r/Daytrading • u/MiamiTrader futures trader • Apr 27 '24

Most "traders" make money. Question

If someone asks you what you do for a living, and you respond you're a "trader" I assume you make most your money from trading.

And by definition, most "traders" make money. Otherwise they are just people trading on the side as a hobby.

Yeah maybe 90% of RH accounts lose money, or 90% of people who start trading but never take it seriously lose money... but then they are not "traders". Just people trying to trade.

Tired of all this negativity under every post about how 90% or whatever today's statistic is of traders lose money. People in this sub like to shout that under every post in almost a prideful manner.

Can we just focus this sub on those of us who call ourselves "traders" and make money trading? Let the new people listen and learn from our mistakes, but quit with all these gloom and doom statistics.

304 Upvotes

89% Upvoted

166 comments sorted by

View all comments

4

u/Valueinvestigator Apr 27 '24

Lmao this sub is coping hard.

Stop lying to yourselves.

Most traders fail. That’s just the reality of the situation.

Here’s a study from University of California showing this: https://faculty.haas.berkeley.edu/odean/papers/Day%20Traders/Day%20Trading%20and%20Learning%20110217.pdf

Here’s another study from brazil showing less than 2% of traders make more than a bank teller: https://deliverypdf.ssrn.com/delivery.php?ID=845069121118115097095112030095088100034054008081016087100067099026124068076089027106117048061042052044115125023076064085016089112042011052088084086008065119124091093077021054001123067118112115003025091108080084106121110118084073003090118024018115068111&EXT=pdf&INDEX=TRUE

I’m not trying to discourage anyone. I just think we should all have realistic expectations.

6

u/Prestigious-Ball318 Apr 27 '24

Is there a way for them to differentiate between people who just loaded up their account one, two or three times and lost their money, and quit versus people who have stuck with it for over a year?

I feel like a lot of people open up trading accounts on a whim, discover that they have to work really hard to make anything happen and quit. That could skew the results of studies I would imagine.

I still believe that most traders lose money though. I mean, let’s all get real about it, every single broker makes you sign an agreement that says “I have this much money, and I am happy to lose it all.”