The question doesn’t define what type or style of trading.

DAY TRADING by Retail Day Traders has a very high percentage of traders who fail dismally and lose most if not all of their immediate capital base and owe margin fees to their brokers.

Professional independent traders have a very high success rate, and have a high income from trading stocks. These individuals have extensive knowledge, education, and experience trading stocks.

Retail swing traders or Retail Position Traders can have excellent success as well, IF they start by first learning with a credentialed professional educator. Often times retail traders will just think it is easy and a few videos and webinars will make them high level traders. So they waste on average 5 -10 years and on average from what I have been told over the past 27 years about $50,000. dollars on training with a non credentialed retail day trader or other so called “courses on trading”. Then they come to me for help and realize they wasted all that time and money.

Most of the stock trading education or webinars, videos etc are taught by failed retail day traders. So it is the failed traders teaching others how to fail at stock trading.

In my retirement I attempt to change that. Unfortunately the new trader has no idea that most of the training and videos and webinars are not taught by expert professionals but by someone who is teaching an outdated system that never worked and will never work.

Trading can be highly lucrative. It can be a career path to being your own boss or becoming a professional and working in the financial industry. Trading can be a part time job that earns extra income for a person who is still working at their job, retirees, stay at home parents, etc. I have taught all kinds of people with varied backgrounds.

Trading for income requires:

1. A commitment of time to learn, practice, and hone skills. Trading is NOT a mathematical equation but an understanding of human nature and the various market participant groups especially Dark Pools, HFTs, and professional independent traders and how and why and when they are in control of price.
2. Professional type Tools including a charting software program.
3. A capital base to trade AFTER extensive simulator practice. Trading is like learning to fly an airplane, a simulator is mandatory so you do not crash.
4. A dedicated educator who knows how to teach and also has a professional background on the inner workings of the stock market. It is not what you read in the news or hear on videos. The Market Structure is entirely different than you are told. That is what separates the professionals from the retail traders who lose money.
5. Accepting that learning to trade is NOT a get rich quick scheme. Becoming a successful trader takes skills, time, and a fascination and passion for trading. It requires a commitment from both student and teacher to raise your expectations to exceed your goals over and over, time and again. Wanting something doesn’t make it happen. Practice and guidance and mentoring make the difference.

To learn more, please visit my profile page and or consider joining one of my Quora spaces where I post new lessons regularly. Choose a Space that is appropriate for your experience, education and goals.

It is truly absurd. Payment for order flow stikes some as “Hey! They’re making money off of me and damned if I don’t find that reprehensible!” They’re being childish. They seem willing to accept “zero trade commissions” without being able, seemingly, to understand that no brokerage could possibly provide ‘free trading’ and remain in business.

Further absurdity lies in the fact that payment for order flow could easily be sidestepped by simply making their trades “limit trades” at a specific price they are willing to accept rather than ‘market price’ which “puts them at the mercy of payment for order flow.”

Whining about this is perhaps one of the dumbest arguments I’ve ever heard. You don’t like it? Pay commissions, place limit orders, or stop whining, perhaps, even, growing up in the process. Life is no fairy tale where you get a free pass every time.

This is a great question.

Fees and commissions were very small indeed compared to what is going on now with payment fees to OTC routing venues.

It is critically important to realize that there are 2 timeframes in the market.

1. The Retail Side which represents average investors and retail traders and tiny funds managers who have less than 3 billion in assets. (if that figure sounds huge, it is not it is a tiny fund)
2. The Professional Side or Institutional side.

Retail trades on the minute. By the SEC regulations all retail orders must fill within 1 minute of the transaction being accepted at the broker for that investor/trader.

Professionals Trade on the millisecond so they can be trading 60,000 times per minute.

Thus what happens is during the transaction from a retail investor typing in an order, which the broker CAN SEE BEFORE IT IS COMPLETED, the routing has already engaged. The routing can quickly pick up what the order bid or ask is and then the OTC can nick the trade ticking up or down so long as they stay in the National Best Bid offer Price and whether the order was an At Market or Simple Limit order. Both types of orders provide ample means if nicking profits that can be significant. Pennies add up.

There is also some ongoing investigations regarding whether the orders are filled within the NBBO or not or whether the Market Maker is buying the stock at a much lower price than they fill the retail order.

