I have no opinion about day trading, though I know that I could not do it successfully, not could I stand to sit all day and try.
I went to a meet-up for senior coffee drinkers last week. It was nice and I think I will return. But interestingly and on the topic of daytrading, one woman who looked to be around 65 told me that she and her husband had lived in Calabasas when he was early retired from some sort of aerospace job, and she was a homemaker. Anyway, he took up day trading, and got pretty enthusiastic about it. Without ever mentioning anything, he lost all their savings, including the 401k and some inheritance that she had received a few years earlier. At this point they were dead broke. He then died. She could not afford to keep the house, but luckily she has an unmarried daughter who invited her to come live with her up here. She has plenty room, and her daughter travels most of the week so she has a car and privacy too. But no one wants to depend on her children, and she had been a reasonably well off member of the suburban upper middle class.
I didn't question her about whether she got any money from the house, so I don't know. But the day trading certainly was a failure in this case.
I suppose he felt displaced from his social and occupational position, and likely they needed some cash too. So being a day trader sounded more manly than bagging groceries at the local lucky.
Ha