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

[Via]

Let's assume they have a reasonable amount of money, maybe $100,000, and they have to sell everything they buy at close. No holding.

What could a good trader with a $100,000 bankroll make in a day by simply buying low and selling high all day long?

Could they make a good living for themselves? I'm talking six figures for a year. That would mean they'd have to make about $400 for every work day, if you consider capital gains tax.

That would be doable, wouldn't it? Or not?

 

[Howard]

What, on average?

 

[TallBill]

Forcing someone to sell nightly in your example is silly. People build and lose fortunes very quickly via day trading.

 

[Via]

What, on average?

Yeah. You've got 100,000 to work with. If you buy 2000 shares of something at $50 and they go up to $50.50 you made $1000, right?

Forcing someone to sell nightly in your example is silly. People build and lose fortunes very quickly via day trading.

Smart people?

 

[Red Squirrel]

I've always been curious to try day trading. Is there a way to do it online? I want to start with like 100 bucks and then once I get the hang of things and get smarter about it I'd go bigger. I barely know anything about stocks other than they go up and down and it's usually influenced by stuff, which I imagine I'd get to know if I read up more on it. It's essentially gambling, but the difference is, you don't lose anything until you cash in. If your stocks went down, then don't cash them in, wait till they go up. Of course there are situations like Enron and Nortel where they never do go back up.

On the other hand, maybe it's more smart to take the money I'd put into day trading and just put it into GICs.

 

[Printer Bandit]

a supercomputer is needed to make a profit daytrading.

 

[Via]

a supercomputer is needed to make a profit daytrading.

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.

 

[PingviN]

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.

Yeah you can see a trend, but a trend going up can still have plenty of dips, especially day-to-day. This is why you spread out your investment over several companies with some being short term and some being long term. All eggs in a "one-day-hold"-basket is stupid and you're taking a massive risk.

 

[OverVolt]

Correct algorithms will "read" news articles to determine if they were positive or negative before you can even load the news article.

Also day traders are generally taxed at income tax rates and not capital gains rates unless you held the position for one year AFAIK.

You are better off buying like 100 shares a year of XYZ company. Value investing seems the best for tax purposes. Research companies, find a solid one off a recent low and hold it for at least a year. Look at what BBY did for example.

 

[Cuda1447]

I've always been curious to try day trading. Is there a way to do it online? I want to start with like 100 bucks and then once I get the hang of things and get smarter about it I'd go bigger. I barely know anything about stocks other than they go up and down and it's usually influenced by stuff, which I imagine I'd get to know if I read up more on it. It's essentially gambling, but the difference is, you don't lose anything until you cash in. If your stocks went down, then don't cash them in, wait till they go up. Of course there are situations like Enron and Nortel where they never do go back up.

On the other hand, maybe it's more smart to take the money I'd put into day trading and just put it into GICs.

At that level trade fees will eat any earnings you might get, very quickly.

 

[Tweak155]

My friend does day trading for a living. He started out with a goal to reach $50k/yr and then moved up to $100k/yr. Last I talked to him he was hitting his goals.

 

[DrPizza]

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

 

[silverpig]

I've always been curious to try day trading. Is there a way to do it online? I want to start with like 100 bucks and then once I get the hang of things and get smarter about it I'd go bigger. I barely know anything about stocks other than they go up and down and it's usually influenced by stuff, which I imagine I'd get to know if I read up more on it. It's essentially gambling, but the difference is, you don't lose anything until you cash in. If your stocks went down, then don't cash them in, wait till they go up. Of course there are situations like Enron and Nortel where they never do go back up.

On the other hand, maybe it's more smart to take the money I'd put into day trading and just put it into GICs.

You need to go with an online brokerage like RBC DI, or Scotia iTrade or something.

Trades aren't cheap. $10 minimum I think. You can't day trade with $100.

 

[Fritzo]

Day trading is so 10 years ago

When my work was slower, I dabbled in some day trading. You can make some huge money, but you can also lose it all quickly. Solar power was big a few years back and I made $3200 on a $1000 investment in two weeks...then lost $1500 in one day. I think I came out $800 ahead after taxes.

Penny stocks seem to be the best quick money makers, but you have to watch the market like a hawk. It's a full time job in fact. You'll also get in trouble if you buy and sell less than $25000 of a particular stock in a short period, so watch yourself.

I think ETrade had my favorite tools and best price at the time, but Schwab had the best money management accounting.

Not something I'd do for a living, but it can be fun on the side if you have the time.

 

[Vdubchaos]

How much can a person make in a day of gambling?

Same shit

 

[JTsyo]

You run into the same problem you do with gambling. If you go a week making money then your sense of risk gets unbalanced.
the money I play with I try for 3%/month. Hasn't really worked out. I was hoping for 30% or so for the year. But I've the money tied up in stocks that dropped after I bought them.

