Did 99% of you day trading lose money in 2022?

We all know and are constantly bombarded with the stats of unsuccessful day traders. So, are you the 99 or 1?

Personally, ending the year in green. Have to say, this was definitely the most frustrating year of trading for me (full-time trader since 2018).

Curious to know how you felt about trading in 2022?

profitable 2022?
  • yes
  • no

0 voters

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FYI, here are a couple of recent threads on this topic
with the relevant discussion on individual performance over the year 2022.

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It seems like the 99% fail isn’t an accurate representation of the trading community. If you randomly open a demat and place one/two trades, loose and exit the market. I wouldn’t call this person a ‘trader’.

It would be helpful if zerodha did an accurate analysis of their account holders to filter out people who placed at least few trades a month for a period of 1 year or more. This would yield a better result of % of profitable traders.

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I am in the not profitable category. I dont know how many are with me though.

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Only a brave few will reveal if they lost money. So, a voting system may not be accurate data. But brokers who have access to account information should do better job of reporting this data. That might be more helpful.

What difference does it make if other people are making profit or not? They are them and we are us.

If 99% are losing and we are losing too, should we take solace in knowing this?

We should understand our trading, how the market is, what we are doing, how did the trades go, the reasons for them, what we should have done, if we made mistakes or we did our best but still market behaved unexpectedly etc etc.

Thinking out loud :grin:

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well, it speaks to the credibility of trading as a career. New entrants might just think, if probability of me winning is less than 1% then i might as well gamble and try to make as much money as soon as possible and exit the market.

This type of mindset might be the real cause of new entrants being non-profitable.

This is where a better analysis of trader data may help.

We cannot make something as a career easily or quickly, more so a career in capital markets with direct participation.

Even investing is a vast ocean, to get a basic idea of it will take some time, and trading is the father of investing :grin:

So one has to spend time even to know if he can do that forever.

Just because I drop my friend off frequently does not mean that I can be an Uber driver :grin:

Lot of thought, plan, experiments, profits and losses, luck and beatings have to happen to come to a conclusion.

I am in the middle of all of this, so :grin:

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If you are frequently chauffeuring you friend, then you know how to drive. As far as i know, that is the only qualification that uber asks for. So, you can drive uber if that was you wish.

It is not about what Uber asks. It is about if I can do it nonstop, for hours. If I will feel sleep depraved or if I feel energetic even after driving for hours, and if this is yield me the return I expected.

I made good money. Infact I don’t get how vast majority lose money if they employ common sense.

Perhaps those who are active on the forum are passionate about learning/researching and so this crowd may not have that high % of losers.

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you need losers to make those good money. Trading zero sum game. So you winning another losing.

I am not a brave being, but i have decreased my loss amount over the period of time. So i hope that is good at the very least. :face_holding_back_tears:

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Yes. Ofcourse .

I don’t think that’s always true. Market makers(HFT?) for example will take a large cut of my profits for the service they provide. But i am still profitable and wont be able to trade if i did not get liquidity in orderbook when i need it.
Similarly whatever little i might make could be out of someone making money in higher timeframe etc. Different people do different things in the market and not everyone is playing the same game.

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True.

We could be taking a small portion of someone’s big profit, who don’t mind giving that, as their eyes are on a much bigger prize.

At times, it could be a win-win for all parties involved, if we stretch the time.

@GB26 just curious, are you an active trader?

Over 90% of the volume is in F&O. And F&O is a negative sum game(after charges).

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No I am not an active trader, just began my journey both in equity and options. Although I have some experience with investing, so to some extent I know how to play the game.

Of course options being as what they are, I am getting kicked out of the ground frequently, as I have started this just now :soccer:

You are right in the specific example you mentioned. I am not speaking in reference to particular trade. Overall, there has to be someone in the opposite end if you go to the root of the trade. Everyone cannot come back making money.
I am not as experienced as you. That’s what i thought.
I thought there cannot be two net positives in market. Well there can be two net negatives in a way, as there are charges to factor into.
Overall consistent winners are government and broker.

:point_up_2:

I dont think that is possible in trading.

It is possible.

If I am looking at a longer time frame, say 1 hour, and if I am right in my direction, in a 5 minute time frame someone comes and makes money in my opposite direction, I can still make money in my direction and the direction which has changed in 5 minutes will change again in 1 hour.

In fact, I did this, took a bet in opposite direction in intraday against my original bet which is positional, and made some profit :neutral_face:

In investing it is different, even if someone buys at a high price, a mistake, but someone can come in the future and buy at a higher price, greater fool theory :grin:

All F&O contracts expire. So, it doesn’t matter what time frames you look at, it has and always will be a negative sum game.

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