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

[Centauri]

I've pretty much stopped trying to outsmart the market one way or the other - it's been dominated by erratic movements of money since the financial crisis. Making a day trade can be a safe bet if you're looking for a small move, but holding many stocks for even a few days or weeks can actually get very dangerous. So basically I've decided to pull a Buffet; buy stock in companies I believe make a good product and are undervalued, and... mostly ignore things for a while.

I think long term truths are the only thing that can overcome the erratic movement in the stock prices nowadays.

 

[Imp]

Great. What if you bought at $14.62, and it continued down to $14.30, closed, then kept going down for days?

If predicting patterns, technical analysis, were so easy, everyone would be rich.

But do give it a shot. Maybe you're one of the lucky geniuses. Or you're just like the rest of us who've tried and quit while ahead... or after losing all their money.

 

[Via]

Great. What if you bought at $14.62, and it continued down to $14.30, closed, then kept going down for days?

If predicting patterns, technical analysis, were so easy, everyone would be rich.

But do give it a shot. Maybe you're one of the lucky geniuses. Or you're just like the rest of us who've tried and quit while ahead... or after losing all their money.

Why would I keep it at all if it went below the price I bought it for (If I'm following my system, at least)? Why in the world would I wait until it dropped to $14.30?

I would sell at $14.60. No harm done.

Then I would try to find another stock trending upwards. I'm not saying a person doing this would never lose a cent, but they''d never take a bath either.

 

[OverVolt]

Great. What if you bought at $14.62, and it continued down to $14.30, closed, then kept going down for days?

If predicting patterns, technical analysis, were so easy, everyone would be rich.

But do give it a shot. Maybe you're one of the lucky geniuses. Or you're just like the rest of us who've tried and quit while ahead... or after losing all their money.

Wait for an upshoot off the low and sell no matter what that price would be. Probably like $14.40's. Cut your losses and try again.

 

[OverVolt]

Why would I keep it at all if it went below the price I bought it for (If I'm following my system, at least)? Why in the world would I wait until it dropped to $14.30?

I would sell at $14.60. No harm done.

Then I would try to find another stock trending upwards. I'm not saying a person doing this would never lose a cent, but they''d never take a bath either.

The price actually "wanders" around quite a bit. A recent example, when FB had it's 30% jump in price it fell $2 for a split second only to meander lower a moment then go back to being 31% higher. You would have sold? No? Yes?

 

[Via]

The price actually "wanders" around quite a bit. A recent example, when FB had it's 30% jump in price it fell $2 for a split second only to meander lower a moment then go back to being 31% higher. You would have sold? No? Yes?

After a 31% jump?

Absolutely, I would have sold the second it dropped.

But - I would have sold much earlier. Maybe after it rose 10% or even 15%. Remember - I'm not talking big risk here.

I would count a 10% rise as almost "must sell".

 

[OGOC]

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.

Or you put everything into one stock, including all your time and thought process, and focus on just that and what it will do. Live and breathe that one company.

If someone bought 10 stocks, they have to keep their eyes and ears and focus on 10 stocks instead of one.

If I am considering buying 10 stocks, but only one of them I'm really super confident about, seems like I'd be throwing money away buying the other nine stocks that aren't as good.

Just a different way of thinking and doing things is all.

 

[Doppel]

More or less nobody can consistently beat the market. This is a proven fact backed by countless studies. The reason people try is due to their arrogance.

 

[OGOC]

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.



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.

Great post. As you said, fund managers can have so much money they can have a hard time figuring out a good place to put it. And it's harder for them to get it all in or out in a timely and cost-effective fashion.

Big funds have their advantages too, but the way some people are saying $100,000 isn't a lot, well, it's not compared to a lot of people, but you can't necessarily go by that since the smaller your account (within reason) the easier it is to be flexible with it and easier to make a higher % return than the big guys.

