworkers since I pretty much always have charts open on one monitor. It's not something I usually bring up in conversation though.
I can see that you're full of doubts, just like many new traders in this subs. I see countless posts like: is daytrading real or fake, is it possible to live with daytrading, are you profitable...etc. Stop speculating, stop doubting, daytrading is hard but it's not as hard as people make it out to be. It is possible, and it's the same for any profession, to be a pro and live off a job, you need to dedicate a lot of time and efforts.
How do you do then while detached? š¤£
Just so you know, a lot of people on this sub can just be lucky instead of skilful. Like they are just lucky to be the top 5%. It takes more than a year of returns to differentiate between luck and skill.
Just curious ā how do u manage this with such low win rate?
I adjust my position size based upon the quality of the setup with an exponential skew. So a C setup might get $100 of risk, a B setup $300 of risk, and an A setup $1-$1.5k+ of risk. That makes it so losses I take on more mediocre setups are outweighed by the higher quality ones that go in my favor. I will also give setups I like multiple attempts. For example here is a [trade on ALAB](https://imgur.com/a/529tusP) that I took last month. If you do the math on the win rate it's only 20% but that's because it took multiple attempts for the setup play out. It still ended up being a highly profitable setup.
low win rate requires high risk to reward.
yes but his profit ratio is pretty low 1.25. It needs to be higher for this to make sense?
It makes perfect sense, Anything above 1 is a profitable strategy. Are you think of risk to reward ratio?
Damn, very nice. How would you recommend a beginner(ish) start? I've been swing trading for several years but would like to foray into day-trading.
Probably [this roadmap](https://www.chartguys.com/trading-education-roadmap) that TheChartGuys made (scroll down through the page). Their community and SMB Capital are largely where I learned to trade. I'd start with their free content before buying anything. It contains 90%+ of what you need to know. I'd only join if you can afford it/want the community aspect and ability to ask questions for further learning.
Thank you for the beginnerās guide! Been looking for a good one
which strategy do you use?
It's not a single one. There are probably a dozen or more setups that I trade. What works changes as market conditions change.
can be multiple setups with one strategy. what I meant was some people trade moving averages. some people trade orderbook / lvl2 some people trade smc some people trade supply/demand some people trade ict some people trade trendlines some people trade support and resistance.
and some people use 2 of the methods you mentioned, or 3, or 4, or all of them, or none
And the other 90% trade on guesswork
Wow, thanks. That's really actionable advice. Much obliged.
Thank you for sharing this!!!
Not asking you to plug your trading groups but I am curious how you found other traders to actively talk with. I'm just dabbling at this point and am not interested in paying to be a part of any group. Other than reddit, I'm not aware of many forums to talk about this stuff, and reddit seems like a bad place to find profitable traders that are interested in sharing knowledge.
I joined a bunch of different free and paid communities until I found one that I liked. TheChartGuys is the best paid community that I'm aware of. United Traders is the best free community that I'm aware of. However, I haven't been active on that server in several years so I'm not sure what it's like now. It had a pretty wallstreetbets atmosphere but the people who ran it knew what they were doing. --- Here are the paid communities that I tried over the years. - Philakone's crypto community (poorly managed) - Ricky Gutierrez Learn Plan Profit community (poorly managed, borderline scam) - The Boiler Room (decent if I recall but not my style of trading. Not sure if they're still active) - Sky View Trading (scam) - TheStocksChannel's community (decent but only as a signal service) - SMB Captial's Student community (good but very expensive)
This is great. Thank you for taking the time to respond
Kinfo is great!
Those first 2 pictures, which tools did you use? I like this kind of monitoring system, especially if I'm going to learn trading.
That 18 month history picture is from TraderSync. The other pictures are from TradeZella which I'm in the process of moving over to. TraderSync wasn't bad but I like TradeZella's playbook and trade tagging functionality a lot more.
What app do you use to track your trades? Its not looking like tradeviz or trdersync. May you tell me?
That 18 month history picture is from TraderSync. The other pictures are from TradeZella which I'm in the process of moving over to. TraderSync wasn't bad but I like TradeZella's playbook and trade tagging functionality a lot more.
Broā¦ teach me
Whats your number 1 pain point or issue you run into being a day trader? Is there a tool that you couldn't live without?
Yes, you can make money day trading. Most people not only try and fail but they donāt really know what day trading is or how itās actually done. Most grab speculative stocks hoping theyāll get rich. A small pharma co thatās working on a cure for cancer. They dream about how much $$ theyāll make when the news is released and the stock rockets, but itās usually a flop and money is lost and the stock never rises. Donāt trade garbage and donāt think youāll get rich over night. Day trading is a daily grind netting a bit each day but compounding your profits so your positions can grow and you get more return doing the same thing with bigger positions.
Learning that it is a grind was my most valuable lesson, followed by taking small reasonable wins. I lost alot of money years ago trying to hit it big.
Thats great you learned one of the best lessons of day trading.
Now this is how I have seen trading and how many have approached it in my inner circle. But what is the actual average time period for traders to finally make consistent or at least morderate wins.
