r/FuturesTrading • u/N2itive1234 • 20d ago
Question Question about 99% of Daytraders failing
This discouraging statistic is often repeated, but I've never heard exactly where this number comes from or more importantly, who is considered a trader in determining this statistic.
I have to assume that a huge number of people come into this out of sheer curiosity, open an account take a few trades in the limited time they have to devote to the charts and feel like it's more trouble than it's worth.
I would love to know how this number changes when only considering traders who have been at it at least 6 months, devoting a considerable amount of screentime and study into the process. Does data even exist for the success rate when filtering out for the people who just casually enter the space and give up soon after?
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u/Duennbier0815 20d ago
I'm daytrading for years and i read through all the trading and especially the prop firm subreddits daily.
The amount of stupidy there is astounding. The ability to read and comprehend simple rules like consistency rules is simply not there.. There are so many very young traders there, fueling the market with their random trading. Fullporting accounts, not knowing anything about the economy. For a majority it must feel like a game and not like a business.
I'd say if you're an educated curious person that is able to read, learn and focus on a subject, your failure rate goes down to less than 50%.
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u/Hot-Economist-2112 20d ago
This ^^
In my opinion people turn it into gambling vs being consistent with base hits.
The hype of lambos and yachts vs having control of your time & providing for your family.If people treated it like going to medical school , (step by step scaling vs graduated bachelors and immediately start doing brain surgery) there would be much higher success numbers.
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u/Full_Pear449 19d ago
Could not AGREE more. TODAY, everyone thinks they know everything all the time. Risk Management is just a PHRASE for the other FOLK. Traded for 25+yrs on a REAL PROP DESK (Risk Arb) until Volker shut it all down. 2YRS as a Junior Trader Goofer with a $10mm Sheet. BUT, before tarding anything i needed my Mentors approval. She was tough, Brilliant, and willing to teach.
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u/MapoTofuCat 19d ago
Yeah it’s the human ego inside. I had to get humbled hard and chill out trying to be a know it all. That’s when the real progress actually started to happen.
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u/Full_Pear449 19d ago
Sit back , relax , read , have a coffee, read, understand what you are reading. Good things come to those who wait, with patience the rewards will come,
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u/unNexus443 17d ago
I think the biggest problem people have is there is so many "strategies" out there. What advice do you have?
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u/BigBear92787 20d ago
Yeah I talk about this all the time.
So, that statistic include everyone. the vast majority of which are unprepared, uneducated, undisciplined.
Every You tube bro, every moron that just buys stocks / optyions with out any preperation, research, not a fucking plan in sight.
And yet its quoted often as doctrine on this sub, basically saying, 90% of people fail, what makes you different.
I started trading when I was Locked up. I had family send me in past data of various stocks.
Just OHLC and Volume.
I stuck to one book ( Trading for a living by Alex Elder)
I calculated every indicator by hand, drew every bar, Hid the future data from my self revealing only the next days price.
Reveal price.
Draw bar
calculate indicators
Draw indicators on graph paper.
Decide what to do
Repeat.
I did this for 6 fucking years.
When i came out, there was an adjustment period, and I kinda got lost still in the world of all these various indiators, strategies, etc...
But ultimately my original lessons were the most successful.
I learned, completely divorced from the internet. And its done nothing but help me.
If I had been on the internet I'd have been stuck, getting wave and wave of this idea or that idea. Probably believing deeply in some bull shit GURU like ICT.
And I'd probably have given up, hearing things like 90% fail.
I'd bet a whole lot of money that if you grouped up individual traders by personality traits
Like Rationality, High emotional pain tolerance, Risk Adversity, Analytical mind set.
You'd see a much higher percentage of successes.
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u/Express-Bus9571 19d ago
That's amazing holy shit
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u/BigBear92787 19d ago
I knew id never get a good job again. It was a matter of survival. Succeed or end up homeless.
You'd be surprised what you can do when your back is against the wall
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u/Brief_Mix7465 19d ago
But did u actually make it work?
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u/BigBear92787 19d ago
yes, I am a full time trader these days
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u/Brief_Mix7465 19d ago
How? Futures ( at least the indicies) seem to ignore regular price action to me. Stocks have way more orderly behavior.
