Anyone in here a Day Trader?

[DigitalCancer]

I'm just curious how this 'field' is and if you actually make any money?

I remember I did tech support a couple of years ago at a wireless internet company and this guy would call in if it were down for more than 10mins and yell that he was losing $100's of thousands every hour that he was down b/c he was a day trader.

If it's that lucrative..how do you get into it?? ^_^

 

[gevorg]

Don't bother. The only investment advise you'll ever need:

http://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-In.../dp/0060555661

 

[Blackjack200]

I'm just curious how this 'field' is and if you actually make any money?

I remember I did tech support a couple of years ago at a wireless internet company and this guy would call in if it were down for more than 10mins and yell that he was losing $100's of thousands every hour that he was down b/c he was a day trader.

If it's that lucrative..how do you get into it?? ^_^

He was full of shit. Anyone that makes millions of dollars a year trading stocks doesn't rely on some shitty ISP. Seriously, can you imagine anything more retarded?

It's like online poker. Most people have modest losses, a few people make a shitload of money. You can get into it with any online brokerage accound. I would do a lot of reading first.

 

[TallBill]

Don't bother. The only investment advise you'll ever need:

http://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-In.../dp/0060555661

http://www.amazon.com/Bogleheads-Gui...1680390&sr=1-1

This is a GREAT read. I'm amazed how many people are completely clueless to this concept of investing.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Your odds are better with the slots at Vegas or a tribal casino. It's gambling not investing, and most people who try it lose money.

Most people are better off buying and holding a good index fund or ETF like an S&P 500 fund.

 

[DigitalCancer]

He was full of shit. Anyone that makes millions of dollars a year trading stocks doesn't rely on some shitty ISP. Seriously, can you imagine anything more retarded?

It's like online poker. Most people have modest losses, a few people make a shitload of money. You can get into it with any online brokerage accound. I would do a lot of reading first.

Actually...he BOUGHT one our towers. He had his own backbone and we leeched off of him and gave him free internet essentially and tech support. ^_^

 

[iGas]

Shouldn't he have more than 1 service provider?

My old company use cable & satellite services, hence one would pick up the slack if the other go down.

It can be lucrative and extremely risky if you are into leveraging and derivatives trading with a large hedge fund.

 

[Kenazo]

Don't bother. The only investment advise you'll ever need:

http://www.amazon.com/Intelligent-In.../dp/0060555661

Well I have no purchased and will add to my reading list. Hope you're right.

(Dang one-click Kindle purchases!)

 

[YoungGun21]

If you are lucky, you will make lots of money day trading.

Most people who try it stop after they lose thousands upon thousands of dollars.

 

[Imp]

Day trading is stupid because you are "forced" to sell your holdings within a day; you're technically not a "day" trader if you hold anything at the end of the day I believe. You bank on spreads of a percentage or two on huge sums of money.

I'm "week" or "month" trading. I buy and sell extremely often, but I only buy stuff that actually has a great chance of recovering if I'm wrong. Haven't lost any principal left, but I would have done better over the past couple months if I just held.

 

[D1gger]

My wife day traded for about a year, and made some nice cash, but it was stressful, so after a month of zero profit/loss she packed it in.

 

[ViviTheMage]

Stocks are confusing to me still, no time to learn them ... but afaik, you have to be pretty lucky, haha.

 

[FelixDeCat]

deleted

 

[wheresmybacon]

A friend's father sold his dental practice to day trade full time. He literally lost everything he had within a year's time, and the family was forced to sell all their property and real estate just to cover his losses. He committed suicide a short time after the day trade debacle. Tragic.

The idea of day trading is cool and romantic. In practice, I've known very few (read:none) who've been able to make it work and come out ahead.

It's like being a professional card player or professional sports gambler. For every one person who can make ends meet, there are hundreds of horror stories.

 

[FelixDeCat]

A friend's father sold his dental practice to day trade full time. He literally lost everything he had within a year's time, and the family was forced to sell all their property and real estate just to cover his losses. He committed suicide a short time after the day trade debacle. Tragic.

The idea of day trading is cool and romantic. In practice, I've known very few (read:none) who've been able to make it work and come out ahead.

It's like being a professional card player or professional sports gambler. For every one person who can make ends meet, there are hundreds of horror stories.

My sisters boyfriends parents sold a successful plumbing business, lost $600,000 cash in one year daytrading and wound up losing their home as well. They now live with one of their children and have no posessions to speak of. The house they lost in foreclosure was worth $750,000 in north Dallas with 50% equity but no takers. They are in their late 60s and have nothing. Also, his dad had a stroke in the meantime and is now partially paralyzed. It was terrible.

