The only day traders that really make money over the long run are not public about it (those who can't do often teach) or they are running the High Frequency Trading shops that co-locate their servers near the exchanges to rapidly trade pennies of pennies at a time taking tiny little profits millions of times a day. A helpful article on the subject in Bloomberg can be read here. Aside from that those who make money are swing and trend traders in my opinon. A lot of people get lucky and that is bound to happen with either an up market or enough people investing or trading somebody is going to win. It's an interesting parellel to sports betting where only a select few handicappers consistently make money just like a few traders consistently make money. This year the hottest capper has been Jon price of sit picks but who is to say that the same cappers and same traders that made money in 2014 will do so in 2015? That is always the test in my opinion. Year over year success in the marketplace.
I have been a day trader since 1988 on TradePlus. The problem is the fees. I have 3 trading accounts and 4 investment banks. You really need a lot of capital to make money and lower your risk to get in an out of the market quickly. I get 100 free trades a month which makes it much easier to sell off at the end of the day and start again the next , and buy back in the premarket if there is positive news and volume . And the T3 rule kills you, not being over to turn over your capital quickly. I tipically I buy 1000 shares and sell off once the stock moves between .5 and .25 cents. I buy stock between 30$ and 100$ . I like companies that are in industries that have high barriers to entery and a 2.5 dividend minamum. I have made enough money to retire in 2010 at age 40.
You will be hard pressed to find this. Any successful day trader and they are few and far between will not want to work with you because they can do it on their own and
they get at least 4 to 1 leverage on their money.
Learning to trade is like going to medical school or becomming a lawyer. You have to pay your tuition mate.