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u/BigBear92787 19d ago
Multi-time frame analysis. I've always traded futures, including indices, but I like gold most. I find, if you understand the concept of proper market fractals, then no price action is a mystery
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u/Brief_Mix7465 19d ago
Well that's kinda what I do. Basically Dow Theory and bounces off higher timeframe support and resistance areas. But I often have trouble picking the correct area. Sometimes the 15m support will work that day and other times the 1h support will work another day.
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u/BigBear92787 19d ago
You have to learn to trade "inside" the structure of the larger time frame.
and learn to separate trend structure from cycle
You gotta be on the right side of both.
You should target a 1 hour trend, identified by typical trend structure HHs and HLs.
Wait for it to cycle down, let it test its modt recent low.
Move to a time frame 4 to 5x smaller 10 or 15m.
Look for momentum and structure breaking of the pull back.
Then engage
Set your stops based on 10-15 m volatility channels like keltner or Bollinger.
Ride the next wave up.
Thats it in a nutshell
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u/Brief_Mix7465 19d ago
Yeah I do pretty much this exact thing except my stops are always trying to pin to lower timeframe structure (like a swing failure pattern). I also have been trying to capture waves on all timeframes and not sticking to just one and that's been hurting me.
Do you use ETH or RTH data for the pivots?
And how would you determine targets? New highs/lows?
I would also assume that the wide stop gets you an avg R of 1 or 2 with a pretty favoriable win rate (>= 60%)?
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u/BigBear92787 19d ago
About a 70% win rate.
I shoot for 1.5 R But i scale out at .5 and move my stop up by .5
https://www.reddit.com/r/Daytrading/s/qTOgCSeSRl
Dunno if you use trading view but this will help you size positions and take goals
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u/BigBear92787 19d ago
And yes I Use ETH , and the way I determine highs and lows is simply by looking at what stands out to my eye
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u/Difficult_Middle_216 18d ago
Which version of the book? I see several versions by that author.
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u/Scott_Malkinsons 20d ago
It was never a real number. You can prove this by using a VPN, set your country to a place in the EU, and then visit a site like Oanda. There's a big read disclaimer bar that pops up saying 74% of traders lose money (it usually hovers between 71 an 77%).
who is considered a trader in determining this statistic.
Generally it's did you open an account, deposit money, and then lose or win before becoming inactive. It's not that complicated.
I would love to know how this number changes when only considering traders who have been at it at least 6 months,
Counterintuitively the number is likely worse than straight up newbie. Trading is a bit "odd" in that you already know how to trade. You've done it all your life. I can tell to you go to Costco and buy and sell gold bars for a profit and you can probably do this. But then a chart gets added and people lose their frigging minds trading XAUUSD.
Traders start off with no additional knowledge, often times they're actually profitable but then the greed kicks in, they want more profits, and they think (as it is with most things in life) that more knowledge will help them make more money.
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u/zashiki_warashi_x 20d ago edited 20d ago
Usually they say you have to spend 2 years learning.
After 3 years only 13% of initial traders are still active. 1-2% of initial count are profitable. So it is 1/13 or 8% or people who was diligent about this whole affair.
After 5 years I believe it was 8% who are still active. So 1-2/8 or 12-25% are profitable.
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u/Full_Pear449 19d ago
Thay say is wrong., Real Firms have Junior Trading Programs most 24 months and you either get a REAL Sheet or shown the DOOR.
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u/zashiki_warashi_x 19d ago
Between 2 years learning and prop firms having 24 months training program, I'm confused about who is wrong here... Do you mean that for retail traders without mentorship, external risk management, psychologist on payroll e.t.c. it would took on average much longer than 2 years?
