
Almost 80% of Private Day Traders Lose Money - elmar
http://www.curiousgnu.com/day-trading
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dexwiz
Three trades in 12 months means you probably have a lot of people who, put a
few dollars in, played around, lost money, and soon quit. I would be
interested to see how the graph changes as the minimum number of trades rise.

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totalcrepe
People who initially win in gambling will kick around money for longer than
those who lose on their first play.. So excluding immediate dropouts can make
a gamble look like an investment.

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vgeek
Survivorship Bias?

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totalcrepe
I think survivorship bias indicates a segment that survives at a higher rate
due to an actual trait and then its trait is presumed to have been a norm at
the start. Survivorship Bias would imply there is an actual factor beyond
gambling and we are just too optimistic about its frequency.

More simply, once you exclude people who only bet once you are excluding a
disproportionate number of negative bets simply because betting a second time
is based on the first outcome. If you want to do exclusions you have to
exclude the outcome of the 1st n bets even from players who keep playing.

But then you get something that is also misleading as players can get more and
more conservative on the way out the door. I.e. taking guaranteed pennies in
splits and buyouts as they realize their big payouts from roller-coasters were
not as certain as they thought. There should be a strategy that does similar
to the return from a safe investment, so that also isn't interesting.

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eggy
So 1 out of 5 break even or make money?

Not as bad as I thought.

I think it can be an interesting hobby, if you only trade with 'losable'
income. Gambling is always in favor of the house, and aside from Poker and
Blackjack, there is no skill involved in general.

At least if you are into day trading, you are most likely engaged in the world
news, information technology and math. You could do worse.

