Anyone here do any Day Trading?

[DragonMasterAlex]

A buddy of mine's been talking to me about day trading, which he's recently gotten into, and I've been trying to follow here and there on paper and been doing pretty well. He's updating me regularly about making small inroads in profits, and I've been thinking that maybe I should do the same thing.

So I'm wondering if anyone here has done it? I have the perfect job for it (Systems Engineer, at the computer all damn day and can easily have tickers and buy/sell website interfaces open all day) so I'm thinking it might be a viable way to earn some extra bread.

Thoughts? Anyone done it successfully?

Jason

 

[MikeMike]

thought about it.

atot is a bunch of money hungry ppl who dont like taking risks with it.

they will all say no

but you need the initial investment that you arent afraid to lose.

MIKE

 

[Zenmervolt]

If you can devote _all_ your time to research and tracking stock, _and_ you have sizeable seed money, you can just barely eek out a better return than a Vanguard fund in the long run. Major success stories are usually luck. Timing the market is almost always a piss-poor idea.

The record largest buying spree for stocks was six weeks before the market tanked in 2000. The record selling spree was six weeks before the market rebounded. People almost always end up getting scared and buying high while selling low. Don't invest more than you can afford to completely lose.

ZV <-- Portfolio Analyst.

 

[paulney]

I'd say you be a lot better off investing the money in a long term index at a discount brokerage.

 

[midnightrat]

If you really wanna have fun try trading options

and GL

 

[DaveSimmons]

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt
If you can devote _all_ your time to research and tracking stock, _and_ you have sizeable seed money, you can just barely eek out a better return than a Vanguard fund in the long run. Major success stories are usually luck. Timing the market is almost always a piss-poor idea.

The record largest buying spree for stocks was six weeks before the market tanked in 2000. The record selling spree was six weeks before the market rebounded. People almost always end up getting scared and buying high while selling low. Don't invest more than you can afford to completely lose.

ZV <-- Portfolio Analyst.

Exactly.

Since I'd rather enjoy my free time, I just buy S&P 500 fund shares like Vanguard VFINX, sit back and earn my 8-10% with zero effort and close to zero risk since I'm holding for the long term. Also near zero work at tax time since I don't have a year's worth of trades to account for.

Most people who stick with day trading do it for the rush of gambling, not because they're making piles of money.

<-- lazy software developer who'd rather read a book

 

[msparish]

Only if you can afford to lose what you invest, and also if you don't become dependent on extra income you might be making.

 

[iversonyin]

tough luck...

 

[Jeff7181]

Day trading is really only useful for people who have millions and millions of dollars to invest. A 1% return on a $100 million investment is a decent profit for a day's work. A 1% return on a $1,000 investment isn't even enough to cover brokerage fee's.

 

[kranky]

If you do it, realize that the odds are overwhelmingly against you making any money at it after your trading expenses. So I would say it's not a viable way to earn extra money.

I'll never forget the last time our company had a job fair, when one guy who applied for a job said his last job was "day trader". Before that he was an executive VP at a steel company, but quit his job to trade stocks all day.

I guess he had a couple good months trading stocks and decided he had it all figured out.

I'm glad your friend has done well, but the odds will catch up. As long as its money you can afford to lose, have fun.

 

[MisterCornell]

Day trading is a complete waste of time. You'll make less money than the people who buy and hold their stocks because of the transaction costs. That's if you make any money at all. You could lose it all gambling on risky stocks in hopes of a quick buck.

 

[Literati]

Trade paper first.

investopedia.com has a good sim.

 

[gscone]

I've been investing for many years now and often to do day trade. My goal at the end of the month is to net $1500-$2500 a monthm which is entirely doable.