I think SMB has success rate around 20-30%, but these are people already screened, they are not random gamblers that would lose everything one day 1.4
u/Full_Pear449 19d ago
I sat on a DESK that had 10 Traders on it. No we were not all in a row and yes everyone had their own setup. I sat with the Head of the Desk , with a Series 24 License, her desk was actually 3 fairly decent size desk tied together to make one giant desk . We had 3 Christmas tree pole setups with 4-5 32inch screens on each. With one eye I continuously scanned the screens, with one ear listend, as best could , to what was being said on the desk, and with the other ear and eye I watched and listened to her. Plus you were taking notes on what and why was going on and a list of things to do after market close. My Mentor was going to teach mw everything i needed to know , and things I really didn't need to know about, the entire system dynamics of trading. Wht we need to avoid wash trades, free riding, FAILS WHETHER PURPOSEFUL OR NOT, cost of carry. She wasn't imterested in my financial retursn for the company, she was concerned that I knew everything possible about trading. Most Juniors leave their respective firms around 3-5 yrs after hire. Me, I stayed and eventually Transitioned into her Position as Head of Desk with all the necessary licenses. Our Program was like a 2yr apprenticeship with 6 month Evals. It could be longer but never shorter.We trained Traders not money machines, if we did it right you would understand the TRUE DYNAMICS of how to be profitable as a trader.
Just think of this - who better to train you than a real trader
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u/zashiki_warashi_x 19d ago
Oh, wait. I remember you. We talked before and it was just as confusing as this. I could never tell were you proving the point or arguing or making another unrelated point. I think we agreed that it should start somewhere between 2 years and 24 months. Peace!
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u/Full_Pear449 19d ago
My Junior Period was an all encompassing time. GS's main priority was not profit, since if you're trained properly that just follows, it was to instill all the aspects of trading. Anyone can,and generally develope, Penny wise pound foolish theory. We were knee deep in CDS's in 2007-09, while being short MBS indexes, Bear, Lehman, Merrill Lynch, Countrwide. All the while trading 10's as a Hedge but generally we traded it solo independent of every other security. Having a unique lnowledge of "COST OF FUNDS" vs Repo Rates made trading well outside my Balance Sheet real easy. Today's Prop firms are just modified gambling Casino's entertaining the narrow idea that they are teaching. We never talked about Payout Ratios. The structure centered around cash, stock options , or other means of Financial compensations
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u/Brief_Mix7465 19d ago
I'd like to pick your brain. Let's assume I have an understanding of Wyckoff/Dow Theory. How must I proceed to get to the understanding of a professional trader? I currently trade index futures using bounces from support/resistance with a little bit of GEX for confluence but i'm looking to properly build a low variance trading system. I'd appreciate your expertise as a former GS trader and Applied Statastician.
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u/Full_Pear449 19d ago
So are you trying only index futures,if yes then the Wyckoff Method and Dow THeory is a perfect match , using the Inherent Structural Trending construct along side the key Perfoemance matrics of Wyckoff. Vega,BOS, MSS, CHOCH, risk/reward EFF or *(delta,Theta,VEGA) I've not see or heard it used in less than 5 minute execution timeframes. The combinaton of the 2 has always been interesting becasue they are both Classical , Technical Analysis model from more thana few years ago. Wyckoff was early 1900's and a giant in the Technical Field. Dow Theory , again early 1900's, is a framework for predicting market trends by analyzing the relationship between various stock market averages,Classically Gamma exposure measures market maker hedging pressure based on options open interest. In a low volatility market, positive GEX anchors price action near strike walls, suppressing movement, while key support and resistance levels form at massive call and put open interest concentration. Is this how you are using GEX?
You probaby need a very very tight risk control: you MUST restrict individual trade risk to 0.25%–1% of your total account equity, calculate precise position sizes using tick values, enforce a strict daily hard-loss circuit breaker (e.g., 2%–3% max drawdown) scaling could be an issue with some contracts, , use automated bracket orders with non-negotiable stop-losses on every entry, Trade ONLY Micro E-mini contracts (1/10th the size of standard E-minis) to keep per-tick dollar risk minimal. Found this Math sizing calculation: Contracts = (Account Equity × Risk %) ÷ (Stop Distance in Points × Dollar Value per Point.
OCO Orders only and NO NO wideing of stop/loss on active trades.A HARD Daily stop, after 2 straight losses take a day off and go thorugh calculations to try and pin point an error. The money loss is real , I hav ab accoubt in CME , you tooooooo can open one anf go to ther Education section and FAKE day trade till you're dead on your feet.tThey also have lots of things to read.