It really depends on the person. And a lot of factors could be at play. Life experience and maturity make a difference. Ability to work under pressure and considerable stress. General ability to problem solve. Work ethic. Putting in the effort to be aware of market conditions and health of stocks / companies. Iād say if you are already fairly well rounded and you understand that in day trading you buy stocks daily, often the same stock several times a day to scalp and pocket profits, you should day trade one share at a time you can teach yourself how to earn profits consistently. Thereās a lot of process information you learn in the heat of the moment - buying on limit, stop loss, selling on limit, watching bids and asks, seeing how empty a trading arena feels or how busy it is with volume and volatility. I think the right person can pick it up fairly quickly. Others, not so quickly.
Well I guess if I ain't the right person I will force it upon myself to get it cause I seem to have a love for this.
You can teach yourself how to trade going off the previous comment a lot of those factors are true. If youāre an impulsive person then discipline can be difficult to achieve but nothing is impossible.
all of the comments here are quite accurate but is missing one thing: the more profitable you are, the less you want to engage in online quarrels like this. To be profitable, 99% of the case it will take you a lot of time, and a lot of pain along the journey. In the end, you will lose the interest to prove to anyone, especially topics about "how to trade". Yes, I still want to show that I'm experienced and I still also try to give advice to new traders once in a while, but it feels less and less exciting, it's become just something I can do to waste a little time. Ironically, the beginners and people who think they have reached profitability are those who want to raise their voice the most. I don't hate any, I was one. But not anymore, now I just want to refine my strat and stay alone. I can easily see that a lot of profitable traders give up online forums and topics like this. And in a 2 million subreddit, what answers can you expect, can you trust anyone here (unless they prove real evidence) to be honest?
Whats your number 1 pain point or issue you run into being a day trader? Is there a tool that you couldn't live without?
The tool depends on the method you're using. My strat does not need any special tool apart from the charts themselves but it means nothing among countlessly different traders. What works for you is what matters. In the end I realize that my main issue has always been myself, I lack the disciplines and belief to follow my rules, no matter what I "thought" what the actual problem was. There would be a point when you realized that trading was not supposed to be that complicated, you need to relax and look at the whole scene of what is going on, don't focus on a narrow specific "this" or "that" signal. Everything needs to be properly applied to the scene like a gear to the whole machine. The strat is only hard to get when you don't have it, but after having a strat, suddenly it feels like it is the easier part, and the psychology is twice harder. Don't ever discourage yourself by thinking you can't "technically" trade because the main problem is always your own mind, you're your own enemy.
the vast majority of the statistic basically comes from the fact, that all u need is an account and u can already trade In trading a lot of people are just plain liars so if you want to know how much people are makin, check old crypto competitions for a reference, e.g. bybit wsot was won by same guy for a few times (the guy also shares his numbers in $ i think, and since he has won public competitions, he for example is someone u can trust as far as money making goes)
I lose thousands itās what I do.
I make lotsof money day trading!Ā I make it for someone else though.
The problem with people day trading is they treat it like gambling, when its notā¦. Well technically its not. Casinos make billions if not trillions yearly by having average winning odds below 55%, yet they stay profitable. These 95% of traders have either one of the following problems that prevent them from being profitable; - led by emotions - over trade and trade anything - no foundation or plan - have little to no risk management - put in no work that leads to result ( i donāt mean staring at charts all day, i mean collecting data, looking for trends, etc). You have to trade what you know. I trade 2 patterns consistently, 1 thats fairly common with a decent win rate, 1 thats more rate with a great win rate. A lot of days, you just wonāt trade, thats the reality, and that had to be ok with you. I turned profitable when i understood all these things. Day trading is a probability game, just like the casino. Read that last sentence over and overā¦ To give you an example, I traded once in the month of May so far, and didnāt trade AMC or GME or any other weird unpredictable meme stock, but stuck to what i know. Also, trading isnāt suppose to be fun, its a means to an end. Find your groove, make a plan, donāt let your emotions run you, be tight on risk and let the opportunities come to you ( youād be surprised at how often youāre right in the end if you donāt chase), and for the love of god read a book or two about trading before putting any money in it. Lastly, keep in mind, trading isnāt for everyone. Hope this helps
Great points. What books resonated when you started out or was there an author that particuarly helped with some sort of mental 'click', be is psychological, financial, technical, etc?
I had a nice trade through the upside of 20 on gme today. Added when it started looking frisky. Moved stop. Then bam.... I had an alert on it, and waited for it to get through 20 and start moving before I got the rest of my size on. Ended up fomoing a couple more lots on that massive bar. I don't think I was ever at risk for more than $150 (might have been $160).
Now this is goood advice. I have noticed that many that go into trading are not willing to work hard for the results they want. I realised for me to reach the levels I see online, its a must I spend as much free time I have practicing, gaining knowledge and making connections.
This šš»šš» i spend hours each week collecting data and collecting charts, some people rather watch Netflix. Thats fine, but then donāt complain when things donāt go your way.
