Futures DAYTRADING

[Libertarian666]

Sure, there are day traders who make money. There are lottery winners too. That doesn't mean that there is a winning system for playing the lottery.

[Kshartle]

Sure, there are day traders who make money. There are lottery winners too. That doesn't mean that there is a winning system for playing the lottery.

Tech,

If 5% or so of people who played the lottery were consistent winners, that is to say, they were profitable on a monthly basis, month in and month out for years, do you think that would just be luck?

Is it possible for some traders to be consistently profitable during a career and that being completely luck?

Most new businesses fail, like most lotto tickets. That doesn't imply that the ones that succeed do so based purely on luck and that there is no winning system for making a business work.


If it's all luck then how can some people be consistent losers and some consistent winners? The more trades that go on the more likely the law of averages would force nearly identical results on all participants, as it would with the lotto if you could play it billions of times per say.

The existance of consistant winners at day trading in fact proves there is a winning system or many different ones. It's called, do the opposite of what the losers (the majority) are doing. Look for where the consistent losers are selling and buy, look for where he's buying and sell to him. Cut your losses short when you're wrong, let your profits run when you're right.

[Libertarian666]

Sure, there are day traders who make money. There are lottery winners too. That doesn't mean that there is a winning system for playing the lottery.

Tech,

If 5% or so of people who played the lottery were consistent winners, that is to say, they were profitable on a monthly basis, month in and month out for years, do you think that would just be luck?

Yes.

Is it possible for some traders to be consistently profitable during a career and that being completely luck?

Yes.

Most new businesses fail, like most lotto tickets. That doesn't imply that the ones that succeed do so based purely on luck and that there is no winning system for making a business work.

True, but irrelevant.

If it's all luck then how can some people be consistent losers and some consistent winners? The more trades that go on the more likely the law of averages would force nearly identical results on all participants, as it would with the lotto if you could play it billions of times per say.

No one makes billions of trades a day.

The existance of consistant winners at day trading in fact proves there is a winning system or many different ones. It's called, do the opposite of what the losers (the majority) are doing. Look for where the consistent losers are selling and buy, look for where he's buying and sell to him. Cut your losses short when you're wrong, let your profits run when you're right.

If there are 10 million of people day trading, which I'd bet there are, and 1000 of them are "consistent" winners, all that proves is that one out of 10,000 people is lucky enough to be a winner.

[Kshartle]

Sure, there are day traders who make money. There are lottery winners too. That doesn't mean that there is a winning system for playing the lottery.

Tech,

If 5% or so of people who played the lottery were consistent winners, that is to say, they were profitable on a monthly basis, month in and month out for years, do you think that would just be luck?

Yes. (We must be talking about different subjects) A day trader in my opinion is someone who at least makes several trades per day maybe dozens or more. That means 15-200+ per week. No one who is consistently profitable in the long run doing this just is lucky or is on a lucky streak. Luck will run out and give way to reality if every trade is just chance. This isn't the same as a billionare investor like a Buffet who made their fortune off just a couple really good calls or some insider deals. That could entirely be luck. The successful day trader is not relying on luck one bit.

Is it possible for some traders to be consistently profitable during a career and that being completely luck?

Yes.

Most new businesses fail, like most lotto tickets. That doesn't imply that the ones that succeed do so based purely on luck and that there is no winning system for making a business work.

True, but irrelevant. It's as relavent as your statement about lotto winners vs. profitable traders. They aren't the same thing. A consistently profitable trader has an edge just like a successful business owner. The fact that only the minority of business owners, traders, and lotto players are successful is what is not relavent.

If it's all luck then how can some people be consistent losers and some consistent winners? The more trades that go on the more likely the law of averages would force nearly identical results on all participants, as it would with the lotto if you could play it billions of times per say.

No one makes billions of trades a day. No but they might make thousands per year and tens of thousands over a career. That's plenty to wipe out any possibility someone is just on a lucky streak  . The reason I said billions is because the lotto payoff is so big, if someone actually through a crazy stroke of luck hit it twice.....they might have to buy a billion tickets or more to eventually have the same success rate as everyone else. We'd all need billions of tickets to prove with evidence that an edge is impossible, becuase with numbers only in the hundreds of millions you will have some very lucky outliers.

No one can risk $1 or $2 on a trade and make 200 million so the numbers to determine what's luck vs. skill in trading drops to a fraction of the lotto.

The existance of consistant winners at day trading in fact proves there is a winning system or many different ones. It's called, do the opposite of what the losers (the majority) are doing. Look for where the consistent losers are selling and buy, look for where he's buying and sell to him. Cut your losses short when you're wrong, let your profits run when you're right.

If there are 10 million of people day trading, which I'd bet there are, and 1000 of them are "consistent" winners, all that proves is that one out of 10,000 people is lucky enough to be a winner. On that day. How about tomorrow and the next day, for months and years. If only 1/10k were lucky enough to be a winner on a given day, It's unlikely any of them would be winners on day 2.

If it's just a coin flip, the existance of consistant winners means you must believe someone can consistently flip heads more often over thousands of totally random flips. Maybe over a hundred, maybe several hunderd, but after several thousand everyone doing completely random flips will basically end up at 50-50.  50-50 in trading means you are loser, because you are paying commisions. Ergo, someone who is a consistently profitable trader over a career is not relying on luck, he has an edge over other traders.

[frugal]

To be successfull you must have a SYSTEM.
A prooved system.

[Thomas Hoog]

Day trading is like roulette.
You have a change of 48,5 % to win or lose. But one thing is sure: 3% of the profit is for the broker.