DaxDestroyer
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To answer the question: Yes, it is possible. Just put a little bit of effort into it
If I weren't trading for some time already and couldn't do math, I would be sure now that you will be topping the Forbes 500 soon :cheesy:
You cant keep on making 100% for long with a day trading system so not much chance of joining the billionaire league as a day trader.
At some point you starting to run out of liquidity and you get increased slippage.
Then it becomes a constant $ dollar return with diminishing % returns.
If you start with 1m and make 100% a year until you reach 10million a year it goes something like:
year0: 1m
year1: 2m (100%)
year2: 4m (100%)
year3: 8m (100%)
year4: 16m (100%)
year5: 26m (62%)
year6: 36m (38%)
year7: 46m (27%)
year8: 56m (22%)
year9: 66m (18%)
...
This is just an illustration, you might hit a wall way before 10 million or perhaps after, it depends on your system.
Liquidity issues is why a small trader can make 100% a year until they get quite rich, but a hedge fund with 100s of millions under management struggles to make 20% a year. They cannot trade the 'easy' systems we trade.
There are old traders, and bold traders, but no old, bold traders.
Almost all day traders either get wiped out, or they have to take the money and run.
If you want to consistently make money, it will be (by definition) over the long term. Which means that you must trade conservatively, and be fearful when others are greedy...but be greedy when others are fearful. So to answer your question, yes, you can be successful, but "consistent" and "day-trade" in the same sentence is a contradiction in terms.
There are old traders, and bold traders, but no old, bold traders.
Almost all day traders either get wiped out, or they have to take the money and run.
If you want to consistently make money, it will be (by definition) over the long term. Which means that you must trade conservatively, and be fearful when others are greedy...but be greedy when others are fearful. So to answer your question, yes, you can be successful, but "consistent" and "day-trade" in the same sentence is a contradiction in terms.
I'm wondering if it is actually possible to consistently make good money Day-trading.
Possibly.
The question should read: "I'm wondering if it is actually possible for me to consistently make good money Day-trading."
I expect you can answer that yourself.
Is it possible to become a World champion F1 driver in 23 years?
unfortunately, Taylor, I've seen it all before!they are just consistant, they trade relatively small amounts of a huge account to definately and unriskly make money.
Add to that discipline, together with a clearly defined trading plan, which has being rigourously backed tested and statiscally assessed to form a trading plan, you should win.
Raysor, well there are some things that are out of limits, I can never run the 100m in under 10 seconds for example. But that's a physical thing. Also for formula 1, there are what 30-40 drivers or so? You're competing against possibly the best 40 in the world. If trading was me against the best 40 traders in the world who have trained for 20 years, then no, I probably couldn't do it because lots of the 40 would get killed too.
But when it comes to something like trading, where it is not just the best in the world, but also newbs and investors and others my attitude is if somebody else can do it, then of course I can do it too. Which is why I asked of course.
Anyway, I appreciate everyone's answers. I think I have found the answer to my question.
Furthermore, those trading desks that do still exist, are not filled with old experienced guys who took years to learn and now can make crap loads of money.They are filled with youngsters who could just be existing based on chance again, survival bias. This echoes a lot of what people like Nassim Taleb have written about. I have not experienced day-trading long enough to know if it is doable. I have tried it a little, and I win some, lose some as epxected but overall can only break even. So I am hoping more experienced people here can shed some light. I am quite happy to put the time into it to study the charts and learn it. But I want to know if it is just a fools errand before I spend that time learning.
Some honest opinions and results please. And where are the old guys of trading? Why don't you find them on the trading floors of the big banks day-trading? How many day-traders do banks actually employ? These things are important, because if they are employing quite a large number, then it is because the accounts show it is profitable for them to. If they're not employing them, then that is because it is not profitable.
I'm wondering if it is actually possible to consistently make good money Day-trading. And hope some people can be honest and share their approximate results. I believe it is possible to make money over a long time period, because you can find the right trends, and the intra-day noise doesn't affect you if you have a wide stop and are happy to wait days, weeks or months. You will lose sometimes, but eventually I believe you can win this way (especially if you make good entries) and some hedge funds do seem to win over the long term.
Day trading has a lot of noise though, and possibly a lot of trading (=commission costs), and you can be right about the overall move, but get killed on any given day. Do people really make money here? Also the reason I ask if people can make GOOD money is not because I'm concerned with how much you make, but realistically if 10,000 people all bet on a bunch of random coin tosses, some will make money. But they won't make enough that is convincing enough that it must be beyond chance. So in order to claim that it can successfully be done, then you should be able to make quite substantial gains as a % of your capital.
How many people here actually make good money by day-trading? Please share. Many people say it is just not possible. I know you read on here and from experienced traders that you will lose for 6 months to a year before you learn and become consistently profitable, but perhaps they just want newbs to trade and lose their money. Fresh meat for the brokerages, and fresh meat for those that hang on to long term moves.
Another reason why I have doubts, is that many Banks are just clearing out their prop desks. Meaning, they are not profitable enough to run any more (if they ever were indeed profitable beyond chance). So if even these guys with all the best equipment, analysts, years of experience and data are not making money, how can a normal trader be expected to. Furthermore, those trading desks that do still exist, are not filled with old experienced guys who took years to learn and now can make crap loads of money.They are filled with youngsters who could just be existing based on chance again, survival bias. This echoes a lot of what people like Nassim Taleb have written about. I have not experienced day-trading long enough to know if it is doable. I have tried it a little, and I win some, lose some as epxected but overall can only break even. So I am hoping more experienced people here can shed some light. I am quite happy to put the time into it to study the charts and learn it. But I want to know if it is just a fools errand before I spend that time learning.
Some honest opinions and results please. And where are the old guys of trading? Why don't you find them on the trading floors of the big banks day-trading? How many day-traders do banks actually employ? These things are important, because if they are employing quite a large number, then it is because the accounts show it is profitable for them to. If they're not employing them, then that is because it is not profitable.