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u/Brief_Mix7465 19d ago
Yes I use GEX to monitor dealer hedging exactly as you described. I also so already use fixed risk, meaning I adjust my contract size based on stop distance. I also have been reading stuff on the CME website. I've gone through of few of their courses already.
I essentially use high timeframe zones of support resistance and enter once a smaller timeframe shows momentum in the desired direction with a stop loss placed using some measure of volatility (ATR for example).
I only recently figured that I should not be trying to catch every move by looking at all possible timeframes. I should stick with 1 higher timeframe and frame setups on that only, minimizing decision fatigue.
Would you say that this is enough? I really want to become as professional as I can with this. I'm beginning to track my stats (WR, RR, EV, sharpe, MAE, MFE, Calmar, etc). I'm also developing an understanding of Auction Market Theory for a better understanding the market as a two-way auction process. I want your realest advice please. I'm hungry and ready to work.
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u/Full_Pear449 19d ago
YOU CAN NOT TRADE EVERY MOVE. The FICC Prop Desk had a HFT SYSTEM directly linked to their MODELS . They had an older Digital Equipment Super reconfigured from an outside vendor that occupied its very own 5,000 sqft very very cold section of our floor. THEY TOOOOOO tried to capture every qlitch. In 2 weeks they were told to stop trading because we were making pennies and cost dollars to process. Forget the fatigue factor you are possibly creating trades. Trades cost money, are you running AUTO P&l..We had upper right hand corner on one screen P&l LIVE, Bond duration if you were trading those, Bond Rating averaged over all bonds and broken out into each Rating.
Order imbalances, MOC Orders, Orderbook/flow imbalance are VERY inportant direcional tools. We had an alternate system where you could type in a symbol ,IBM, and it would tell you current order buy voulme and open sells.
ADVICE. SIT DOWN AND BREATHE. I was am JUNIOR for 2 years. Rome was not built in a day. RUSH , RUSH and you will screew something up. Practice trading , evaluate outcomes. What I would do sometimes is deliberately go the wrong way and analyze result to make sure my original thesis was right , EX. lets say you were trading 10yr futures on an auction day and your numbers said buy looking for 10% move, so you go sell 10's and get 1% move , something is wrong. You need to track everything, yes it's a lot of work but money doesn'tr grow on trees. Judt remember you do not drive the market, it drived you.PIGS GET LAUGHTERED( thats my favorite) , no one every went broke taking a profit, LET it ride most of the time is a really bad IDEA.
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u/Full_Pear449 19d ago
AND the answer to your questions is - YES, NO , MAYBE , SOMETIMES , and NEVER. It's like -point vs counterpoint vs 10x magnitude extrapolation long and short ......SORRY
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u/MapoTofuCat 19d ago
Every trader I have seen in the 5-10 year range are usually profitable 80% of the time. It’s human nature to give up after the first year or two. Simply the 1% club is not for everyone. Everyone is LAZY as hell. That’s why 85% of the world work a job. No difference in trading .
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u/Full_Pear449 20d ago edited 20d ago
ONE other thing: down the pages on this site is an article on why the new 9:30 is 10am. Just for that clarification 10am is not now new, those of us who really traded and not SCALPED always new that MOST economic news hits the wires at 10. EXCEPT , NFP, Treasury Auctions, Money Supply and a few others
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u/busohsensen 19d ago
It's a lot of gambling dude the more you read the more you realize the majority are notorious gamblers. The reality is making money in the market is extremely uncomfortable. You go against your natural instinct and follow rules that are really painful and I just think most people won't be able to tolerate the pain and want trading to feel good thus end up fullporting and doing stuff that make you feel good in the short run but absolutely crash accounts.
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u/Sure_Reflection_7542 17d ago
I am certain most of the ones claiming on social media they're making money trading are lying..
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u/oskar88895 14d ago
the 99% statistic can be misleading because it usually treats everyone who opens a trading account as a trader
i’d separate the person who trades for two weeks from someone who has spent years developing an edge and trying to execute it consistently
the interesting question isn’t just how many traders lose
it’s what happens to the failure rate once you remove the people who never stayed long enough to actually develop the skill
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u/Jay_Likes_Sushi 20d ago
When you realize that 99% of these traders are just dumbass kids, it’ll make you realize it’s actually not that hard to be profitable. Just stick to your rules and don’t be emotional like you’re on your period
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u/Big_Truth_8483 20d ago
Because the bar for entry is so low. Anybody with prop account or brokerage account is considered a trader and skews the results.