And also for what you said about people who fail at it. It's easy to fail at something like trading since anyone can try it. Put $10, $100, $1000, whatever in, lose it in a week or a month having never done it before and probably not even taking it seriously, and now you are considered to be a failed trader. That same person would probably be a failed doctor or lawyer or whatever else too if such things didn't require large amounts of official education beforehand. Or, their first week or month on the job, a failed plumber, electrician (maybe be a dead electrician), receptionist, whatever.

 

[OGOC]

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

Probably around $50k a year. This really depends on the definition of "good" or "great" or "mediocre," etc. If we're talking about someone doing it for the first time thinking they know everything because they watch Cramer on CNBC, then $0.

A couple things in the person's favor:
1) margin, if they choose to use it. Makes that $100k a lot bigger. Caution is advised.
2) If they used to drive an hour to work each way every day, they're saving a lot of money for the year just in gas. And probably suits and ties and shoes and buying birthday gifts for office people they don't like.... :biggrin:

 

[OverVolt]

More or less nobody can consistently beat the market. This is a proven fact backed by countless studies. The reason people try is due to their arrogance.

Lol, okay. Soros and Buffet seem to be doing pretty good.

Soros timed the bottom of FB perfectly. Old man's still got it. Buffet timed the bottom of BAC perfectly as well. With billions. Buffet is getting pretty old but I'm sure that study will prove to be right eventually. :awe: He can't keep beating the market forever but I guess he is doing okay for his 80's.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/08/25/buffett-to-invest-5-billion-in-bank-of-america/?_r=0

Aug 25, 2011, check out his return. Timed the bottom like a boss.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...Soros-likes-Facebook-with-10m-investment.html

August 15, 2012, FB is now above its IPO price.

Both looked like dead cat bounces to me. Very soon putting my money where my mouth is. Those are all old plays. Back then if I weren't in school I agreed with them and would have followed suit.

Now I'm waiting for a cheap "buying" opportunity if you know what I mean.

 

[OGOC]

More or less nobody can consistently beat the market. This is a proven fact backed by countless studies. The reason people try is due to their arrogance.

Everyone with a 401k or stock in the company they work for loses money?

All daytrading is is "investing" but on a shorter timeframe.

 

[Jeff7]

Lol, okay. Soros and Buffet seem to be doing pretty good.

...

Ok, that's 2 people out of an awful lot of investors.
Not good odds.

People win the lottery too. Not bloody likely that a single person will do well, but there's quite often someone who does. Chances are, it's not going to be you, and a whole lot of people will be out some money.


Best way to make money off a casino (or lottery, whatever) is to either run the casino, or else arrange to take home a share of what the casino makes.

 

[Sureshot324]

Lol, okay. Soros and Buffet seem to be doing pretty good.

Soros timed the bottom of FB perfectly. Old man's still got it. Buffet timed the bottom of BAC perfectly as well. With billions. Buffet is getting pretty old but I'm sure that study will prove to be right eventually. :awe: He can't keep beating the market forever but I guess he is doing okay for his 80's.

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/08/25/buffett-to-invest-5-billion-in-bank-of-america/?_r=0

Aug 25, 2011, check out his return. Timed the bottom like a boss.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/...Soros-likes-Facebook-with-10m-investment.html

August 15, 2012, FB is now above its IPO price.

Both looked like dead cat bounces to me. Very soon putting my money where my mouth is. Those are all old plays. Back then if I weren't in school I agreed with them and would have followed suit.

Now I'm waiting for a cheap "buying" opportunity if you know what I mean.

Soros and Buffet both have large teams of very knowledgeable professionals doing their research for them. Stock trading is all about information, and if you're on your own you just won't have the resources to get that kind of information.

Also, when these guys buy into a stock like FB, they come in with so much money they can actually trigger the rebound, making it look like they timed it perfectly.

 

[Imp]

Why would I keep it at all if it went below the price I bought it for (If I'm following my system, at least)? Why in the world would I wait until it dropped to $14.30?

I would sell at $14.60. No harm done.

Then I would try to find another stock trending upwards. I'm not saying a person doing this would never lose a cent, but they''d never take a bath either.

