Mainly emotional factors, as I've said before. And the fact that no one can predict the future, and very strange things can and will happen.
Maybe you're capable of predicting the future no matter what, and you're cool as a cucumber and you'll be totally immune to any and everything that can happen, but somehow I doubt it. If you want to PM me tomorrow night's US megamillions numbers, I'll buy the ticket and split the lump sum with you.
How long have you been doing it? How have you done? Any ups and downs? Anyone who implies that it's all been gravy is being dishonest on some level IMO.
I've been in the game a long time. I didn't waste a whole lot of time doing pattern day trading because it soon became obvious to me why 95% fail.
I realized early on that swing trades and longer were the most likely ways to keep my money and grow it larger most efficiently with less risk... buy a stock with a put the day before earnings come out (or both a put and a call), make $ on the upside if the stock shoots up 5-10% or more or whatever on the upside, make $ on the downside with a put or short if it's down a similar amount, etc, then realize some or all of the profits...
Or buy shares of AAPL at $90 in 2007, hold it and see it be worth 8 times that 5 years later, while perhaps also doing some shorter term stuff around it here and there, buying more here and there, puts ahead of earnings, etc. Not play pingpong with it 10 times a day every day and go to cash at night, missing the big moves it makes after the bell and before the bell the next morning... while spending thousands a year on transaction costs and tens of thousands or more on STCG taxes. Not for me - no thanks.
But all the best to you.
Has someone made claims to never have losing trades?
You've claimed here to have been a full time day trader for a short time and that day traders lose money in bear markets. You have no explanation of why that would be the case. On most days, there's opportunities for day traders on both sides of the market. There was yesterday. There will be today. Yesterday the S&P futures moved up to a large offer at 78 and took on all the buying, buyers got caught offside and we rolled over back to the open. That open price got defended and we took a 25 point move up. The day prior, almost the exact same thing happened in reverse. Day traders had to trade the same market in the opposite direction on 2 consecutive days. This is the norm, bull or bear market.
Overall market direction just helps set bias for intraday traders but for trading outrights, the most important thing that sets the action on 9/10 days is the activity of short term speculators in that market. Watching for areas people get caught out but with an eye on prices that longer term players might be looking at.
In the prop world, there's a huge percentage trading spreads. How does spread trading intraday become more difficult in a bear market? How does stat arb become more difficult in a bear market? Market neutral intraday mean reversion strategies don't stop working because the underlying is trending in a different direction on a daily basis.