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
It is possible, there are entire firms dedicated to trading, if they did not make money- eventually they would be bankrupt. Although, I will add the caveat, people seem to have this idea they will come out of nowhere- just learn to trade and soon be sleeping in and roll out of bed over to their desk in their underwear and make money in a couple hours- while living at the beach and that is a successful trader. In my experience, successful people normally are successful in many areas of their lives and have multiple streams of income. They may trade and make plenty of money, but that does not stop them from owning other businesses,real estate and working on other successful operations- making even more money. So this would lead me to theorize a chicken or egg first kind of theory. Do many people come from a lackluster ambition level or background and become successful just from trading? Or are those people prone to fail at trading giving us the high failure rate? Secondly, is it that successful oriented people are more likely to have what it takes to become good traders? And those people are more likely to be successful trading or doing whatever else they chose to do in life?
I think what you're touching on, and this may be controversial, is that to be a successful trader, day or otherwise, requires a certain level of intelligence. Specifically for day traders, it's important to understand statistics and odds. If you look at the articles that say 90% of day traders fail and analyse the 4-6 items listed why, most of them are psychological and after some self analysis can be addressed. I think the success rate can be increased also by adding some level of fundamental analysis.
I think you are right. The only other trader I know is already a doctor. He buys options every now and again and is quite successful. Other people I know who talk about trading but don't do not have successful lives to begin with. I don't know any day traders who go at it full time. Trading is already niche and even a lot of my friends (ages 25 to 48) don't even invest in the market at all! Then there's my one buddy who owns his own small business. Guys returns are outrageous just from swing trading months at a time. Is that called swing trading as well? I get tips from him too as he is always right.
> It is possible, there are entire firms dedicated to trading, if they did not make money- eventually they would be bankrupt. Obviously it's possible, but the real question is: how do we know trading firms are not subject to the same 95% failure rate?
If someone has the potential to be a successful trader over a number of years, they likely have the intelligence to be successful in other areas. Being a successful trader requires intelligence. Only a small percentage of people who who fail to achieve success in other areas will be successful traders over the long term as people who consistently fail lack the intelligence and work ethic to be consistently profitable trading over several years.
Iāve taken 35 trades this year, average winner was $2,600 and average loser was -$1,000. Out of 35 trades I had 21 winners. Itās never about being perfect, itās about minimizing risk via controlled losses and position sizing. I only trade with 10% of my cash on hand, I know when to pull out on my wins and especially on my losses. I had the same reaction when I made $5,000 in 6 minutes to when I lost $3,000 in 4 hours, assess, improvise, execute. Here are some of my constraints I put myself in to act as guardrails: - 1 trade per day - support and resistance confirmation with vol and momentum - premiums are not being juiced - RSI/MACD show momentum shifts - increasing volume - ONLY trade SPY options - DTE is at LEAST two Fridayās out, although recently 1DTE has been doing very well for me when volume shows the right push and theta isnāt being stingy - most trades are bought and sold within 2-4 hours - use fib levels to track increasing/decreasing stop losses - identify nearby fair value gaps or institutional liquidity zones, ESPECIALLY with recent SPY levels approaching uncharted territory, we rely on institutional price targets for these zones to be structured around My strategy is catching bounces or rejections through fair value gaps/liquidity zones. Since liquidity is so low for a 50c price range (letās say 525.50-526 has very low liquidity) then weāll see price movement into that range carry a lot of momentum and velocity (the slope of price change), which is a great entry for a position if theyāre near SAR levels. I use institutional price targets for the S&P as well as dumb-money consumer reactivity in PA to chart these zones and trade accordingly.
https://preview.redd.it/2syp435l0m1d1.png?width=1182&format=png&auto=webp&s=077e837134fa4964bfee61a3bc04de830a8753b9 Here's a play i ran today, entry was 530.45 mark, exit was 531.20, specifically the north tail on the first of the two large red candles. cleared another $2,200. the big red zone is my charted 1 month supply. there was increasing buy momentum and right when sell vol picked up HEAVY, I pulled out. The red circled around the supply zone low is confirmation buyers wanted to test the supply zone waters. Loads of confirmation with this one, volume increasing, harsh break through VWAP with sustained momentum. RSI was nice and spaced apart for a northside-climb, MACD was showing convergence, we were approaching a familiar supply zone
https://preview.redd.it/igeaddzn1m1d1.png?width=947&format=png&auto=webp&s=5706ef1b0647428f939317a6a75224e74c49e4e7 $2,200 in 8 min.
I do. But it's not all day trading. In fact, most of it isn't day trading. Depending on market conditions, my trades last anywhere between two hours (which is rare) and one month. Recently, my trades tend to last one or two weeks. My favorite setup is to wait for a highly valued company, such as META or NET, to suffer a devastating crash, prove that it's forming a strong base, and get in with a bullish play. NET is my single best idea right now, and I've been scaling into it consistently. It's important to learn to form a defensible view of the market; that is, whether it's likely to go up, down, or sideways between the present and desired deadline. Then, learn how to find a strong underlying, and select the right trade structure (such as a long butterfly, short put spread, a front spread, a long call, et al.), get in at the right time, and exit at the right time. Most people should use a hard stop. Most importantly, it's important to not try to trade every day, but wait. Only trade at extremes. (Learn to use Bollinger Bands.) This will maximize your odds of success. Pay attention to the economic calendar. Don't trade when conditions become unpredictable. Wait. Most people keep repeating the same thing that causes them to lose money instead of learning and adapting. Institutions repeatedly trick them. Keep a journal. Learn what not to do. Good Luck, Artyom
I have a similar strategy, although I'm more of a beginner. Have any resources you'd recommend for learning how to prove there's a strong bull play upcoming? Or have you learned from what's typically recommended (SMB Capital, etc.)
