Why day trading is a bad idea

It seems like it’s really hard to be a day trader and make a living out of it.
Because: 1. 90% people lose money. (atleast that’s what I have been hearing)
2. Short term gains is taxed at 15% which eats away good bit of amount after STT’s and brokerages and other charges.

Also there are tons of other reasons one can find here: https://www.nayuki.io/page/so-you-want-to-be-a-day-trader-bad-idea

After all this I find it hard to believe that anyone can fully depend on day trading financially. What is your take on this? Have you met any such day trader who claims to make consistent profits?

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A very nice article which explains the perils of day trading.I hope it will benefit people who have unrealistic expectations from day trading and fine tune them accordingly.I myself have given up day trading after incurring substanatial loss and figured out that it doesnt suit my life style and Phsyche.

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The stock market is a device for transferring money from the impatient to the patient.

And the problem with day trading is impatience is ingrained therein. But, I am still not totally against it. Like all things in life … to be good at sth you have to invest a lot of time and effort … with a lot of passion.

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My dear friend

I am a day trader from last 4 years and I have a passion for it.

In first 2 years I lost good amount but I did not gave up. I always asked myself in those hard days "there are good people already proved trading is an awesome career then where I am failing? "

From last 2 years I am earning good because I am constantly improving my skills and view how I see trading.

Do you ever think how many start ups fail ?

I am agree that we cant earn money from starting in trading unless we have some special skills. We have to improve ourselves.

My suggsion is unless you have passion for trading dont try it.

Hmm Taxs are part of the business. Assume you have started a showroom/shop/office you have to pay rent, licence fee, utility bills right. Here those are brokerege, STT, exchange fee etc., Income tax have to be paid by all who have above income slab limit. There is no excwption for traders.

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How?

I know good number of business/startups failed because of improper planning and poor discipline.

Whats your opinion ?

Because, everyone want to make money quickly… :yum:

If the startup fails most people don’t go bankrupt on it. While day trading is pure speculation and people have lost more than they could afford in day trading.

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@newguy,

Dont bother telling people here that day trading is a bad idea. you are not doing them any favor,

There are many many people here who are supposedly successful in day trading but cannot prove when asked to do so. Why is that? you know why…

People here believe that one day they will succeed in day trading if they keep trying and the ONLY thing that is stopping them is their own mind and psychology.

But hey who are we to stop them from losing their money. If not for them how will the other side make money.

Institutions don’t day trade , but somehow retail thinks they are smarter than institutions and can take their money. Guess what , who is taking who’s money in the markets everyday.

Also if these smart retail day traders are winning so much , why this statistic of 90% of day traders lose? Where did it come from? shouldn’t it be more like 90% of day traders win. something to think about.

So many questions , very few answers. But hey, as long as we can throw abuses online, who cares to think about these questions?

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Quite similar, very broadly these are among the top reasons.

This is because startup is a separate entity than any people; it was only described here as an example.

And in day trading person bears whatever the profits or losses are, on their own.

I will give you one simple answer - If you have financial backup or job, then day trading can be done for fun purposes with risk management ofcourse

If you think of having a career in day trading, then I would say its a total bullshit

Now please note, I understand few people have careers in day trading. But those are rare breed and kudos to them, coz I feel if one can make a career in this, thats brilliant

But lot of people take loans and try to make a career in this, or dream big and fall flat on road. Such people should get discouragement against day trading

Again I say, do day trading as a side activity, find out how good you are, and use it to supplement income once in a while thats fine

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Hmm. Think like your trading as a start up and plan it.

Some businesses cant give profit initially ( I think trading too ). I heared flipkart, Ola and amazon not getting profit even now. Do you think they are mad to invest billion dollers ?

My point is trading is a awesome career if you planned well and sustained until it give rewards. My strict caution is dont come to trading to earn money quickly. Choose trading if you have passion to trading.

I choose trading not to get rich but because I love it.

Life is a speculation.

We are getting degree in some specielization by expecting good job in that career. is it not speculation ?

Big company will release a new product expecting product will be good and it boost income. Is it not speculation ?

Steave jobs invested his life in iPhone, Bill gates invested his life for Microsoft. Assume if they fail ? They speculated that product will be success.

As our @nithin always says his trade going on in form of Zerodha. Is he not speculating ?

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broadly i will agree with OP … vast majority of the people wont make money in day trading
best thing about trading is one can find within 1.5/2yrs that he/she can make a money by trading or not by doing part time trading …

if they learnt to make money , then they can continue or they have to quit…

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What The following link states could be discouraging but a fact. Trading is not for everyone. I know some day traders make money. Thats purely because they have the right mind set. As far as failure rate is concerned every business has failure rate. They say retail has less failure rate of around 55%. Real estate and stock trading has highest failure rates.

So I guess passion (that results in grit & perseverance) and right mindset are key to succes in any business. There could be no second opnion that speculation is the toughest.

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day trading is completely a bad idea if it’s your hard-earned money. I have been doing that for months now, and I have won 10,000/- in a month along with 60-day challenge but then the amount of time and effort spent is not worth it. I will tell u why - becuz it takes 60 days to make 15000, out of which 5000 goes in taxes, brokerages etc. And whtever remains, goes away in a single day to some rigged stock. Why? Becuz I don’t put SLs and rather rely on numbers and close trades manually. Becuz I feel the programs these days have become to smart to give operators the ranges at which most SLs are. I have made more losses putting SLs than not putting. I have won and made money in 98% days (without putting SLs in cash segment). Yes, I have put in efforts to learn price action, elliot waves and lagging/leading indicators but I must tell u, this cash segment is completely rigged. U will either win once, which allure u to lose all or win all and get lured to lose all in a single day. I have given up day trading. But I have gotten into Nifty Futures and U can laugh at me becuz in a month I have incurred 75k losses becuz i lost patience at the turnaround time. Still, I believe I can make up some of my losses thru the skills developed but won’t do day trading ever.

What do you mean by rigged? Just bcos your sl is hit it is not rigged. Pls understand… your buy/sell/SL orders are public information… brokers provide only the top 5 bids and offers… nse sells the entire depth along with hidden orders for a hefty fee… buy them if you want… you can see every order of that scrip… thats why SL are hit…
Get smarter…as someone said above… have patience… you cannot mint money here unless you have enough juice to move markets

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hey thanks man. God bless you.

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My person opinion is people should correct their mindsets before deciding to trade… Until such time paper trade.

Personally I have suffered losses more due to mindset than because of lack of info.

I went back to the drawing board and started mental trading and then went with very few quantities.

Your risk is a big decision and its not wise to lose what you can never earn.

So, those who feel they cannot make money, please trade in 1 or 2 shares for a while and decide if your ready for the toss.

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[quote=“Kiran_Bhat, post:17, topic:39196, full:true”]
… nse sells the entire depth along with hidden orders for a hefty fee… buy them if you want… you can see every order of that scrip… thats why SL are hit…
/quote]

Always wondered how it was possible for the operators to know about all the orders coming in (when I read material on Wyckoff / VSA & there were references made about this).

Didn’t realize it was as simple as buying information officially from exchanges. Always assumed it was something along the lines of getting information from floor traders or similar. In essence, being close to the action. In fact, from your post, it’s clear that they could be somewhere remote & still have access.

Had also always thought that there’d be some sort of limit there on the amount of info the exchanges will provide, but your post suggests otherwise.

In short, thanks for your post.

PS - On a related note, could anyone elaborate on what is being exactly done when the literature talks about operators “marking up or down” prices?

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