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This is one of those perpetual theory-vs-practice distinctions.
Suppose that a bad jobs-report comes out. What would the market do? Bad report means bad economy means bad stock market? So the market will fall? Maybe. But what if bad jobs report means a more dovish Fed? Then the market rises.
Or, suppose that we hear of a trade dispute. Does the market fall? When? If one takes action at time = t, anticipating a harrowing sell-off, but said sell-off doesn't happen for another day... then one is right in the general sense, but totally wrong in the specific timing. Worse yet, what if everyone else in the market is anticipating the same thing? Then, again one is right in theory, but wrong in practice, because the market will have already reacted to the news, pricing it in.
So... market-reaction may be opposite to what ostensibly makes sense. It might be delayed, resulting in one's actions being out-of-phase and therefore wrong. Or, the market may have already priced in the news. Finally, if the trends are obvious and substantial, everyone else will have noticed it too, thus obviating the trading-opportunity.
To be successful one has to not merely be right, but to have the instantaneous timing right, and to have an edge over one's competitors. Does one, in the sense of that oft-quoted Clint Eastwood crime-movie scene, feel lucky?
There are too many variables from trading bots, to human override to emotional billionaires trying to pump and dump.
Generally, day trading is a fool's errand, no better than taking your money to a casino. However, in the current political climate you might think about gaming the system.
Any time Trump threatens another tariff, the market takes a dump. When he doesn't follow through, the market bounces right back. His buddy, Carl Icahn, has made tens of millions of dollars that way. Of course, market manipulation is illegal, but Trump is the president and controls the SEC. He can do it without personal consequence.
Of course, it's better if we could have inside info that it was coming, but if you follow Trump's tweets, you have about a 72 hour window to short the market. Consider buying and selling puts.
The financial press has been discussing the manipulations, and most of the articles are in denial for one reason or another. In truth, there is no way to predict which way the market will swing, but watching the president's tweets might just give you a peek at the dealer's hole card.
That isn't intraday trading; it's news event speculation.
Don't a lot of people make a living day-trading?????
If we used just the posters on r/wallstreetbets it seems about one in a hundred is positive but those winners are often extreme winners. It's worth a visit just to have a peek at trader mentality. There have been some crazy public wipeouts into six figures in a few days. There was a post yesterday speculating on reasons BYND is going to $864.
There are indeed professional day-traders who make a living out of it over a significant period of time.
I liken them to would-be rock n' rollers or athletes: out of millions who try, only a fraction of one percent actually makes it, and, if they do, the average career is about three years, with accidents and injuries along the way, while a few elite make multi-millions.
I don't see anything wrong with a young person taking some $10,000 or so on margin and giving it a shot for a few weeks to see what happens.
There are also professional market-makers: participants who quote simultaneously both buy and sell prices for the same security. But in my experience, only large institutional traders can do that, though there might be smaller players who do it on one or just a few securities or specific contracts for relatively small amounts.
In any case, point is that there are many more market participants than just buy-and-hold long-term "investors", without whom such "investors" would have no market to hold their long-term assets in.
Life is a series of short runs, and there are many who run that race to make markets work for everybody who participates for whatever purpose.
That was very obvious to me. Its borders illegal. The Mueller report tells a very similar story, only using stolen property, documents, as the focus. Usually the dirty work for the markets is done by messenger. The media gets fed something juicy, nothing is validated and the panic happens well disguised.
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