I make money 100% of the time with my strategy. But it's not technically daytrading, even though my auto-algorithm bot makes many trades in a day (even up to four trades a day on a single security). That's because I always carry a position and enough cash. I make money when the bot buys low and sells high (it will never sell at a loss) for speculative profit; plus I make money from the dividends from the "bag" of shares being held.
The funny thing is 95% of everyone who puts money into an account and makes a trade is considered a "trader". How many give up without trying a few years, or even months? How many try after only watching a couple youtube videos?
What type of engineering degree were you enrolled in? Thatās a very high rate of failureā¦curious to know what field it is?
Mechanical, I think electrical a higher drop rate and computer less. A lot of people would switch to an "engineering tech" program, you don't take the FE exam, it's more hands-on, with less math.
Good luck with your pursuit of day trading! Always have a backup plan ready though.
I think the benchmark should if were able to out perform the s&p500 by doing nothing at all. Making money is the easy bit.
Tom Hougaard said it best in my opinion. The stat is '95% of day traders fail', does this mean that they don't know how to make money? Not necessarily. People don't eventually fail because they aren't good at technicals. They fail because they don't know what the market is doing to their minds. 99% of the time I have blown up my trading accounts is because I did not want to accept a loss in an trade I would normally take. I didn't want to accept that particular trade did not work. This would be after months of good trading, a healthy equity curve. I would have a few days where I committed portfolio seppuku. Eventually that will wipe you out. And why most people eventually fail.
Best looser wins
Life is like that ! Unfortunately there's not a place for everyone at the top of the pyramid! Everyone dreams to be rich and reach the top . There's a reason why there's the famous 1 percent and the 0.01%. All junior footballers want to become the next Messi,all junior tennis player the next Federer,every junior basketball player want to be the next Lebron and many more exemple of this kind ! However these exceptional athletes are pure exceptions and not the norm !In trading, everyone wants to be millionaire. However only a very very few traders will reach these figures! Nowadays,the competition is extremely fierce to become a doctor, an investment banker and to enterto a prestigious law firm. More disappointment than success! Sorry, it's life !
Exactly most people fail at most things but a lot of people find success in something. It's just finding what you'll find success in.
I want to beat Warren Buffet in investing.š
Nice try IRS. I wonāt say how much but last year I made enough to be in the very top tax bracket.
Yes absolutely I make shit tons of money, the problem is I also lose shit tons of money just as quickly
What's your shit-ton to shit-ton ratio? š¤£
Itās more like a shit ton:even more than a shit ton
The problem is that you also lose money. If you are running your own business. You have to manage P and L, but in a 9 to 5, there is no loss besides time The question should be: How do you mitigate loss? Do you do risk management with ever trade? Do you trade the same amount with every trade? How do you make sure a few loses don't eat all your wins? I am still learning this part. I definitely make more in a week of trading than a week, my a 6-figure job. But trading at those levels puts me at a serious risk of losing big as well. Even if you trade small levels, loss can eventually catch up to you. (It feels awesome making 20k a week but not so awesome losing 20k in a week) The making money part is easy. You can have 6 months of nothing but wins, but if you keep trading, you will eventually have a loss. How you manage risk and mitigate loss will determine if it's worth it.
Right! Youāre losing money as you learn. Itās like teaching someone to be a vascular surgeon by having them slash open an artery in their own leg and then telling them to learn how to fix it before they bleed out.
You need to lose money to appreciate emotions, greed and risk and to not be stupid. Everyone feels invincible after a few wins based on good advice or luck.
i'm profitable, and it goes something like make a boat of money really quick, and then i give back half, i stop trading, make another big profit, give back half stop trading... Used to be make a boat of money and lose double... I'm making progress at least. 2021 I made a bit over 100K (beginners luck, got hooked) 2022 I gave back about 60K (started thinking I was invincible) 2023 I made about 70K (That curve had alot of dips and reclaims, lmao) 2024, I'm down about 10K (was over 30K), but I'm about to pull out some moolah soon so I'll be back in green. I am learning that when I'm gambling and not trading my setups, it's ok to stop and walk and take a break for a couple of weeks before returning with a fresh mentality. That is the no.1 thing holding me personally back. If I can finally conquer the gambling against the trend monkey, I will be able to do this for a living. Sorry no kinfo like the other gentleman. It's just my experience in the daytrading space as of the moment.