 

[EagleKeeper]

As well as the taxes; you have the trading fees.
$3-5 + % per trade. That will eat profits faster than anything.

 

[Gunslinger08]

I've always been curious to try day trading. Is there a way to do it online? I want to start with like 100 bucks and then once I get the hang of things and get smarter about it I'd go bigger. I barely know anything about stocks other than they go up and down and it's usually influenced by stuff, which I imagine I'd get to know if I read up more on it. It's essentially gambling, but the difference is, you don't lose anything until you cash in. If your stocks went down, then don't cash them in, wait till they go up. Of course there are situations like Enron and Nortel where they never do go back up.

On the other hand, maybe it's more smart to take the money I'd put into day trading and just put it into GICs.

You have to have $25k in your account to day trade. A day trader is someone who makes 4 or more day trades in a 5 business day period. If you want to try day trading, I'd recommend doing it with a play money account to see how much work it is and how hard it is to make money.

 

[Gunslinger08]

You can make an unlimited amount of money. You can lose all of your money, plus a considerable amount more if you trade on margin. Realistically, you will be extremely lucky to keep up with historical S&P growth.

 

[KB]

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.

Its far better for your mental well-being just to find stocks you like and ride the roller coaster, trying to ignore the ups and downs as best you can. Buy at a certain low price and then set a price at which you plan to sell. Good luck.

 

[Sureshot324]

I don't have any actual experience with it, but I look at it like this.

If you're day trading, you're essentially competing against everyone else that's day trading. A lot of those people have a lot more tools/resources than you. Take a trading floor in a big investment form for example. It's an entire team of professionals working together and sharing their knowledge. How can average Joe day trader compete with that?

Also, there is a lot of insider trading going on because it's a relatively safe crime.

 

[Juddog]

Day trading is basically legalized gambling.

You have to be really good at it to make a consistent profit; many people try it out and lose a bunch of money. There are constant programs running at some of the bigger trading houses which analyze all news stories and trade based upon the positive / negative story, as mentioned above. There are people that will try to put out a fake story to manipulate stock into rising / falling based upon those algorithms as well.

It's a brutally difficult field to get into but I do know a few people that made a lot of money doing it; every one of them was hyper smart though, people I would put into the top 1% in terms of intelligence.

 

[crownjules]

I've always been curious to try day trading. Is there a way to do it online? I want to start with like 100 bucks and then once I get the hang of things and get smarter about it I'd go bigger. I barely know anything about stocks other than they go up and down and it's usually influenced by stuff, which I imagine I'd get to know if I read up more on it. It's essentially gambling, but the difference is, you don't lose anything until you cash in. If your stocks went down, then don't cash them in, wait till they go up. Of course there are situations like Enron and Nortel where they never do go back up.

On the other hand, maybe it's more smart to take the money I'd put into day trading and just put it into GICs.

You would have to learn Foreign Exchange and day trade that. You can deposit as little as $25 at some FX brokers and trade for $0.01 per point (pip) of movement. Day trading stocks requires, by law, a minimum account of $25000. And futures have margin requirements that are at least a few hundred bucks to hold a contract open.

Day trading is not easy. I do it as a hobby in my spare time right now hoping that at some point I can turn it into something fairly profitable. At times, I feel like I'm completely on and at others like I have no idea what the market is doing and totally lost. But if you want to do it, don't let all the negative nancies dissuade you. There are consistently profitable day traders out there and they put in the time to become that. Just realize you can losing everything if you are not smart about your money management.

 

[sonambulo]

Let's assume they have a reasonable amount of money, maybe $100,000, and they have to sell everything they buy at close. No holding.

What could a good trader with a $100,000 bankroll make in a day by simply buying low and selling high all day long?

Could they make a good living for themselves? I'm talking six figures for a year. That would mean they'd have to make about $400 for every work day, if you consider capital gains tax.

That would be doable, wouldn't it? Or not?

In a word: sure.

Anything's possible. In market terms, 100k is...not a lot money. If you're really that interested, peel $100 (yes, one hundred) dollars off of your roll and try to turn it into $1,000 shorting stock. Or if you're ballsy try for the 1k into 100k challenge.

You'll find out real quick whether you're cut out for this.

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

Exactly. Just like a casino. House always wins in the long term.

 

[silverpig]

In a word: sure.

Anything's possible. In market terms, 100k is...not a lot money. If you're really that interested, peel $100 (yes, one hundred) dollars off of your roll and try to turn it into $1,000 shorting stock. Or if you're ballsy try for the 1k into 100k challenge.

You'll find out real quick whether you're cut out for this.



Exactly. Just like a casino. House always wins in the long term.

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.