Yes, it is possible to make money in stock trading. Many people have made millions just by day trading. Some examples are Ross Cameron, Brett N. Steenbarger, etc.
But the important thing about day trading is that only a few can make money out of day trading and the rest end up losing their entire capital in day trading. The number of successful people is very less even though they have good knowledge of the stock market. Day traders do tend to lose and no trader is having a 100% success rate. But all the successful traders have one thing in common that they follow a system:
Rule 1:They never over trade.
Rule 2:They always has a set target and stop loss.
Rule 3:They trade only when their trading conditions are met.
Rule 4:They understand market psychology.
Apart from following a system, day traders need a strong knowledge of technical analysis and fundamental analysis. Experienced traders always analyze their mistakes and trade only when their setup is available in the market. If anything goes out of the plan, then they close their trade and book the losses.
One must understand that the Stock market is influenced by big players like hedge Funds, Mutual Funds, FIIs, DIIs, etc. They are considered to be market movers and market makers. There is a minority of successful traders group that can take money home because they understand the psychology of the market.
One must be consistent in his or her investment to create wealth for themselves. Never take any trade impatiently. If you start buying stocks the way you buy your vegetables, then no one can stop you from creating wealth. Discipline is the key ingredient of any profitable strategy and patience is the quality of discipline and most of the people who enter the market have lack discipline and patience.
It is very obvious for day traders that their strategies do not work every day, so they adopt the market conditions and have planned their strategies as per the market conditions. On must never trade with the money that they need as they can end up wiping their trading account.
One must understand the difference between stock trading and day trading. Stock trading is done based on fundamental and technical analysis and the psychology behind investing in stock is to create long-term wealth. Day trading is done based on price action and traders want to earn money on the same day and they have to exit the trade either with a profit or loss.
The big players in the market focus on risk management whereas retail traders focus on profits and they end up taking leveraged trade which turns out to be a disaster for most traders. On the other hand, if we focus on a 2% risk on our capital then we will still be there in the market after consistent losses. Professionals focus on how much they can lose and if they are going to trade tomorrow whereas newbie focus on profits and how they are going to spend their profits.
A person spends 12 years in school and then 3-4 years to get a college degree which will fetch them around 20K-30K per month but they all expect the market to give them returns from day 1 which is not possible in other fields. Greed and Fear are the two worst enemies of day traders and if you can’t control your emotions then you must avoid day trading and start investing to meet your end goal.
You can be rich by stock trading or day trading and there are a lot of examples who are successful in day trading but it will take a great understanding of the market, in-depth knowledge of concepts and your psychology and controlled emotions will lead your way to glory.
Kundan Kishore
Curator of A Complete Course On Indian Stock Market