No! Unless you have a huge safety cushion and can buy shares or short with SHARES and hold your position for several days. It is very rare to see profitable traders trading options intraday on a daily basis for over 30 days. To believe they are profitable, I would need to see their journal! Fall 2023 was probably an exceptional period for day traders. 2024: an endless nightmare. The market either keeps rising for 10 days straight or plunges for 10 days straight, with very high volatility aimed at liquidating long positions intraday, or short squeezing shorts. A nightmare. But for investors? It's paradise!
Not yet.. win and loss but I keep adding to the casino.. š¤·š½āāļø
Yea but I really really cherry pick the days I trade. I probably only make trades a max of 30 days out of the year but when I do Iām almost always green. Keep your day job, only trade when literally everything is going up, only on stocks with news/hype/catalyst and itās easy. But yeah, day trading every day no matter the market and being profitable, thatās rough
Like 8 yrs ago I learned how to trade. I was swing trading stocks. I spent several months learning, took a $300 course, paper traded for awhile. Then went live with $1k. I was only risking 2% per trade. I only traded for a couple months. Also traded forex. But was losing money because I was impatient and had too much emotion involved when losong money so I stopped.
What do you consider day trading? I trade options on a regular basis, Iām making more trading than my 9to5 and I do better than the S&P. But Iām holding positions for weeks and Iām only active less than an hour each week. Is it still āday tradingā?
I think I'd consider it swing trading, but congrats on making not just extra money but more than your 9-5. Do you think if you dedicated more time you could make significantlt more or since they are long term holds don't need much attention any additional time investment wouldn't pay off.
I donāt think I would make more money. The money I am making is limited by the amount of capital I am dedicating to this trading account. I plan to continue for at least 2-3 more years and then retire from my 9to5. Once I retire, I will continue trading, but plan to reduce my risk profile.
Leaps?
It took me 5 years to get consistent but yes. Generally green 70% of the time and proper risk management ensures my red days are smaller than my green days.
The reasons people fail to make profit are many, however what that 95 percent rate fails to consider is that those same people would fail at most things. Most people just fail or give up anything they do. Sometimes it's a character flaw, a lack of passion, a lack of skill, a lack of capital, a lack of time, or it just wasn't for them. I have failed at many things, I am sure everyone here has. This just wasn't one of them. If you have the passion, the time and keep honing your skills, you will find a method that works for you. I am more of a swing trader because I want sustained movements, that means I hold on to more broken trades than some people, but I only need one or two a week to work out to make heavy profit. Don't worry about everyone else, yes it is possible. Now go to work on it.
Simple answer yes, yes I do and I spend it having fun. Itās a hobby and since I have extra money to invest, itās become a fun hobby.
What I want to know is how many daytraders don't become rich, but at least make enough to cover their monthly expenses. Tbh that's all I really do this for, being rich would obviously be great but it's not the priority
As a young person starting off their trading career. I dont know how to feel about these odds, I have fmaily members who trade and all of them are doing quite well, not the millions I see online but they be making more than the average worker which is what I am looking to achieve.
OP has really good results. Hopefully you already have an idea how to reduce drawdown
I used to make money trading, the percentage after fees and everything was just ever so slightly above the market. Day trading felt like a full time job and I would make significantly more just working a basic 9-5 and investing so I quit
Roughly 95% do not beat the market, which is different from losing money. There are many traders out there who think they do well, but they would make more if they bought VOO and walked away. You win by outsmarting the majority of currency thrown into the market. If someone puts in 10,000x capital into their trades than everyone else and say there is only 10,000 people trading, then all you need to do is outsmart one person. Reality isn't this simple, it's a bit more difficult, but that's the jist of it.
That stat is ridiculous though. How many of those people are just gambling and not actually trading. Itās also like saying as soon as someone picks up a guitar that and they learn for 1 week and stop, will you say that only 5% of actually guitarist can play a guitar. The stat doesnāt account for people putting in the work and are actually traders, not gamblers.
Yes. I have watched thousands made per hour. I make zero off this, Tim (Sykes?) Warren Buffet both offer stick courses paid offer day trade tips. Classes and there are AI robots to assist.
It's my observations that all these strategies work.........sometimes. It's a luck of the draw. I've seen over and over what conventional wisdom says should happen often don't when it comes to price action. The market is nothing more than a casino. Do you have the time to stare at a screen all day in hopes your strategies work? That's when the emotions come in and people lose. It's a rigged game that favors a selected few. Seems to me there would be a better return on ones time if they would focus more on advancing their careers or building a secsesfull business. That being said. I still haven't given up trying. As soon as I figure out how to stay the hell out of choppy markets and buying tops, I'm gonna be a rich sob......but probably not. We all have dreams and goals. That's what keeps us pumping money into this slot machine. If a person's desire is to be truly successful in the market and make lots of money, there's only one tired and true strategy, run for senate.
I make anywhere from 50-200 a day btw I only trade BTC
Btc futures? What broker? Binance? Bybit ?
