Most of these answers are rather biased. The problems with day trading have to do with self-discipline, fear and greed. The great traders don't require super expensive software, indicators, or computer setups. In fact there are many traders who are quite successful using few if any indicators. You can trade futures or forex (rather than stocks) which don't require a huge account balance. The best way to learn is to have a mentor who will teach you the ins and outs; there is certain basic knowledge that one needs to have that should be second nature before one attempts to trade. I wouldn't trade without at least a basic understanding of position sizing, money management, trade management, support and resistance and market profile. If you want to know what those actually mean, do some research. As far as record keeping for tax purposes, trading the same, or just a couple of futures markets, makes keeping records much easier than it is if you trade stocks - it doesn't matter how many trades you make in the E-mini S&P, for example, because at the end of the year it just shows as one number: $ X profit (or loss) in that market. Same for forex - if you trade you probably won't trade more than 4 or 5 currency pairs.
There is a difference between investing and gambling.
For most people, their long-term results with day-trading resemble those from gambling, not investing.
I don't think day-trading is "bad" for people who have "play money" especially in a rising market. But it's not for people's 401ks and college funds. It's entertainment, like a HOBBY (a sometimes expensive one), not an investment strategy.
ETA: It also makes doing one's taxes very tedious. I've seen plenty of novice investors jump into it completely unaware that they will have to report every single trade on their tax return. They have no idea what cost basis is, how long it takes funds from sales to clear, they get slapped by their online brokerages because they don't know the rules, they get letters from the IRS because they didn't do their taxes properly...it's just a mess for people who don't know what they are doing and I'm not even talking about whether they make money or not.
I'm making big money with binary option, I use this software ( http://forexsignal.kyma.info ) My software delivers signals only when the five indicators (bp trend filter, market deviation, price pattern, rel. price impulse, stat. price range) are aligned together and we have an extremely high confidence rate, it must then co-exist with my proven secret strategy before a trade be detected… as a result, we get a guaranteed Highly-Accurate ’80-100%’ Signal.
Day traders don't have the same education or training as the pros. More importantly, they don't have access to the same information. How many day traders have Bloomberg terminals? Don't even know what that is, then you should definitely not be day trading.
Yes, there are some huge profits to be made, but do you really think you are the only person who figured out that this one stock is going to rise or fall? You do realize that investment banks have rooms full of Ivy League educated people analyzing this stuff, right?
What Ryan said.
To trade and make money, as either a day OR swing trader, takes work.
research, diligence, attention to detail.
and forget about trying to hit home runs with everyposition
too many pepole do day trading like it's a lottery; no thought invested at all. big mistake.
If making money was so easy, why are there so many poor people?
It is pure speculation
I realize research shows a passive investor will get a higher return on average than an active one will, but it seems to me like everything else in finance. Higher risk=higher reward. Yes, you can lose a lot of money, but you can also make a lot. So what I am asking is what is your educated opinion on day trading? There are very successful day traders, some of which I know, so it can't be all that uncommon to make a higher return than a passive investor?
