interesting article about a daytrading employee

[anethum]

This is an interesting article about a young guy who is employed as a daytrader in a daytrading factory in Florida:

Meet Dylan, the daytrader - The Washington Post

 

[sengsational]

How many Dylans are there out there that didn't get in the paper because they lost money and got real jobs?

 

[growing_older]

He's been doing it since August 2010 and despite the occasional disastrous trade that nearly wipes him out, he's profitable. Although the last three years have not been too huge of a challenge to find successful equity strategies, he's sure his risk taking ways make him a great trader.

 

[Texas Proud]

From the article.... to me the telling info...


Brad Barber, a financial economist at the University of California at Davis, obtained 15 years of trading records from the stock exchange in Taiwan, where day trading is quite prevalent. What he found was that, in any year, 80 percent of day traders lose money — and that only 1 percent followed a strategy that could reliably turn a profit over the long haul.

 

[anethum]

The most surprising part to me is that this sort of relatively small-scale daytrading sweatshop even exists.

 

[heeyy_joe]

Keeps 'em out of the casino.

 

[cantlogin]

Keeps 'em out of the casino.

BULLSEYE!

 

[photoguy]

He's been doing it since August 2010 and despite the occasional disastrous trade that nearly wipes him out, he's profitable.

Didn't read the article yet but this statement suggests that the variance on returns is so large that his results aren't statistically different from zero.

 

[growing_older]

The return data in the article is only a few anecdotes. But being a self proclaimed expert trader based on less than 3 years experience during a bull market is a IMHO a fairly weak claim. There are many similar anecdotes about traders who were "successful" for a time, until whatever they were doing didn't work like they expected.

 

[haha]

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

 

[dessert]

I spent 34 years w**king at Megacorp. One of my friends day-traded his way into a 2MM 401K. He quit at that point because he was too young to retire.
To make a long story short, I continued working and Megacorp actually hired him back 12 years later. I was talking to him right before I retired and he said that he came back for the medical coverage and to get a pension.
I suspect he also came back because he lost his 2MM continuing to day trade. I also saw him several times using VIP parking at the Casino where my DW and I would go to dine in the Buffet. He is still working today. I wonder if he is day trading anymore?

 

[ls99]

Hmmm, market is up. Shuld start getting many daytrader stories.