The retail brokers are paid handsomely for these retail orders and have reaped huge gains since the inception of this type of routing.

Fortunately, the SEC is on the side of the little guy, even though most investors do not believe me. The SEC is trying to protect the little investors. They are investigating this practice of brokers selling their orders to OTC routed Market Makers and are setting forth some changes.

The SEC works slowly so nothing happens overnight. The SEC prefers to thoroughly test and study the situation before making regulatory changes. It can and will penalize any broker or Market Maker that violates current rules and regulations. Right now the SEC has charged many different financial services companies with violations and has set monetary penalties.

You should visit the SEC website and check on your broker and whether or not that broker has penalties or charges of violating regulations. Also check your Asset Management company, or Financial Planner firm.

I have worked as a professional trader for about a decade and am fairly active, turning over hundreds of millions of dollars worth of stock per year. Let me share some of my experiences and try to place that in context relative to other types of traders.

Main Idea

Traders can be right or wrong in any given trade; they’re playing probabilities. So a good trader works in the balance between two errors. On the one hand, traders have to place enough trades that probability can run its course. On the other, traders need to concentrate their focus and capital on the best opportunities out there, based on the strength of each particular opportunity. My sense is that when you get to the appropriate conceptual level, each trader has 5–20 really good trades at any given time, even if we implement them in various ways.

Markets Move In Cycles

Everyone knows that some years the markets are fast and some years they are slow. As you might imagine, good traders are more active when a type of market comes around that provides lots of opportunities to implement their strategies. Good traders want to trade on the opportunity that is there, rather than forcing trades that aren’t particularly great. In fact, good traders tend to be many times more active when times are good, putting as many of their proverbial eggs in the best baskets they can.

What you may not know is that markets move in seasonal cycles throughout the year, as well. Holidays are one factor here: summers and Decembers are pretty slow, as people are on vacation. Lots of trading occurs on special days such as options expiration and the last day of the month. Announcements by central banks and the release of various other reports help drive trading. And there is so-called Earnings Season, which occurs once per quarter from about 15–45 days after the end of the quarter. Most types of traders trade far fewer shares when there’s little new information coming out.

What Happened Today

Today is August 11th, so slightly below average in terms of how active the market is, but representative enough. I placed nineteen trades today. The bottom half were basically non-trades, tiny trades in which I never built up significant positions. The top three or four accounted for 75–85% of my real activity today, which is pretty typical. The top two accounted for all of my profit, which is not uncommon. On a highly active day I may place in excess of 100 trades, but on a really slow day I may only do two. My algorithmic trading box will make another 1–4 trades on a typical day, but that could be zero or it could be 200 in extreme circumstances.

Some of my colleagues place fewer total trades but their activity is more evenly distributed. One guy nearby put on four trades, of nearly equal size. Another did twenty-five, again of fairly equal size. Another manages a portfolio of hundreds of small trades all the time, and he traded around in several dozen of them, entering a new position here or chipping off a bit there.

How To Define A Trade

High-Frequency Traders can execute hundreds of thousands of trades per day, as they are fighting over fractions of pennies on small numbers of shares. By contrast, big-time hedge fund managers may well have only five or ten trades on at a time and hold them for months or years, as they are riding huge moves on billions of dollars. So there’s a lot of variance in number of trades based on strategy.

But how to we decide what counts as a trade? When a hedge fund enters millions of shares it typically occurs across many days using very many orders, but it’s all one trade. When an HFT firm trades a hundred million shares they are all tiny parts of just a handful of core trading ideas. And while I placed nineteen trades it was on maybe four basic strategies, and honestly I’ll make 95% of my year on only five or ten types of trades. So there’s a lot of convergence, I think. We want enough to play the odds, but we want to concentrate on the best opportunities, so at the end of the day most great traders are not unlike that hedge fund with ten big positions.

Trading is not a place for quick money.

So you should not care so much about those traders sharing their one-time big wins because you don’t know the whole story.

If I am being honest, making money through trading one time is not that hard, even a child can do it.

In the absence of any kind of analysis, your odds of winning a trade is 50/50.

But that’s not trading anymore, that would be gambling.

