Do Most Day Traders Really Lose Money?

There are a bunch of oft-cited studies about this.

For example, a comprehensive study of day traders in Taiwan 🇹🇼 revealed that approximately 97% of participants lost money, with only 1% able to consistently achieve profits.

However, that study was published in 2004 and analyzed day traders from 1995 to 1999.

A more recent study, first published in 2019 and revised in 2020: Day Trading for a Living?

That one looked at people who started day trading in the Brazilian 🇧🇷 equity futures market between 2013 and 2015. 

It found that 97% of those who persisted for more than 300 days lost money, with only 1.1% earning more than the Brazilian minimum wage.

And the most recent data I could find…

In 2020, eToro reported that 80% of day traders on the platform lost money, with an average loss of 36.3% per year.

But browse YouTube and you’ll find no shortage of successful day traders sharing impressive income reports 🤑

For example…

• He Turned $600 into $16K in Only 20 Days

So it’s clearly possible to earn good money day trading.

But given all the data above, it seems to be a tough career path 😕