R&I ~ MJM
YouTube is filled with videos promising to teach you how to make big bucks trading stocks on your home computer. Matthew’s videos tell you how to lose money.
A real estate agent and amateur investor, Matthew, who prefers his last name not be used because of how it might affect his career, made thousands of dollars trading stocks over the years, only to lose most of it day trading.
Now, in his YouTube videos, he cautions others about the perils of day trading at a time when stay-at-home measures have led millions to buy — and sell — stocks for the first time.
“It basically destroyed my whole account, draining it from a $150,000 balance down to $50,000, then $40,000. Basically I lost everything,” Matthew, who goes by Matthew Jay in his online videos, said in an interview.
Professional day traders spend hours every day sitting at their computers, watching charts and trying to profit from tiny fluctuations in stock prices. They may make dozens or even hundreds of trades a day, but aim to sell off all their holdings by the time the market closes.
Now, with millions of people stuck at home as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, online brokerage sites such as E-Trade, TD Ameritrade and Charles Schwab have seen a blistering growth in their customer base from those who have never traded before.
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And studies have shown that most day traders lose big.
“On average, day traders do horribly, and the percentage that end up sustaining success are in the low single digits,” Steenbarger says.
FoundingFrog
Article URL : https://www.npr.org/2020/12/08/943224222/he-thought-day-trading-would-be-a-thrill-he-ended-up-losing-127-000