You could win big once not because you are a good trader but because you just got lucky.

That’s why random reinforcement can be so dangerous.

It is one of the biggest reasons why 90% of traders give up so early because they think the market is out to get them.

Focus on the process and the money will follow.

Because focusing on the money or getting rich quickly is the fastest way to lose it all.

Hello quora people,

The stock market can not be predictable. Retail investors, Institutional investors, HNIs, FIIs, DIIs, Government entities, Speculators and Traders invest in the stock market. But among all of them, retail investors often lose money in the stock market due to a combination of psychological, technical, and strategic mistakes. Let’s explore the main reasons:

1. Lack of Proper Knowledge

Many retail investors jump into the market without understanding its complexities. They might rely on tips from unverified sources or follow market trends without conducting their own research. The stock market rewards informed decisions, not speculation.

2. Emotional Decision-Making

Fear and greed dominate the behavior of retail investors. They often buy during a market rally due to FOMO (Fear of Missing Out) and sell in panic during a downturn. This cycle of buying high and selling low leads to losses.

3. Overreliance on Intraday Trading

Intraday trading is highly tempting because of its promise of quick returns. However, it requires advanced skills, deep market knowledge, and emotional discipline. Without these, most retail investors end up losing more than they gain.

4. Neglecting Risk Management

Retail investors often fail to set stop-loss orders or diversify their portfolios, exposing themselves to unnecessary risks. Risk management is a critical part of trading, and ignoring it can wipe out capital quickly.

5. Chasing Unverified Tips

Many fall prey to "hot tips" or recommendations from unreliable sources like social media groups or acquaintances. These tips are often speculative, misleading, or outright scams, leading to poor investment decisions.

6. Overtrading

Frequent buying and selling, driven by the desire to make quick money, leads to high transaction costs and potential losses. Overtrading often stems from impatience or an addiction to the thrill of trading.

7. Unrealistic Expectations

Expecting the market to deliver consistent and massive returns overnight is a common mistake. The stock market is not a get-rich-quick scheme; sustainable returns require time, patience and a well-thought-out strategy.

8. Ignoring the Power of Compounding

Retail investors often overlook long-term investment strategies that leverage the power of compounding. Instead of holding quality stocks for years, they frequently churn their portfolios, missing out on significant growth.

How to Avoid These Pitfalls?

• Educate Yourself:- Learn about fundamental and technical analysis before investing.
• Emphasize Risk Management:- Use stop-loss orders and diversify your investments.
• Think Long-Term:- Positional and long-term investing tend to be more stable and rewarding.
• Seek Professional Advice:- Consult SEBI-registered advisors or research analysts to get reliable guidance.
• Keep Emotions in Check:- Have a clear plan and stick to it, regardless of market noise.

Remember, the stock market isn’t a place for gambling. It’s a wealth-creation tool when approached with the right mindset, knowledge, and strategy.

Thanks a lot for reading this answer. Please share and upvote.

If you are referring to intraday trading, the loss rate is very high.

However, it is my belief that in order to come to a more accurate day trader success/loss percentage, we need more statistics on how long the person trades for.

I have seen statistics that 40% of “day traders” quit after a month of trading and just 13% continue to day trade after three years.

Are the 87% of those who quit trading before 3 years time considered to be be real traders? In most if not all high earning professions, a person needs several years of advanced training. A lawyer is not a lawyer after high school. They go to college, and then more advanced training. Just because someone watches some youtube videos, then opens an account and starts trading does not make them a true trader—at least not one that we can use for this statistic with any amount of accuracy.

I would consider these people to be students who are learning and practicing day trading or they may be people playing around and gambling. Especially the 40% of people who quit within a month!

For most successful day traders, who I would define as those who make consistent profits over many years and market conditions, it usually takes several years of learning and practicing to make consistent profits.

Thus, to truly know what the success rate of true day traders are, we should be looking at that 13% who have continued to trade for 3 years, as they are probably just getting out of the student-stage at that time. (although day trading will give lessons for life). Then we need to track these traders over a couple of years and see how many are successful to get a more accurate rate.