But you bought at $14.62... $14.60 is a $0.02/share harm done. With $75,000, that is 5130 shares at a $0.02 loss or $102 loss plus trading fee.

If you have a bad streak, that's a few hundred dollars. Maybe you'll gain it back, then run into another few streaks.

This is all assuming that the ask/bid are actually stable (easier with high volume stock), you don't get emotional over your losses and decide to hold a bit longer, then watch it go lower. Get distracted and miss the sudden blip down? Japan suddenly has a meltdown, war breaks out in another country, a bad piece of economic info you didn't know about suddenly comes out, etc.

Again, you can try it, but you're making it sound very simple -- I've tried your system and broke even before quitting.

Wait for an upshoot off the low and sell no matter what that price would be. Probably like $14.40's. Cut your losses and try again.

That works. But there's a chance you'll get hit with a streak of losses. Remember that if your $100 stock goes down 50% to $50, you need it to go up 100% to be back at break-even ($50 to $100).

 

[stlc8tr]

Lol, okay. Soros and Buffet seem to be doing pretty good.

You've cherry-picked Buffet's BAC trade but what about all of the other trades? I'm too lazy to google for reference links but AFAIK Buffett has actually trailed the SP500 for a few years now.

As for Soros, I think he did better in 2012 but back in 2011, he got crushed.

http://blogs.wsj.com/deals/2011/07/26/soros-investment-chiefs-departure-comes-amid-poor-performance/

But hey, more power to you if you can make money day trading. Good luck!

 

[Staples]

I used to trade several times a day but have found out that you get eaten up by charges really quickly so I just buy and hold now days.

Day trading is for computer automated crap that manage millions of dollars. When you are buying a quarter million dollars at a time, 1% gain would be far more than your trading charges.

 

[ringtail]

``

 

[kranky]

Everybody has a system to beat the market, until they find out they don't.

 

[Engineer]

OP, people have given you advise throughout this thread and anything short of 'sure, you'll make lots of money' has been dismissed by you. I say since you're so smart, go for it and keep a blog here on AT of your 'winnings'.

 

[AccruedExpenditure]

You'd seriously be taking a butter knife to a gun fight day trading these days. Unless you have an unbelievable feel of market momentum it's pretty difficult. There are a lot easier ways to turn that 100k to a couple million a year

 

[SSSnail]

I hate these billionaire trolls, they pretty much move a stock with their money, and it's sickening. Look at Carl Icahn, he's classically a fucking troll. And the sad part is, all he has to do is saying he bought a piece of shit, any piece of shit, and the price of that piece of shit will rise.

By virtues of their money and the ability to move the market with their announcements, I'm not going to give them any credits.

 

[OverVolt]

I hate these billionaire trolls, they pretty much move a stock with their money, and it's sickening. Look at Carl Icahn, he's classically a fucking troll. And the sad part is, all he has to do is saying he bought a piece of shit, any piece of shit, and the price of that piece of shit will rise.

By virtues of their money and the ability to move the market with their announcements, I'm not going to give them any credits.

Yea Carl Ichan I don't trust he gives off a pump and dump vibe.

 

[halik]

LOL@ this thread keeping going

Given that you don't have the best technology, best research or best access to the company you're looking to buy/sell, any edge you may find is almost guaranteed to be spurious i.e. luck.


< professional trader

 

[Via]

I might actually put $1000 into a trading account and try to make $10.

I can't believe all the people who are taking this so seriously. In NO WAY do I think I'm smartest human on the planet, and I was certainly not trying to belittle people who lost money in the market.

My only point was: It might be possible to make money consistently if you're satisfied with very small gains, the kind of gains professional traders don't consider worth their time.

Then (of course), true to ATOT, my post gets twisted in 10 different ways.


If I do start an account these will be my rules:

1) I have to gain $10 before I lose $10. If I get down to $990 I close the account

2) I have to sell everything I have before close.

3) I will post the results, including info on trades I made.