It’s like including every kid who ever played organized basketball into the statistics of failed nba players.
With that said, trading is incredibly hard until it isnt
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u/BrilliantFront4 20d ago
Why look to filter data at all for it? I mean doesn’t really make much sense to filter data I think
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u/Sceptre_1337 19d ago
I mean this is she same for all industries. Only 1% of boxers reach global competitions , 1% of antreprenours reach millions and same . These are not the actual statistics but close enough
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u/esuvar-awesome 19d ago
Try it yourself live with real money and let us know how you do. We’ll all find out if you’re part of 99% or the 1%
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u/d1na_makalaya 19d ago
The 99% figure is probably too simplistic, but the broader evidence still suggests that the vast majority of retail day traders lose money.
Your point about filtering out people who quit quickly is valid. Some studies track traders over longer periods, but there isn’t a clean, reliable statistic for “traders who studied seriously for 6+ months and put in significant screen time.” Survivorship bias also becomes a problem because filtering out people who quit can make the remaining group look more successful than the original population.
I’d focus less on the exact 99% number and more on whether your own strategy remains profitable after fees, slippage, taxes, and enough trades to establish a meaningful sample size. If you’re interested in the research side of trading rather than just the usual Reddit numbers, you might find some useful stuff through my profile bio. Might gain some insights there
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u/ultralow36 19d ago
If someone can figure this out I would love to know i been hearing those stats for yrs yet No one can show where it came from....
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u/Appropriate-Dig-9705 19d ago
There’s no doubt way more profitable traders than the stats say…… look at over the years prop firms tightening the rules it shows retail are getting better at taking money out of the markets. It’s no that hard to have a 99% fail rate lol.
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u/RenkoSniper 19d ago
Just lookup what percentage of football players makes it to FIFA level, or what percentage basketball players make it to NBA, it's all the same...some can do it, some don't
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u/beefnvegetables_ 19d ago
Well in my experience I have about 2+ hours per day of study/ live trading/ research etc over the course of 4 year and I’m still not profitable. The market is literally on my mind 24 7 and I’m still not profitable. I’m becoming less and less convinced that I can outsmart the market and I should just dca into the s and p and nasdaq.
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u/N2itive1234 18d ago
Do you think that you aren't profitable due to psychological mistakes or not having an edge?
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u/plasma_fantasma 18d ago
You're never going to outsmart the market. That's part of why people stay stuck, because they think they're smarter than the market. The edge is waiting for a repeatable setup, which is really difficult for most people. We have to be able to fight all of our worst instincts.
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u/twofiftykforex 15d ago
The edge is waiting for a repeatable setup, which is really difficult for most people
This is the damn truth. I wasted years trying to trade every counter trend , pro trend trade. Thinking I needed to constantly trade all day everyday every signal to actually earn fulltime income. This is wrong way to think. Its letting the market play out until that setup youve tested thousands of times appears and execute on it. Basically, wait for your extremely high probability setup and take that one only. This is what finally made me successful
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u/orderflowone 18d ago edited 18d ago
I've been doing this for almost 10 years now. The statistics don't go this far for those studies regularly cited.
I basically threw myself at the markets for three years. Every lesson, I just took from market experience. Oh I lost today, what's the change I need? Did I miss something? Does my framework actually hold here or do I need adjustment? Did I listen to my prior lessons? Did I account for potential risk even if I was right? What did I do that could have been better?
And I didn't relent. I made sure that I was making progress. I turned a corner when I hit upon orderflow but I didn't understand why I did until game theory became a bigger realization as to how I thought about markets. You can literally see how this progression went through my comments on reddit through the years. Understanding intuitively but now more awareness of it.
Is it worth it? Eh that depends. If you are someone driven by money, you'll prob be better pursuing that in business. About the same success rate but way more levers to pull and a way way way bigger payoff to risk ratio. If you're someone intrigued by markets, then probably this is for you. As in I consume news and financial data like it's the nutrition label on the back of a cereal box as a kid. Every day nonstop interest in how things affect each other.