I have no idea what that number will be as I have not seen a study reflecting these parameters. My guess would be about 20% of traders who put in the time and money it takes to study, practice, and self-evolve might make it as a trader. But if we are including students who day trade for awhile but then quit before they have completed advanced training, and gamblers who dabble at day trading for a bit into the equation, then it is probably more like 99% who lose.

1. They believe in the fact that anybody can earn the money from stock market.
2. They believe in the fact that the stock market is a secondary source of income.
3. They believe in the fact that their broker is an Intelligent & informed person.
4. They believe in the fact that all you tube presentations are perfect & they try to implement it.
5. They believe in the fact that the right time to enter the trade when market opens at 9.15am.
6. They believe in the fact that the easily they can earn money from the TIPS provider.
7. They believe in the fact that somebody has made money,so that they too can make .
8. They believe in the fact that the discount broker is the best compared to premium broker’s trading platform.
9. They believe in the fact that whatever they read in many books are true to its best level.
10. They believe in the fact that how to trade is the best way of trading rather than how to select the best stock to trade.
11. They believe in the fact that margin trading is best with or without the knowldge of trading.
12. Either they believe every stock market trainer OR they doubt every stock market trainer.
13. They believe in the fact that all HNI’s/ FII’s/big traders/ Algo traders will reverse the their trading.
14. They believe in the fact that stocks below 30 to 50/- are the best stocks to trade.
15. They believe in the fact that the winning in the stock market is only by LUCK not by the hard work.

and so on and so forth……………………………………………………………………………………………

N R Sushi, Regards.

A good question!

I can list the below reasons why many retail investors fail to make money in the stock market:

Trading is Gambling

Many people consider Trading is another form of Gambling and take their trades without any logical reasons. In one of his articles, world-famous Trader Ed Seykota said, ‘Everybody gets what they want out of the Market.’ If you are looking for a thrill or excitement, I am sure the market will provide enormous fun and excitement but at a considerable cost.

News based Trading

We have lots of news media that give lots of information on the Stock Market, Economic conditions, the impact of political decisions on the market, etc., and most of them giving direct advice to buy or sell specific stocks. However, following their advice directly on trading will not help in any way.

Trading with poor money management

I will explain the importance of money management with the help of a small game. For the time being assume, you have Rs. 1,00,000, and we will be playing head and tail game with the help of a coin. We will have simple rules for this game:

-You can bet Rs.1000, Rs.5000, or Rs. 10000 on a single prediction

- If your prediction is correct, you will get twice the amount of your bet. For example, if you bet Rs10,000 and if your forecast is accurate, you will get Rs.20,000, and if your prediction is wrong, then you will lose your money.

From a long-run perspective, we can think of the outcome for 100 trades. Head and Tail is a simple game with a 50% probability for head and 50% probability of Tail. So out of 100 trades, your prediction is wrong 50% of the time, and there are chances that you might get 10 failures successively. Do you know what can happen to your initial balance (Rs. 1,00,000) if you get 10 failures successively?

I hope now you realize the importance of Money Management. If you lose all your chips, it’s not possible to make any new bet. Ideally, we should not spend more than 2% of our portfolio on any single trade.

Buying 52 week low stocks

Another great way of losing your precious money is by buying 52 week low stocks. Please have a look on the below questions before purchasing any 52-week low stock next time:

1. What is the rationale behind buying in this strategy? Have you figured out any mechanism of how it works?
2. How do you ensure selling will not come at 52 week low stocks and buying will arrive at the same point?
3. Price can go up from 52 week low levels only if it gets the buying support of FIIs or big players. How do you know that all these players will buy at 52 week low stocks? At least, do you have the statistics on the success ratio in this case?

I am sure everyone agrees that Usain Bolt is one of the great and the fittest athletes in the world. Even Usain Bolt needs a few days of rest to run again if he falls from 2-3 floor building (assuming he will be alive after the fall). Similarly, any good stock needs time and great energy to trade again at higher levels after making a 52 week low. Even if it doesn’t fall further, it might take some time (usually 1-2 years) to trade higher. So even in this case, your fund will be locked for 1-2 years without much profit!!

Dealing with operator stocks

Many people think it is effortless to make money with penny stocks, because if the price of a share is Rs.1, if it goes to Rs.3 or Rs.4, then quickly our investment gives 3 or 4 times returns. Then assume the price will not go below Rs.1. Still, in reality, the probability of going up is very less (unless an operator pushes with price with his buying). The price can go below Rs.1 quickly and the most horrible thing is it can stay at Rs.1 for many years!!