 

[daveymark]

What market are you looking to trade, and how much capital do you have? Which system are you following? Everyone will have a different opinion. most people who say "don't do it" either haven't done it themselves or didn't have the patience/effort to succeed (i.e, tried it for a few months, decided it wasn't for them, or tried it a couple hours a day for a year, decided it wasn't for them, etc.). It's a lot of hard work. Daytrading is 10% system and 90% attitude/confidence. You'd be surprised how small your confidence can get once you start losing thousands. You won't just have losing days, you'll have losing weeks. But you'll have winning weks too. The key is to protect your capital by minimizing your losses, and a good system will help you do that.

Paper trading is a totally different beast than real time. When it's your money on the line, emotions start coming into play very quickly. Also, no paper sim can account for slippage, execution, etc.

Paper trading is great for learning some of the fundamentals though. especially if your front end has a paper trading software.

Either way, you will learn something about yourself when you get into this. Good luck if you decide to do it.

Don't forget, please answer my first few questions at the beginning of this post.

 

[richardycc]

I have, and got killed by taxes, I had supposingly a gain of $20k last yr from casual day trading, but I dont really know where some that 20k went, and now have pay over $4k more in taxes.

I guess lets say that you bought stock A and made a profit from it, and bought stock B and lost the same amount of money from the profit you made from selling stock A, you are still responsible for the taxes on the profit from Stock A. You are broke even, but you get stuck with a big tax bill.

 

[desk]

day trading is addicting. the first time i traded i made $500 in 10 minutes. i was like, h3ll yes, im going to retire off this crazyness. i made a lot of money over the next six months. then that stupid bubble burst...and everything went to sh1t.

day trading can be profitable if you're good and the market is doing well. but if the market takes a dive, watch out. also, you'll have to pay short term taxes as richardycc found out.

 

[sandorski]

Everything I hear of Day Trading is that it's very risky. I'm no Trading guru, so that aside, I'd be more concerned with whether your Work would actually allow you to do this on their coin. Might want to check into that first.

A better thing to do at work might just be Research into good Mutual Fund opportunities, or other opportunities that are more Longterm. I could see a situation where you need to Buy/Sell at a particular moment, but then an issue at work comes up preventing you from doing so.

 

[Kenazo]

Originally posted by: richardycc
I have, and got killed by taxes, I had supposingly a gain of $20k last yr from casual day trading, but I dont really know where some that 20k went, and now have pay over $4k more in taxes.

I guess lets say that you bought stock A and made a profit from it, and bought stock B and lost the same amount of money from the profit you made from selling stock A, you are still responsible for the taxes on the profit from Stock A. You are broke even, but you get stuck with a big tax bill.

What the heck kind of crap capital gains rules do you have in the states? In Canada you only pay tax on your net gain. And at that only 50% of all capital gains are taxable, and we have a $250,000 personal exemption on capital gains that I believe you can use towards your stocks.

 

[maziwanka]

Originally posted by: DaveSimmons

Originally posted by: Zenmervolt
If you can devote _all_ your time to research and tracking stock, _and_ you have sizeable seed money, you can just barely eek out a better return than a Vanguard fund in the long run. Major success stories are usually luck. Timing the market is almost always a piss-poor idea.

The record largest buying spree for stocks was six weeks before the market tanked in 2000. The record selling spree was six weeks before the market rebounded. People almost always end up getting scared and buying high while selling low. Don't invest more than you can afford to completely lose.

ZV <-- Portfolio Analyst.

Exactly.

Since I'd rather enjoy my free time, I just buy S&P 500 fund shares like Vanguard VFINX, sit back and earn my 8-10% with zero effort and close to zero risk since I'm holding for the long term. Also near zero work at tax time since I don't have a year's worth of trades to account for.

Most people who stick with day trading do it for the rush of gambling, not because they're making piles of money.

<-- lazy software developer who'd rather read a book

sounds like my investment plan. hahahah

 

[astroview]

Originally posted by: nourdmrolNMT1
thought about it.

atot is a bunch of money hungry ppl who dont like taking risks with it.

they will all say no

but you need the initial investment that you arent afraid to lose.

MIKE

What is your investment strategy then....