How much could a person make in a day buying and selling stocks?

[crownjules]

Look at the stats - the vast majority of day traders lose their money. I'm sure a couple win, but most of them lose.

Actually, that's a phony stat. It may be true or it may not. It's one of those things someone threw out at one point sometime long ago and stuck to the wall and now every uses as the accepted truth.

And a good portion of that stat, whatever the true number may be, is because the lure of day trading - ie. fast and "easy" money - attracts a lot of idiots that do stupid things and blow out their accounts.

 

[biostud]

1,57% on average

 

[JTsyo]

OP, to really lose money fast look into options. It let's you leverage the money you have.

 

[gorcorps]

A guy I work with day trades with $20k when he's not on day shift. He picks volatile stocks and rides the waves throughout the day. He's averaging ~200-300 a day.

 

[Veliko]

Actually, that's a phony stat. It may be true or it may not. It's one of those things someone threw out at one point sometime long ago and stuck to the wall and now every uses as the accepted truth.

And a good portion of that stat, whatever the true number may be, is because the lure of day trading - ie. fast and "easy" money - attracts a lot of idiots that do stupid things and blow out their accounts.

So as long as we ignore all the people who lose money, then hardly anyone loses money on day trading.

 

[Daverino]

First, 100k is not much money from a day trading perspective.

Second, taxes and transaction fees will kill your bottom line. You'll be paying short-term taxes on any profit you take (25-40%). Even if you buy long and hold for a few months or a year, you still will run into a tax wall. Long term capital gains don't kick in unless you hold for over a year, which will drop you down to 15% rate.

You can find index funds that will make you a likely 10% year over year. If you want to beat that day trading, you're probably going to need around a 15-18% return due to taxes and fees. That's very very hard to do.

 

[JTsyo]

SEC's take on it.

 

[HardcoreRobot]

if professional fund managers cant reliably beat the market i dont know why some average joe thinks his experience would be any different

 

[alien42]

$100k could be doubled or tripled in a day with the right trades. not saying it's easy, just possible.

 

[sandorski]

+/- $1trillion

 

[DrPizza]

So as long as we ignore all the people who lose money, then hardly anyone loses money on day trading.

No, I think what he's saying is that if you lose money, that means you did something foolish. If you make money, it's because you're smarter than everyone else in choosing stocks.

I'm not quite sure of the exact details, but a guy I know bought a bunch of stocks of some bio company on margin. Expected great news on Monday morning. During off hours trading, the stock went down a couple bucks over the weekend - margin call or something like that Monday morning & he lost his shirt. An hour later, the stock started spiraling upward - he'd have made close to 6 figures, but instead, lost almost everything. Again, I'm not 100% sure of the terminology (margin calls, etc.)

 

[crownjules]

if professional fund managers cant reliably beat the market i dont know why some average joe thinks his experience would be any different

You can't compare the two as they're different beasts. A fund manager is dealing with a tremendous amount of assets - hundreds of millions to billions of dollars in his account - which necessitates large position sizes. Large position sizes take days to find parties to buy/sell from and then repeat that process to close it out. And while the manager might want to buy at $50, he might have to settle for taking some of that position at $55 or $60 because that's all the market is willing to give him.

Day traders are much more flexible since they're dealing with far less assets and smaller positions. As long as you're trading a liquid market you can usually get your desired price levels.

No, I think what he's saying is that if you lose money, that means you did something foolish. If you make money, it's because you're smarter than everyone else in choosing stocks.

I was being far more simple than that.

I know nothing about nuclear plant operation. If I were to go into one having read one book about nuclear physics and attempt to operate the plant, we'd likely have a nuclear meltdown on our hand.

Sadly, this is how a lot of people approach trading (and investing in general). Something about the myth of easy money around it makes people stupid. All I was commenting on was that the failure rate you indicated earlier is inclusive of numerous people who do this. So if a person commits to learning and studies, that percentage, whatever the true number, is not a true indicator of their success/failure rate. And I was not saying doing such guarantees success.

 

[T9D]

https://chaturbate.com/female-cams/

 

[Hugo Drax]

LOL

 

[SSSnail]

LOL

This.

 

[Via]

It just seems like if you're satisfied with making small amounts you'd be ok. You're wins would outnumber your losses, and your losses (when they happen) would be small. There's no reason to wait until the last possible second to unload your holdings.

It's people who aren't satisfied with making $25 a pop that would subject themselves to the real risk. $25 a trade would be laughed at by a guy who lives in Manhattan, but where I live that's not necessarily the case.

 

[HardcoreRobot]

please report back with your experiences

 

[Via]

I'm not going to do this now. I don't have that kind of money.

I might try after my parents pass. They're worth a couple mil.

 

[OverVolt]

Except it's not like a casino because you are essentially the house. The value of the market goes up over time so your expectation value after playing the stock market for a long period of time is positive.

I actually agree over the long term the odds are actually in your favor. Its a bit silly then to do such short term trades? Ah well it depends if you have a knack for such things or not I guess.

 

[Svnla]

I haven't hear anyone (that I know of) become rich or live on the profit from day trading.

 

[OverVolt]

I haven't hear anyone (that I know of) become rich or live on the profit from day trading.

E-X-A-C-T-L-Y

:awe:

 

[Imp]

a supercomputer is needed to make a profit daytrading.

A fund with a few hundred million has to ride a 0.1% change to make, let's say $1,000,000 x 0.001 = $1,000 in a second. Thank god for HFT algos.

I tried doing this one with BAC when it was moving up and down one cent every few minutes... I got these results:

How much can you make in a day? Between negative infinity and positive infinity.
My forays into day-trading look something like this: +100, +200, +50, +150, +200, -1200, +50, +75, +200, +350, -500. I get several successful trades then one big loss because of some analyst says sell and wipes out all or most of the gains. Maybe you will do better, but you will need some sort of advantage.

And completely shit myself throughout the process while watching things drop more than a cent. I made $20 in 5 minutes, won a few times, then lost in all, and broke even, said I'd never do it again -- haven't.

 

[zinfamous]

But why?

We can all see the trends. The $1000 trade would be an outlier. But I'm sure a reasonably intelligent person could make $50 here, $100 there, $75 here.

The transactions today occur in milliseconds, so you can't possibly keep up with what is happening in "real time." So, only computers can truly handle this as ticker tape just doesn't cut it.


But, to answer your question: about tree fiddy.

 

[Veliko]

I was being far more simple than that.

I know nothing about nuclear plant operation. If I were to go into one having read one book about nuclear physics and attempt to operate the plant, we'd likely have a nuclear meltdown on our hand.

Sadly, this is how a lot of people approach trading (and investing in general). Something about the myth of easy money around it makes people stupid. All I was commenting on was that the failure rate you indicated earlier is inclusive of numerous people who do this. So if a person commits to learning and studies, that percentage, whatever the true number, is not a true indicator of their success/failure rate. And I was not saying doing such guarantees success.

So, er, once again you're saying that if you ignore all the people who've lost money on day trading then the stats show that not many people lost money on day trading.

 

[Crusty]

The transactions today occur in milliseconds, so you can't possibly keep up with what is happening in "real time." So, only computers can truly handle this as ticker tape just doesn't cut it.


But, to answer your question: about tree fiddy.

Wrong. Microseconds matter in today's markets.