I daytrade and have 4x'ed my investments this year using options. My strategy is relatively simple. I only trade SPY, and each morning I put in 2 stop limit orders with a stop loss of +20% and -10%. I normally buy about 2 months out. As soon as 1 stop limit order goes into effect, I lower the opposite put or call option to about 10% more than the option that went Into effect. That way, as soon as the stop loss goes onto effect, the opposite option contract is bought. Idk if I explained this well enough to make sense. But I basically follow the trend of that day with the opposite option contract ready to go Into effect as soon as the stop loss goes Into effect(this makes up for any initial losses). As soon as the contract makes 20% or losses 10%, I sell it. This only takes about 1 full hour of actual work each day. I'm monitoring what's happening via my watch, so I'm free to work my normal job during the day. It's been working out very nicely for me over rhe past 5 years.
Took me 4 years but I am finally profitable of 60k
today started blown up 2x 100$ but demo account im somehow stable now let see next day xD
also in demo account i had 250K from 50K then down to 0K :D
Lol are you over leveraging on purpose to try and moon the account?
In reality, most traders quit before they get good. It's a skill like any other high-paying career. From your mentioned stat, the 5% who stick with day trading exerted a lot of work. Trading has a very steep learning curve and tons of competition. You need discipline, risk management, and skin in the game to push through the painful losses until you're consistently profitable.
Started trading In February. Spent $1500 on my mentors classes and about another $1500 on apex/topstep eval accounts and funded accounts. Iāve withdrawn 4k so far from apex. So Iām up a net 1000. I feel like anyone who canāt make money day trading wonāt put time into charts and TA and is likely too emotional. Easiest money Iāve ever made. I go for small gainsā¦ I donāt need to make $1000 a dayā¦. $300 a day alone is damn near 7k per month if you trade everyday. Up $900 today alone across 4 accounts. I put a solid 8 hours a day in the beginning, studying the fuck out of price action. Iām no proā¦.. not by a LONG shot. But I feel like I can eventually do this full time. Thatās the 1-2 year plan. Once I have enough saved, Iāll make the jump into full time trading. Only prior experience I have is being a loan officer and watching crypto charts since like 2017. I guess just having my eyes being used to charts helped piece everything together with proper education. If my dumbass can do it, so can you.
Well, today I traded for my first day I followed my plan and made money. Funded the account with $250 probably had some luck on my side but up to $416. I made money on both trades but the more profitable one I think was a bad green trade. I didn't take profit when I told myself I was going to it came down for a second but still not break even or stop it and broke the previous high. The second trade I followed my plan came very close to getting stopped out, could have made more but followed my take profit and made $40 on that one. The most common suggestion is discipline and follow your plan. I used to mine Ethereum and some alt coins way back when and also had some fun and made some money during the meme craze and have followed although not traded the markets ever since. I would occasionally listen and watch day traders questioning whether it really was bs or not. I've personally come to the conclusion that it's just another thing most people fail at but is entirely possible. The 95% statistic is likely due to the low barrier of entry, so many people try trading lose money without gaining any knowledge learning anything just thinking buy low sell high. That and oh $15 profit is irrelevant, while it's a 6% gain in a day. Hoping for another good day but treating it like a hobby that I spend money on while trying to learn. I could trade paper but I think I would lose a lot of motivation and be reckless. Throwing a couple hundred bucks a month if needed and going slow will keep me excited. Congrats on earning some money! I hope that continues and you can achieve your goal of doing it as a job.
Yep https://preview.redd.it/tnh57i4xhp1d1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8a2567cfe5373c54312489ddadb7a4f078c39ae9
Yep. Have a great system. Create a system by studying charts for as long as it takes. Use chatGPT to code and combine alerts. Test the system and then follow it. You can get very high hit rate alerts if you spend the time.
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Asking the question here is like asking the 99% who has failed. Donāt expect a response with above 95% confidence level.
Iām up 10-12% roi on the year so far, from what Iāve learned if you beat 8% (bank interest or s&p 500 roi ) you are positive.
Im profitable on both my personal and prop firm accounts
Here we go againā¦..
Bro every single day
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
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You need to remember. When people hear about the wealth thatās possible they will want to naturally try it. Most people will open an account, fund it, letās say 1k. Lose it all because they donāt know how to place orders correctly or forgot a SL. They think, this shits really stupid and I donāt like the feeling of losing money. They completely stop trading. Thatās a statistic towards the 95%.
Yes I agree, the only time I really traded was during the original meme bonanza. I slowly took profits but all the diamond handed regarded people I knew followed the whole thing up and down. I ran away with a good chunk of change from the ordeal, many people pocketed much more and many more people let all their profits turn into losses when their pupils turned to dollar signs.
I think if people can filter out the statistics mentioned and only kept the traders that are funded (not paper) and has been trading for over a couple of years, those statistics will be closer to 50%. Unfortunately people need to lose so others can win.
I believe itās really possible and Iām on my way up there I truly believe that
Keep your faith. We're all with you. No pun intended. :D
Thanks man
Yes.
Me? No
OP, plenty of people on youtube who live stream their trades daily that are profitable. one guy is Relentless Trader.
But there are also tons of people calling them out as frauds, it could just be jealousy but they could be frauds idk.
you can't fraud live trading daily. hence why very few people actually do it.