Averaging down strategy

The logic of Averaging down strategy is very simple. It is all about buying more shares when the price of a stock trades at a lower value. For example, assume you have bought 10 shares at Rs.100, if the price comes down to Rs.50, then buying 20 shares at Rs. 50 will make total buying average to Rs.50. Similarly, if the price falls to Rs.25, then buying 40 shares at Rs.25 will make the average buying price is Rs.25. Similarly, this kind of buying should be made whenever the price goes below. When the price bounces up, you will make a profit.

Theoretically, it looks very simple and attractive. It is practically very difficult to make money with this strategy. What will you do if your entire savings have been invested in stock on Averaging down strategy and the price still goes further? Besides, what will you do if the price stays below your average buying price for years? What is your action if you need money for any emergency purpose?

I hope this detailed explanation helps!

No body knows the exact number. But for sure majority of traders lose money in trading.

Please note that I am not saying all people invest or trade in the market would lose money. For those who invest (i.e. investors) for long term should have a substantially higher chance to make net profits in the long run.

For those who trade (instead of buy and hold), it is more difficult for them to net profits throughout their trading lives. (I am also a trader.)

••

My guess to the percentage of traders who lose would be around 95-99%.

The reason why it's difficult to profit from trading is while all traders try to earn profits form the market, actually what they do is competing to each others, which generates transaction costs and slippage.

Another issue they face is, most of them trade too big. When a crash occurrs (inevitably it will occur), the relatively biggest traders will be out of the game and not be able to come back.

••

The remaining winners have two main characteristics:

1. They have edges, which make their trading strategies have positive expectancy of profitability.
2. They trade small enough to survive market turbulences.

Yes, it is quiet possible. Being a SWING TRADER cum ADVISOR, this is what we, myself and my whatsapp group members are doing with fundamentally strong stocks, Please refer the trade details on previous financial year as detailed below:

We are expecting the utmost accuracy and so much increase profit from each trade as the technical setup is fine tuned for the same.

There is a lot of research done on this by various brokers and platforms. There is a general notion that 90% of retail traders lose 90% of their money in the first 90 days of them trading.

The Times suggest that 80% of retail traders blow up their accounts and Saxo bank says its around 76%. Greed is the main culprit and no one teaches anyone to invest money in school. (at least not where I grew up)

Education is the key. You have to learn how to do it. This does not mean opening a demo account with one of the platforms out there as that is a waste of time. It doesn't matter whether if it is a demo account or real money if you are just getting lucky and don't know how to invest or risk manage you will fail.

For experienced traders one trade is enough. Beginners have FOMO (Fear of missing out), jumping into trades when you're not supposed to because of the fear of missing out on the move which leads to catching a knife, bad you'll bleed.

Over trading is easiest way to shred your account value. Quality beats quantity by far length. Most people think the more you trade, the more money you'll make which simply is not true.

All retail investors come to options trading just because it requires less capital but they don’t know it requires a good knowledge. It is not like trading the stock futures / stocks.

learn regarding the relationships between OI wrt PRICE CHANGE.

learn regarding technical indicators & for better results try to couple two sets of indicators together.

learn to identify the trends.

Yes, definitely.

Retail trader make money mostly through the Swing or Positional Trading than that of Intraday or FNO.

Intraday trading and FNO can give you quick money if your trade goes in the expected direction; but in case if your trade goes in wrong direction then you end up in the loss.

Instead, if you take positional trades which you can exit in a few days or weeks or months, so even if your trade goes in wrong direction for now, you can still hold it until the stock goes back into positive direction. Hence at the end of the trade, you will end up in Profit only. For Swing or Positional trades, the important thing is you mainly need to trade in Blue Chip stocks or Large cap stocks which has good returns in the longer run.

I have experienced the same when I first started trading. I bought a few stocks for the positional and in parallel, I used to Intraday & FNO trading. Then at the end of the half year, I was in profit in terms of Positional trades and faced loss in Intraday & FNO, though the time invested in the intraday & FNO trading was more and for positional trades it was negligible.