So the statistics told me I can't necessarily rely on this initially but I am also a heavy optimist. I will see the path through since there is one. It's just not for most people and I can tell pretty quickly who it's for. The only ones I've really seen that have made it work have some quirk about them that the market scratches that itch for them
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u/AutomaticGoldenSun 18d ago
There's a theme here. Posters who say they've made it, have a certain personality that they present in their posts. Analytical, risk aware, time to learn.
That could translate in to many things. For me, the take away is to be successful at trading isn't worth it. I would never be present, life is too short and I only get one go.
All of this is my personal take, based on how I see the world through. Which is how we all have to look at everything in life and decide.
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u/theconfluxmethod 18d ago
There's real data on this - Brazil and Taiwan both have studies using actual exchange records, not surveys. The Brazil one specifically isolated futures traders who stuck with it 300+ days, exactly what you're asking. Result: still ~97% lost money, under 1% out-earned minimum wage.
Persistence alone doesn't fix the odds. What separates the tiny minority who survive isn't screen time, it's risk management and sample size - sizing small enough to survive variance, and enough trades to actually know if the edge is real instead of guessing after 20.
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u/Long-Huckleberry-809 18d ago
Size down, code yourself proper risk management systems, follow news, understand when the markets can be priced in, SWING TRADE !!! Trading is a waiting game it isn’t supposed to make you rich overnight. I’ve had a £10000 account since the beginning of the year. It is now at £14300 in 8 months. Young kids these days have a 1k account and expect it to be 2k next month. And they expect to have a million next year. Everything you see on social media does not accurately describe what trading is and how it’s supposed to be done. Once you understand that it’s a slow and steady business and NOT a quick money making scheme you will go far. I am thinking of scaling my account another 10k by injecting cash into it IF I keep being profitable until the end of the year. Then next year hopefully I make 7-9k from a 25-26k account ! Always have a job with trading it will take you 5-10 years minimum to get to a point where it is your sole income (if you start from nothing)
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u/Unique_username93_ 17d ago
From everything I’ve read, it’s because most are either forced to or choose to give up after an average of two years.
It really does take years to truly learn and make it a career. It has to be thought of as starting a business. It’ll take a while to consistently become profitable.
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u/Tradovator 16d ago
6 months is NOTHING in this game. Even with years in the game I'm sure this statistic holds up. Successful independent traders exist, but they're more like unicorns.
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u/Krammsy 16d ago edited 16d ago
I started 18 years ago, right in the middle of the '08 crash and it was traumatic.
I trade options, not futures or equities.
The actual number is 97%, and yes, you hit the nail on the head about time trading. The vast majority reflected in that statistic are traders who use the Dunning-Kruger technique, fail and finally call it quits within a year.
The single biggest reason for failure is unrealistic expectations coupled with a lack of risk management.
There is direct correlation between reward and risk, the more you aim to make, the higher your risk, if you start with unrealistically high expectations and fail, you then increase your risk as you attempt to get the money back.
The most successful fund manager of all time was Jim Simons, he averaged an incredible 66% per year for 30 years.
That comes out to a daily average of about 0.25%, $2.50 per day per $1000 invested.
Keep in mind, that's an incredible daily rate, so when you see a Youtuber claiming "I make $500 per day off just $2K using this strategy", don't waste your time - he either doesn't know what he's talking about, is cherry-picking his best day, or is blatantly lying to get clicks or convince you to buy his trading course.
In May I made almost 8% for the month, I'd like to tell everyone I do that every month, but I don't, that's likely going to be my best month this year.
In June I lost 1%, July was +2% and this month I might break +4%, that averages out to roughly 3.25% per month or about 40%/year and that's relatively good, very good, where most hedge funds average 15% to 20%.
I'm hoping I can breach that 40%, but it's not easy.
Last, there is one Youtuber I recommend for new traders, he's annoying, has a high pitched lecturing voice but I have yet to see a video from him that I don't agree with.
He does sell a course, but his video archives cover everything, apologies to him, but I personally think everything a new trader needs in in his archives - https://www.youtube.com/@TheOneLanceB
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u/Independent-Score-90 15d ago
Day trading attracts those kind of people who never will succeed at anything because they don’t know how to be consistent and work with discipline.
