Bernardus Smith @BernardusJS: "𝐔𝐍𝐏𝐎𝐏𝐔𝐋𝐀𝐑 𝐎𝐏𝐈𝐍𝐈𝐎𝐍: 𝐃𝐀𝐘 𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐅𝐄𝐄𝐋𝐒 𝐒𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐓..."

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𝐔𝐍𝐏𝐎𝐏𝐔𝐋𝐀𝐑 𝐎𝐏𝐈𝐍𝐈𝐎𝐍: 𝐃𝐀𝐘 𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐅𝐄𝐄𝐋𝐒 𝐒𝐌𝐀𝐑𝐓 𝐔𝐍𝐓𝐈𝐋 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐇 𝐒𝐇𝐎𝐖𝐒 𝐔𝐏 Let’s be honest for a moment. If you shorten the time horizon enough, market outcomes become dominated by randomness. That doesn’t mean skill doesn’t exist. It means skill only matters if you have a real, repeatable edge. Most people don’t. 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐏𝐄𝐎𝐏𝐋𝐄 𝐓𝐇𝐈𝐍𝐊 𝐃𝐀𝐘 𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐈𝐒 Most people believe day trading is about: - Reading charts - Predicting direction - Being “right” more often than wrong - Turning market intuition into income That belief is the product being sold. And it sells A LOT. 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐀𝐂𝐓𝐔𝐀𝐋𝐋𝐘 𝐌𝐎𝐕𝐄𝐒 𝐏𝐑𝐈𝐂𝐄𝐒 𝐈𝐍𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐃𝐀𝐘 Short-term price movements are driven by: - Order flow and liquidity - Dealer hedging and options gamma - Forced positioning and margin - News surprises and algorithmic reactions They are NOT driven by: - Valuation - Fundamentals - "This looks overbought" - A line on a chart drawn after the fact If you’re trading without access to "how orders actually hit the market", you are reacting - not competing. 𝐖𝐇𝐄𝐑𝐄 𝐒𝐊𝐈𝐋𝐋 𝐂𝐀𝐍 𝐄𝐗𝐈𝐒𝐓 (𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐖𝐇𝐘 𝐈𝐓’𝐒 𝐑𝐀𝐑𝐄) Short-term trading skill exists ONLY when at least one of these is true: 1. Speed advantage Infrastructure, automation, execution priority 2. Information advantage Order flow, positioning, data interpretation others don’t have 3. Structural advantage Market making, arbitrage, volatility harvesting 4. Statistical edge applied at scale Tiny expectancy, repeated thousands of times with strict risk control If none of these apply, outcomes converge toward randomness over time. 𝐖𝐇𝐘 𝐃𝐀𝐘 𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐅𝐄𝐄𝐋𝐒 𝐋𝐈𝐊𝐄 𝐀 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐅𝐄𝐒𝐒𝐈𝐎𝐍 This is where people get fooled: - Small sample sizes - High variance - Early wins - Confirmation bias - Survivorship bias (you only hear from the winners) Short-term success creates a false sense of control. Losses are blamed on "bad luck". Wins are credited to "skill". That’s how randomness disguises itself. 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐏𝐑𝐎𝐁𝐋𝐄𝐌 𝐖𝐈𝐓𝐇 𝐃𝐀𝐘 𝐓𝐑𝐀𝐃𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐀𝐒 𝐀 𝐂𝐀𝐑𝐄𝐄𝐑 Here’s the part that doesn’t get talked about enough. If your results are mostly driven by short-term randomness, then calling it a career doesn’t magically make it stable or repeatable. For most people, day trading looks like this: - You’re showing up every day to get paid by variance - Some weeks you feel brilliant - Other weeks you give it back - And over time, the wins and losses start to look like a distribution, not a skill curve. That’s the key issue. A real career compounds: - Skills - Income - Optionality Day trading compounds exposure. Yes, a small group of professionals make it work - but they do it with infrastructure, data, execution advantages, and risk systems that most people simply don’t have. Outside of that environment, day trading isn’t really a business. It’s speculation with a schedule. And that’s fine - as long as people are honest about what they’re doing. The problem starts when short-term luck gets mistaken for a long-term profession. 𝐌𝐘 𝐓𝐀𝐊𝐄 - Day trading is not purely luck - But for most participants, including myself (which is why I don't do it) outcomes are indistinguishable from luck - Without a measurable edge, time works against you - Long-term investing flips the equation - time works for you Skill in markets is often about what you didn’t do: - Not overtrading - Not chasing - Not getting emotional 𝐖𝐇𝐀𝐓 𝐀𝐑𝐄 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐎𝐔𝐆𝐇𝐓𝐒? $AMZN (Amazon.com Inc) $NVDA (NVIDIA Corporation) $EURUSD $BTC $ETH

Not investment advice. The author may have financial interests in the mentioned instruments.

Day trading is mostly luck.

100.00%

Day trading is a real skill.

100.00%