If you are in trading can you tell me about it

[Maryam768]

Has anyone started trading and if so has it changed your life how people make it out to be?

What do you mean "trading"?

Trading what?

Do you mean like those Forex trading platforms like eToro? The guys who do this are glued to their phones night and day though. And I’m not sure the returns per hour are as good as normal work, to be honest. I think the appeal is the chase of a possible big win. It’s gambling, really, right?

Day trading

To close to gambling for me

Are you experienced in Day Trading? Have you had training? Do you have financial expertise?

What makes you think you'd be proficient at this?

Even professionals say day trading is nearly impossible. The markets are controlled, in general, by big banks and pension funds. For a novice the advice is steer well clear - you will not make a lot of money quickly.

There are dummy day trading sites you can use to see what it’s like. I had a go on one (was thinking “how hard can it be- buy it then sell it when it goes up a bit”). I lost £40k in 2 days 😂

It’s pushed a lot online as a get rich quick scheme. In fact, the majority of people lose money (obviously) and you can lose a lot. Do you rate yourself to do this better than people doing it professionally with specialist software, support staff and hyper fast internet to help them? If not, those people will soon have your money.

Never done day trading, the risk is enormous.

To get in to investing you need to be prepared to have good and bad days and also only risk what you can lose. Plus it’s the very long haul.

I’m a professional in financial markets. One of those people with the specialist software, training, experience and support that a PP referenced. My strong advice is don’t do it. You will almost certainly lose money. Not just make a low hourly wage, but actually end up with less than you began with. In extremis, you can lose your house and go bankrupt, because day trading is almost always leveraged (ie conducted with borrowed money) so your losses can be more than what you put in.

You will be competing with me and my professional colleagues in a zero sum game (ie if one person wins someone else has to lose). The person who wins will be me and my colleagues and people like us. It will also be the trading platform you choose which will charge you a large fee for every trade you make. The person who loses will be you.

Important postscript: all this doesn’t mean you shouldn’t invest. Investing (buying financial assets, often shares, in the expectation of holding them for a long time) is not a zero sum game. Most people do indeed make money. Investing is a very sensible thing to do for your future and your family’s future. But day trading is foolish. Don’t do that.