Transcription
What's up guys? My name is Coding Jesus, and today I want to share with you a couple of reasons why I do not day trade as a high-frequency trader.
Now, if you guys are new to this channel, like I said, my name is Coding Jesus. I'm a quantitative developer or software engineer, whatever you want to call it. I write trading software to not only interface with the exchange but I also write trading applications to allow traders at the firm that I work at to submit custom strategies, to submit their own orders, to display risk, etc., etc.
Alright guys, so why do I not day trade? Well, the first reason is the odds are against me. Now, I know that you guys have heard this time and time again, but what I want to hammer home here, guys, is that often times I see people get into day trading because they were sold a dream by a guru. They might be making $10 to $15 an hour. They might be at a dead-end job where they don't see any career prospects. And when they see a YouTube out of this guru that says he turned $3,000 into $25 million in 18 months and he has a Lamborghini and he has girls applying suntan lotion to him or whatever, they get drawn in. They want to be part of that experience. And so they buy his course and they enrich him by doing so.
So, what are the statistics really? Well, every time I think of day trading, I think of these statistics. The first is that 40% of traders leave within the first two months, 80% leave within the first two years, and 7% continue to trade for more than five years, even if every year in those five years they haven't made a dollar. This just goes to show you how much cognitive dissonance is in this space. And it's quite ironic, given that the people that buy all these fancy courses are literally told that half of day trading is changing your mindset, becoming more disciplined, focusing on personal growth, etc. Now, while all those things are great, being disciplined and focusing on personal growth, day trading won't get you there.
This takes me into my second point. Day trading does not provide you with a career. With day trading, what you'll find is that you are sitting in front of a computer, your eyes will most likely go bad, and numbers will blink up and down, up and down, up and down. But you, you aren't learning anything, really. You aren't learning about business. You aren't going to meet other business professionals out there. You aren't making friends. You aren't growing your professional circle. There is no next move from day trading. The people that say, "Hey, I'm going to be a great day trader and then I'll work at a hedge fund given my track record," are most likely delusional because 99% of the people watching this video that want to become day traders will not make money in the long run. Yes, you might make a thousand dollars now, but in the next two to three weeks, you might lose $10,000.
That brings me to my third point. Wow, making great transitions in this video. My third point is that oftentimes people might have a euphoric rush when they make money, but the losses that they make will take a much bigger toll on them, and that toll can often lead to suicide. Now, I don't say this lightly, but there are a lot of people that end up burying themselves in mountains of debt thinking they can trade out of their current predicament, which eventually leads them to taking their own lives, which is quite unfortunate.
Another reason why day trading is not a good idea and why I don't do it is that it's not a productive endeavor. In fact, I think a mental patient at a hospital probably is more productive than you sitting in front of a computer and I don't know, trading against some 400-pound guy halfway across the world. The reason being is because when you are day trading, not only are you not contributing anything to society, you aren't building your own website, you aren't building your own business, you aren't developing yourself personally or socially. You are, in fact, only hurting yourself because, like I said, in the long run, you are most likely to simply lose money.
This brings me to my last point, which is it is almost impossible to be a good day trader. And this takes all the points together and culminates them into one. Guys, to be a good day trader, you have to be disciplined. You have to cut your losses quickly. You have to be humble. You have to not get overzealous in the market or greedy. And I know that I can't do those things, and I can guarantee you that 99% of the people watching this video cannot do those things.
Alright, so what's kind of the remedy here? If you're currently a day trader, what my advice to you would be: stop. Stop what you're doing. Go look for a career that you can develop yourself in. That might mean going back to school and getting, you know, maybe you want to be a nurse, getting some sort of diploma or something that will accredit you to be a nurse, and then you can work your way up in a hospital, eventually becoming maybe the head nurse in the division, I don't know, something like that.
And if you are currently looking to get into day trading, then you are pretty lucky that you've stumbled upon this video because hopefully, you're going to make the right decision when you finish watching this video and not buy that guru's course, or not go into day trading without that guru's course, and simply focus on bettering yourself, becoming a better person, both socially and professionally, and not falling into the day trading trap.
If you like this video, guys, give me a thumbs up. Subscribe to this channel. I like to not only make videos about code but also about the trading industry in general. I also have a Discord link in the description box below, guys. You can go there, talk to me, talk to people in the community. We're building a community of people that like trading, high-frequency trading, day trading, you know, code in general, whatever. And yeah, that's the end of the video, guys. Thanks for watching. Cheers.