The statistic that 90% of option traders lose money can be attributed to factors such as inadequate education, poor risk management, speculative behavior, overleveraging, lack of a trading plan, and susceptibility to emotional decision-making.
Traders fail due to being undercapitalized.
Sometimes the market is easier to trade and you make money right away. But usually, there is a learning curve which means losing some of your capital at the start. After that learning curve, you still need enough capital so that the risk on any single trade is small.
More than 95% of day traders lose money, rather than making it. So the average day trader is sitting at a loss.
In summary, if you want to make a living from day trading, your odds are probably around 4% with adequate capital and investing multiple hours every day honing your method over six months or more (once you have a method to even work on).
The 5-3-1 trading strategy designates you should focus on only five major currency pairs. The pairs you choose should focus on one or two major currencies you're most familiar with. For example, if you live in Australia, you may choose AUD/USD, AUD/NZD, EUR/AUD, GBP/AUD, and AUD/JPY.
The 70:20:10 rule helps safeguard SIPs by allocating 70% to low-risk, 20% to medium-risk, and 10% to high-risk investments, ensuring stability, balanced growth, and high returns while managing market fluctuations.
The fifty percent principle states that when a stock or other asset begins to fall after a period of rapid gains, it will lose at least 50% of its most recent gains before the price begins advancing again.
While it's possible to make a living as a day trader, it's incredibly challenging and risky, and many end up losing money. The success rate of day traders is low, with only around 10-20% achieving consistent profits.
Rakesh Radheyshyam Jhunjhunwala (5 July 1960 – 14 August 2022) was an Indian billionaire investor, stock trader, and Chartered Accountant. He began investing in 1985 with a capital of ₹5,000, with his first major profit in 1986.
If you're looking to get started, you could begin trading options with just a few hundred dollars. However, if you make a wrong bet, you could lose your whole investment in weeks or months. A safer strategy is to become a long-term, buy-and-hold investor and grow your wealth over time.
I work in a casino in Vegas and I can tell you that trading is NOT gambling! Gambling is essentially taking on risk while leaving things to chance. If you have an edge, then in the long run you are going to win, even though you might lose in the short term.
Studies show that the number one mistake that losing traders make is not getting the balance right between risk and reward.
Assuming they make ten trades per day and taking into account the success/failure ratio, this hypothetical day trader can anticipate earning approximately $525 and only risking a loss of about $300 each day. This results in a sizeable net gain of $225 per day.
According to FINRA rules, you're considered a pattern day trader if you execute four or more "day trades" within five business days—provided that the number of day trades represents more than 6 percent of your total trades in the margin account for that same five business day period.
Rule 1: Always Use a Trading Plan
A decent trading plan will assist you with avoiding making passionate decisions without giving it much thought. The advantages of a trading plan include Easier trading: all the planning has been done forthright, so you can trade according to your pre-set boundaries.
The Rule of 120 (previously known as the Rule of 100) says that subtracting your age from 120 will give you an idea of the weight percentage for equities in your portfolio. The remaining percentage should be in more conservative, fixed-income products like bonds.
If there is one thing industry professionals have learned in all their years in the financial markets, it is never add to a losing position. That means never “average down” a losing long position or “average up” a losing short position. This is even more important when using leverage.
The 3 5 7 rule is a risk management strategy in trading that emphasizes limiting risk on each individual trade to 3% of the trading capital, keeping overall exposure to 5% across all trades, and ensuring that winning trades yield at least 7% more profit than losing trades.
The "5 candle rule" is a trading strategy where traders wait for five consecutive candles to confirm a trend or pattern before making a trading decision.
A common approach for new day traders is to start with a goal of $200 per day and work up to $800-$1000 over time. Small winners are better than home runs because it forces you to stay on your plan and use discipline. Sure, you'll hit a big winner every now and then, but consistency is the real key to day trading.
Day traders use mainly middle time frames, the most optimal of which is 1 hour. Day traders take less risk than scalpers, and they never roll overnight.
As of Jan 7, 2025, the average annual pay for a Day Trader in the United States is $96,774 a year. Just in case you need a simple salary calculator, that works out to be approximately $46.53 an hour. This is the equivalent of $1,861/week or $8,064/month.