 

[wheresmybacon]

My sisters boyfriends parents sold a successful plumbing business, lost $600,000 cash in one year daytrading and wound up losing their home as well. They now live with one of their children and have no posessions to speak of. The house they lost in foreclosure was worth $750,000 in north Dallas with 50% equity but no takers. They are in their late 60s and have nothing. Also, his dad had a stroke in the meantime and is now partially paralyzed. It was terrible.

That's awful. Yeah this girl loved her dad dearly, and by all accounts the guy was really brilliant. He was incredibly gifted at speculation and wagering, having done very well over many many years betting sports, grabbing up real estate, etc etc.

Day trading strikes me as nothing more than ultra high stakes live poker, except you have less control over the outcome.

 

[OCGuy]

*snip*

Woah man...intense stuff there!

 

[Leros]

My dad got into day trading a while back. He was losing money like crazy at first, but got better. Started breaking even after about 6 months. Starting making enough to live on after about a 1 year.

It seems that you need a very large amount of money that you're willing to lose while you're learning. The fake trading sites don't work because the emotions you have are different when dealing with real money.

 

[HopJokey]

If true then sad. But today is April 1st, so I take everything with a grain of salt.

 

[Crusty]

My dad got into day trading a while back. He was losing money like crazy at first, but got better. Started breaking even after about 6 months. Starting making enough to live on after about a 1 year.

It seems that you need a very large amount of money that you're willing to lose while you're learning. The fake trading sites don't work because the emotions you have are different when dealing with real money.

I agree with the lots of capital to start with. When we were taking new traders on at my old job we wouldn't let them start until they deposited at least $25k into their account and then they were limited to 100 lot trades for a while until they got the hang of it.

What's scary is that the firm we were working with allowed people to leverage up to 50:1 intra-day and 10:1 overnight. When things go right, they go well... but it's also very very easy to go belly up with that kind of leverage, which happened quite frequently sadly.

One story that sticks out was this one guy who had a couple million in his account. He was using a custom program to automate his trades(self-written... like a fool), and while he wasn't paying attention got stuck in a loop and kept on shorting a single stock over the course of a few minutes. Before he could realize what was going on, he was short ~40k shares in one stock and ended up wiping out over half of his account in the course of the day trying to get out of all his positions.

 

[PeeluckyDuckee]

Back in the dot com days my uncle lost everything and had to remortgaged his house to cover his margins. Greed gets most people. If you can get 10-40% on each trade that's time to get out, if you day trade. Put in stops and if u get stopped out call it a day. Have an exit plan even before you get in. If you go all in on every trade it will bite you in the ass sooner or later.

 

[Imp]

My sisters boyfriends parents sold a successful plumbing business, lost $600,000 cash in one year daytrading and wound up losing their home as well. They now live with one of their children and have no posessions to speak of. The house they lost in foreclosure was worth $750,000 in north Dallas with 50% equity but no takers. They are in their late 60s and have nothing. Also, his dad had a stroke in the meantime and is now partially paralyzed. It was terrible.

How greedy do you have to be to blow $600k? A "reasonable" rate of return is 10%-ish (out of my ass) with a reasonably diversified portfolio. That's a solid $60k /year income. Collecting AT&T dividends is like 6%/annum alone.

 

[Leros]

I agree with the lots of capital to start with. When we were taking new traders on at my old job we wouldn't let them start until they deposited at least $25k into their account and then they were limited to 100 lot trades for a while until they got the hang of it.

What's scary is that the firm we were working with allowed people to leverage up to 50:1 intra-day and 10:1 overnight. When things go right, they go well... but it's also very very easy to go belly up with that kind of leverage, which happened quite frequently sadly.

One story that sticks out was this one guy who had a couple million in his account. He was using a custom program to automate his trades(self-written... like a fool), and while he wasn't paying attention got stuck in a loop and kept on shorting a single stock over the course of a few minutes. Before he could realize what was going on, he was short ~40k shares in one stock and ended up wiping out over half of his account in the course of the day trying to get out of all his positions.

It doesn't even make sense to daytrade with under $25k. They'll give you additional money to play around with if you have at least $25k in your account. I think they gave my dad an extra $100k to play with if he had at least $25k of his own money in the system, but I honestly don't know much about it.

I don't know the exact number but my dad burned through at least $50k of his own money just learning to trade. It might've been closer to $100k.

 

[nonameo]

You know, this makes me wonder. Has the prevalence of day trading increased since the advent of the internet? I wonder if it has anything to do with the bubbles?

 

[Demo24]

You know, this makes me wonder. Has the prevalence of day trading increased since the advent of the internet? I wonder if it has anything to do with the bubbles?

It certainly makes it a lot easier for the average joe to try his hand at it. However that's a great way to lose your shirt unless you happen to be a market savant. I lose enough in my trading(days or weeks preferably) to know that day trading would be a great way to lose everything I have.