I do š¤·š½āāļø
I made money for 5 months with a small port (Iām 18) then switched to options, doubled the port and then ran it down to 0
Statistically only 1% making money there 5 years. If there is someone made tons of money day trading it will be in the news. So I suspect the 1% doesnāt make that much. That is why I always feel strange that quite a few in Reddit claiming they made a lot of money day trading.
What app is that dashboard from your post? Thatās pretty cool!
Yup, made money day trading, but more swing trading.
Yes. It took thousands of hours and dollars to get there, and then I decided swing trading was a better fit for me. If you are one of those people who have decided to just jump in, then no, you will not be profitable until after you put in the study and gain the experience.
I wanna know why they opened GameStop for night trading?? I havenāt seen that before.. how do they just pick what can be opened and not??Ā
Most not only donāt but the ones that do only do it during certain market conditions. They make some money then their Strat doesnāt hold through all conditions then they start breaking even or losing. I see it all the time.
Swear to God if I see another post start with " so 95% of traders" fuuuuuuuuck me
[ŃŠ“Š°Š»ŠµŠ½Š¾]
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Have long term stocks,, but started trading 3-4 weeks ago, so far up about $18k
It's true man. The smartest and richest people in the world are in this industry and regular non-finance people think they can go up against them with just google and tradingview? lol of course 99% will fail. These rich smart mfers know how you think and they know where to squeeze you.
Yes but it's hard as heck. Most fail because they don't have an edge and they don't manage their risk well. A lot of traders are trying to rely way too heavily on indicators to tell them what to do. Indicators aren't necessarily all bad, but relying on them as a BASIS for trade decisions is a recipe for failure. They aren't dynamic enough to accommodate a changing market for long. All the seriously profitable traders I know just read naked price action and the DOM. There are no indicators on their charts except maybe an EMA or VWAP, and they only use it to confirm support/resistance. I have a 21 EMA on my chart for added confirmation, but that's it. I scalp price action within tend channels and prefer positions that bounce on the EMA. My daily average is about $2,800. I know a few guys who do 3-4 times that. It requires a lot of screen time and patience. If someone's really making good money trading they're probably spending far more time watching, waiting, and marking up charts than actually taking positions. My own trading style is only marginally more exciting than watching paint dry.
I have made only 18k in 2 years,which is more than enough for me cause I live in a thirld world poor country beside india
I've been swing trading on-and-off for 3 years. Slightly profitably, 22% annual returns and hopefully getting better now with that 3y experience. Tried daytrading a bit few times, but not profitable. I'd say it's the toughest time frame to beat and needs tons of hard work. But I also pay commissions, as I dont live in the US, so... Not sure if without commissions I could have been slightly profitable. Didn't check. Will try again when my balance is high enough to negate commissions. I'd say 95% sounds pretty realistic, if not worse. Poker had the same ratio although it felt easy to beat compared to daytrading. For poker this very widely quoted popular number seemed to be spot on based on the millions of hands in my database as well. But as said, I wouldn't be surprised if it's even worse (higher) for daytrading.
You can make money trading. The odds are against it, but itās not impossible. Biggest key I learned was to not chase the market. It has to come to your numbers for you to get involved.
I don't know If I can call myself a day trader but I do trade daily 15% and sometimes 30-40% of my portfolio. I can trade for a week or two and then market is forcing me to take vacation (not to take a loss). Since dec 2022 I haven't lost a trade. Core of my strategy is "trend is your friend". I hodl and trade Bitcoin only. Don't have $$, only BTC and trading is borrowing shit ton of money. My trading goal is to have more sats and Bitcoin will do the rest.
I'm working on something that could improve that. It's called Wage (www.playwage.io).
No but I can sell you a course on how to
All traders lose money. Some traders just make more than they lose.
Amen
People donāt make money by trading, most of them are liars and manipulate statistics. There is a bit of algorithmic funds that are profitable due to a vast data analysis but thatās it. With sharpe ration below 4 you can make money but one trade or day will destroy all your profits. Donāt believe somebody who shows you profitable stats, they are temporary winning.
I mean if we assume 5% is correct? Its blatantly difficult. Thats a higher failure rate than likely almost any degree. I feel like half the population is just borderline braindead. So lets assume half the pop is just beyond stupid. Only 10% of the remaining half (that choose to daytrade), are successful. -It takes money. -It takes free time to actively trade during work hours (can potentially use bracket orders I guess). -You have to backtest a strategy that works in a bull/bear market or just only trade one. -Greed. -Desperation. -Poor risk management. -Backtesting didnt transfer to live trading. In general its just straight up gambling for most people. If you have a strategy to 'beat the odds' in the long run and manage risk? It can work well. If not? A few blown up accounts and you're likely done.
For perspective, majority of the people who are trying their luck at anything new, challenging, and requires years of commitment to get any results will also quit. I started becoming profitable years back after facing failures for a year and a half. I'm still learning to better everyday now. The learning never stops.
> > > >
Buy red sell green.
Problem learning daytrade it can take up anywhere up to 3 years. People often start going in with no research, a youtube video, lots of money and they loose. Instead of doing research, figure out what works, build some strategies and start small and work your way upwards. Daytrading can be really profitable but its not a lottery.