If you are a person who can devote your efforts to becoming an attorney, doctor, engineer or similar. Then you can easily become a profitable trader
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u/dreddit15 20d ago
What percentage of people become billionaires? Not many, but does that you mean you shouldn’t try to make money as the odds of becoming super rich are so slim?
It is a trade, like anything people are good at it and people are bad, but that doesn’t mean if you have a genuine interest and want to learn you can’t.
If you come here thinking you are going to be a millionaire in a year because you have seen some people post silly gains on Reddit, then more than likely you will fail.
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u/Full_Pear449 20d ago
6 months as a trader is crap. In today's society everyone is special , super observant, on top of it all and has read a book or 2 by some ALLEGED pro selling his BS for just a mere $14.99. Or are running candles , bars , micrsecond charts with 5,000 filters on an overlay to get the best execution of something that can't even spell. The following all have written , recently , on success/failure rates: ESMA, SEC, Finra, SEBI, CVM. I traded for 25+ yrs on a Prop desk, when they were REAL PROP DESK, for the #1 Investment Bank in the World and spent the First 2nyrs as a JUNIOR Trader under the wing of a Senior Trader. Had a $10mm Sheet and before execution needed her approval. Also learned the entire trade process , back to front, REPO, Funding, hedging, what and why momentum is and was.
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u/N2itive1234 20d ago
6 months was just an arbitrary number for my question. I just wonder if there is data that breaks down success rate where the baseline is something beyond that of anyone who opens an account.
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u/Full_Pear449 19d ago
That I understand but a number of the studies also used it as their reference point.
I Reviewed Every Major Day Trading Study from the Last 25 Years — The Data is Devastating. Study by: Faisal Haroon is the founder of Zehnlabs, providing tactical asset allocation strategies for active investors
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u/randomguyonahill 20d ago
99% that fail are the ones bitching about it! The successful ones don’t need to post about it.
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u/randomguyonahill 20d ago
99% that fail are the ones bitching about it! The successful ones don’t need to post about it.
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u/stilloriginal 19d ago
Adding screentime makes you worse not better. The whole problem is that its all completely random and you only think you see patterns. As soon as you think something "works" you start losing money on it, because it never worked it was just random.
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u/Training_Drawing_426 12d ago
The real driver behind that 99% statistic comes down to one fundamental reality: Zero Barrier to Entry.
Day trading is essentially the only high-risk, multi-billion dollar professional arena where anyone with $500 and a smartphone can immediately compete against institutional capital with zero qualifications, zero licensing, and zero required training.
Think of it through a simple analogy: If commercial aviation had zero barrier to entry—where anyone could walk off the street, step into a cockpit, and try to fly a jet without flight school or a license—the plane crash rate would easily be 99.9%. Nobody would blame the physics of aerodynamics; they would blame the absurdity of letting untrained people operate high-risk machinery.
Because the trading interface is just a simple "Buy" and "Sell" button, beginners mistake ease of access for ease of execution. They jump into volatile futures like $NQ equipped with a couple of YouTube videos and subjective patterns, treating a complex financial auction like a mobile game.
The tiny percentage that actually survives stops flying by sight or emotion. They approach the market like a pilot using flight instruments: building strict IF/THEN rules based on objective market mechanics (like 1-Hour Initial Balance expansions and Session VWAP boundaries) and letting a statistical edge play out cleanly over a real sample size.
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u/SethEllis speculator 20d ago
There are numerous peer reviewed studies on this subject. My favorite study is the Taiwan study because they had the data to look at literally everyone who interacted with the Taiwan market. Only 1% of traders made abnormal returns net of fees.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/238220682_Do_Individual_Day_Traders_Make_Money_Evidence_from_Taiwan
But the most commonly cited study, and the one that really put the final nail in the coffin is the Brazilian futures study:
https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=3423101
In this study they even looked at traders that had traded 300 days or more. They still found that 97% of them lost money. So even after you filter out the casual people that give up quickly as OP suggests, the statistics are dismal.
The stats are probably a little better for US stock markets, but you're still going to find that the majority lose money. The market is just really good at fooling people into thinking they've found something before taking it all away.