But in later case, when gain a good experience in the trading, I stared earning profit in both Positional as well as Intraday/FNO trades. But mostly I believe in Positional/Swing & intraday equity trades than that of FNO. All we need to be is existing the positions after gaining some profit as per our target.

Hence for every trade your goal should be to get at least some profit. With this, at the end of the year, you will see yourself in the good profit, however most of the retail trader end up in losses.

Below are some of my positional trades in Zerodha.

The stocks Reliance, Tata Power, currently in loss, however, I will be holding these for the long term and will exit once I get some decent profit our of these.

For others, you can see the overall percent profit. These stocks I have bought at dips in Feb 2021 on the day when market fell a lot.

I also share my study and analysis with people. If you are interested, you can join my telegram channel strategicfortune

See you there!!

“Yes” Retail Investor can, if they can Control their emotions, will power & off course using below pointers highlighted by Warren Buffet.

1.

The stock market is designed to transfer money from the active to the patient.

2.

It’s far better to buy a wonderful company at a fair price, than a fair company at a wonderful price

3.

In the business world, the rearview mirror is always clearer than the windshield.

4.

Only buy something that you’d be perfectly happy to hold if the market shut down for 10 years.

5.

The stock market is designed to transfer money from the active to the patient

6.

If you aren’t thinking about owning a stock for 10 years, don’t even think about owning it for 10 minutes.

7.

Our favorite holding period is forever.

8.

An investor should act as though he had a lifetime decision card with just twenty punches on it.

9.

Time is the friend of the wonderful company, the enemy of the mediocre.

10.

The business schools reward difficult complex behavior more than simple behavior, but simple behavior is more effective.

11.

Opportunities come infrequently. When it rains gold, put out the bucket, not the thimble.

Thanks for reading !!

~sunny

Although day traders and retail investors have pushed meme stocks like GameStop (GME) and AMC Entertainment (AMC) to record heights, data shows that the average retail investor has underperformed the market over the past month. Since mid-February, the average retail investor has underperformed the S&P 500 by 11%, according to VandaTrack, a data provider of investor positioning and flow metrics.

VandaTrack suggested this could be the reason why fewer people are investing their $1,400 stimulus checks into stocks. JPMorgan said Tuesday that the American Rescue Plan is driving less retail activity than the last round of payments. The investments that are being made focus on traditional assets like cash equity, exchange traded funds (ETFs), and small caps, versus more speculative areas like tech stocks and Bitcoin, JPMorgan said.

VandaTrack said this follows a similar trend to what happened in September after the average retail investor lost nearly 14% when tech stocks plunged following the stock splits of Apple (AAPL) and Tesla (TSLA), two of the most popular and widely held stocks by investors of all sizes. At the time, retail equity purchases steadily declined before picking up pace after the U.S. election, when purchases returned to all-time highs. “The last time retail investors suffered a drawdown of this magnitude, their appetite to buy risk assets dropped dramatically in the following months,” VandaTrack said. “We fear retail investors may have entered a similar healing process, nullifying the impact of stimulus checks.” On March 25, net purchases of U.S. stocks by retail investors equaled $24.65 billion, down from a peak of $29.75 billion on Feb. 5.

Regardless, levels are still at all-time highs. Over the past year, market trading volumes have increased significantly amid the pandemic as retail investors entered the market in swarms and prompted a trading frenzy that drove several stocks higher. Many investors used trading apps like Robinhood as well as utilized message boards like Reddit’s WallStreetBets. Robinhood reportedly filed confidentially for an initial public offering with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) earlier this week. The company was reportedly valued at $12 billion in Sept. 2020, with that figure rising to about $40 billion in February. Stocks like Palantir Technologies (PLTR), Nio (NIO), and Walt Disney (DIS) have been losing hype with retail investors, according to SwaggyStocks, which tracks comment volume on WallStreetBets. Meanwhile, more investors have been focusing on GameStop, AMC, and Corsair Gaming (CRSR).

They can!

Take a look at GameStop ($GME) and all the other meme stocks that skyrocketed because of massive retail buying.

A stock price is simply supply and demand. If (retailers) have high demand the share price will go up as well, if they all sell and if the demand isn’t that high no more, it will go down.