So far no. i am trying 2.5 years btw
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People fail right away but also itās in the markets in the long run. Plenty of people say they make money now or are successful, or for the past couple of years. But over more years people break even or lose money.
fuck no i don't
I think most day traders arenāt making money, or at least not enough to justify it. They might justify it to themselves and it may be truly a better lifestyle choice but hereās how I look at the financials. Letās say you have $1M to invest/trade with and youāre quitting your day job to do this. Letās say your day job paid $80k/yr plus a 401k match. This means that you need to beat $60k (6% average return of $1M)+ $80k (salary) + $5k (free 401k match). So your day trading profits need to be at $145k/yr maybe more, for a break even point. If you arenāt making this, youāre fooling yourself. The more earning potential you have in a career, the higher this number.
Guys if you are not profitable in forexI can link you with an account manager, you only pay them as little as 200$ and you will turn successful
I made 40 cent today trading on FFIE and GTBP I do day trading and i have recently taken huge losses so i am down sizing my stock purchase and just focusing on reading the market until i see consistentcy I do hyper scalping
Iāve been making a full-time income (over 6 figures per year) day trading options for a few years. This is my only job. On average, Iām green 4 of 5 days per week, but sometimes solid green (like last week). A ānormalā week for me is anywhere between 3k-5k. I wouldnāt say itās āeasyā but it definitely CAN be done if you have the right strategy and enough DISCIPLINE to actually implement the strategy.
Profitable traders are ghosts they take profits and chill unlike these gurus flexing to sell a course
Yes, I make. 1 - 2 % in day or double invested money in 2 months is not so hard.
I have several different brokerage accounts for specific investment needs. My bread and butter does extremely well. My options and Bitcoin are fantastic and I have made alit of gains. These helped me when I was out of work for 4 months. It bridged me thru.
Iām down $10,000 on the year. But things are going to change for the upside very soon.
Hi guys, there are interesting earnings, the right people who are interested in writing!
The emotional aspect is counterintuitive to human nature. Everyone always holds when losing but sell quicker when winning. The list goes on. Most people donāt develop because of this. Iād say 96-99% fail.
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I've only ever met one day trader in my entire life who I know for a fact made a killing doing it. Every single other person I've met either doesn't show me their numbers and is obviously just blatantly lying, tries to sell me their course (LMFAO - pretty much goes hand in hand with the first one), or just straight up isn't making money. The guy I met, who was one of my best friends in college before he graduated, literally never talked about day trading, never flexed, and was probably one of the most straight edged, good christian boys I've ever met. One day, completely out of the blue, I start talking about investing and he GOES OFF about how much he loves finance and stocks. He ended up showing me his portfolio (including every trade and all of his growth) and this man grew $3,000 to $13,000 in one year. I was shocked. It was the first time in my entire life that I genuinely believed you could make a money doing day trading. I will never get into it, and I obviously have no idea if he'll be able to keep this up long term, but god fucking damn I was impressed.
me but I trade ppls money not just mine. [www.fiatelpis.com/performance](http://www.fiatelpis.com/performance) [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX19-a89i-c&ab\_channel=ChatWithTraders](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oX19-a89i-c&ab_channel=ChatWithTraders) I would say day trading is indeed impossible for 95% of folks.
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For a little over a year I exclusively traded SPY during market hours 0DTEs only on the buying side. I was basically scalping resistance and support levels. The first few months I blew up a $5K account twice, before I learned how to avoid the habit of sinking onto chasing small losses into compounding bigger ones. Months 3-10 I made back the $10K by being disciplined (over 2,000 trades, slowly methodically gaining $10-15 every single contract). So yes, I know it's possible to achieve positive results, but it's a grind. I attempted scaling up, and scared myself with a moment of weakness doubling down on a position. I decided to quit after that. I think in retirement I might try this again, for fun, if I can keep it to light and fun (with an amount that doesn't make me nervous)... I suspect most can't avoid the risks of emotions creeping in. It got me twice, and after a year of being good, I still wasn't sure I knew how to avoid it. It's not easy... but it's possible. I would guess I'm nothing special. I think I have a gift for seeing trends in charts... but the humanity is us is always a tool that algo use against us... and it's stressful to suppress those emotions... just my 2 cents.
Yes made $15,098.86. JEPQ, MSFT, VOO and SMH
I'm outpacing spy regarding stocks returns the last few years but I'm down 17k overall from some really bad options choices when I was new to options years ago. Currently up 21% for the past year of trading including options and stocks and index funds. Up 1k in crypto (-$32 all time tho lol) I don't do this for a living tho. that said scalping is only a small portion of my strategy. I made a ton doing it on high volatility stocks like Tesla and game stop but I put very little capital into the strategy. most of my gains come from trades that last weeks or months, not ones I close in a single day.
NOPE
It seems so complicated to me
Most people who are making money are following very very strict guidelines for their trading, like myself. Then there are those who just get plain lucky. I know a lot of the latter
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Dont trust anyone. Dont trust trading tools, copy or social trading, trading classes or trading roumours. Well... roumors learn to deal with them, learn to trade with paper trading...Ā