To answer your question → retail money most of the time is not important. If a company has millions in daily trading volume it doesn't matter if a few nobodys sell or buy. Only if large sums of money are involved or the trading volume is low on some smaller caps etc. it is possible to move the price up/down.

Anyone can win in the investing game.

Investing is a game of information and anticipation.

It is easy to think that

Well professional investors have more access to information, better access to management and better knowledge…

then retail investors cannot win in the market.

But what a lot of people don’t realize is that…

1. Professional investors are often bound by their strategy
2. Long term, medium term, short term strategy makes a huge difference on when a trading decision is made
3. The professional manages a lot of stock and he is not all knowing.

If you are a passionate user of the company you invest in, you know the company, you like the company and you are a power user, the chances are you will know more about the company than the professional.

Thus, it is absolutely possible to beat professional in investing.

Plus, you don’t need to beat the BEST professional to make money.

You just need to be better than average.

Cheers,

Eric

My investing story on how I went from $1,500 to Six Figures

YES definitely they do. I myself is a retail investor and I have been making money consistently from the markets.

For a retail trader to make consistent return, he must follow certain rules/ guidelines :

1. Diverify his trading scopes. This means he should take intraday, positional as well as swing trades as per situation.
2. He should not be too greedy with profits . Whenever any swing position is showing 12 to 15% profit, he should take it. For intraday trades the target should be 1 to 1.5%
3. He should not be fearful of making loss. While taking trades, don't be fearful of a loss. Place your trade with fixed stop loss and hope for the best.
4. Always do homework on the evening before taking trades in the morning. The various levels of your entry and exit should be well defined before market opens at 9.15 am
5. Take a fixed number of trades and don't over trade. I personally never take more than 2 intraday trades and 5 swing trades per week.
6. Don't put all your money on a single trade. Its stock exchange not a casino!

Hope the answer helps you.

Happy trading!

Stock market investing is considered easy (profitable) during bull markets, and difficult (unprofitable) during bear markets, generally. The reverse could also happen with some people.

Yes, retail investors have made money in stocks. Anyone who invested in good stocks 5 or 10 years ago, is bound to have made good money till date.

It’s only a function of the background work that one does, coupled with a bit of luck, which will determine his or her investment success of failure. Most people are penny wise, pound foolish in that they’ll spend hours online, searching for the best deals on mobile phone or other gadgets. But some of them will literally throw money away on bad stocks, or expensive stocks.

Retail investor suffer from herd mentality. They will buy shares because others are buying, and sell when others are selling, without really understanding the fundamentals of the underlying company. Many of them will not study the company’s business model or balance sheet before investing. They will have no clue as to who the promoters are and what they are up to.

Most people think they can and should invest only their capital. They do not know that first, they should invest some of their time in learning about investing, and then only invest.

It seems like it is a matter of choice to me. There is no laid down law anywhere that says that online brokers are to charge one standard fee across the board. It is the Free Enterprise or Capitalist Economy, and one cannot bear the cost, just leave it alone, or search you find one that is more in line with your pocket book. There being no such rule, each online discount brokers might charge a fee that is commensurate with the services they provides. Some brokers charge no transaction fee. They have found a way to profit from their companies without imposing a transaction fee. It is for each investor to find a online discount broker that fit their budget without wasting a substantial cash on transaction fees.$6.95 and $4.95 is actually reasonable, although you could see fees of $3.50. $4, and as $3,00 or no transaction fees. When you compare some off shore countries fees, which exceed $50 per trade and then go on to charge a custodial fee of .50% or based their fees on the size of your portfolio. Clearly if these fees were not purposely imposed to exclude all, but the wealthy from trying their hands at investing, they clearly look so, and have that effect. To add to that the more your stock portfolio grows, is the more they charge in fees, which is like a punishment for daring to enter the exclusive preserve of the rich. If this was not enough, an individual investor living outside the Continental USA, you pay 30% of all dividend as tax to the Government. One just has to make sure his portfolio is making him richer, as it does not make sense to be “penny wise and pound foolish”. It does not make sense if after all the above fees and charges , they are /is not turning a profit on his/her stock portfolio. This would be making a loss instead a gain and is not worth the effort and should be discontinued.