81–90 of 377 posts
https://www.ted.com/talks/jim_simons_a_rare_interview_with_t...
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QNznD9hMEh0
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jim_Simons_(mathematician)
One other thing, the Simons Foundation funds Quanta Magazine, whose articles frequently appear on HN:
I mean you may as well say: Study shows it is impossible for an individual to build a tech start up as a living. Just because something is hard doesn't mean it's impossible. Day trading, like many other risky ventures, is something that is very hard and unlikely but for the few who succeed ends up being very profitable.
Playing the lottery is also very profitable for those who succeed.
The market always goes up. Even if right after this comment, if the sp500 tumbles and we enter a recession, your share of vix doesn’t go anywhere. Youd just wait for the market to recover and hit the price you bought it for.
However, day trading isn’t really viable unless you have a lot of money to take advantage of every dip and hill and get around day trading restrictions.
If you think you're going to turn £5k into £500k in a year, forget it! But turning £5k into £5.3k is certainly doable.
Scale that initial portfolio to £5m, and you can take home £300k with relative ease in a good market- that's a very comfortable income for most people.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why weird?
Because that is not a representative sampling of the day trader population. Assuming the techniques of the study were sound, at best we can conclude whether or not day trading Brazilian futures is a sustainably profitable undertaking.
Is there a basis for believing this?
Putting aside the potential quality issues of the study, the headline here in HN isn't accurate and made a lot of people comment about how wrong it is. The study doesn't literally say "impossible" but "virtually impossible" and they do say that a very small percentage was able to make about $310 a day which is about ~110k a year.
I've done ok trading stocks and FX, probably enough to live off. There is a caveat however; you need to have a sizeable portfolio to begin with. Otherwise, the risks you'll need to take are simply too large. If you think you're going to turn £5k into £500k in a year, forget it! But turning £5k into £5.3k is certainly doable. Scale that initial portfolio to £5m, and you can take home £300k with relative ease in a good…
Not sure I understand this study tho, and whether or not it relates.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Day trading, like many other risky ventures, is something that is very hard and unlikely but for the few who succeed ends up being very profitable. > the top individual earned only US$310 per day with great risk (a standard deviation of US$2,560). The very best day trader made around the same as an entry-level SWE, which does not scream immense profit to me.
I agree with your point totally. But just to put in perspective that U$310/day in Brazil would be the equivalent of the top 10% software engineer salaries in Brazil.
I've done ok trading stocks and FX, probably enough to live off. There is a caveat however; you need to have a sizeable portfolio to begin with. Otherwise, the risks you'll need to take are simply too large. If you think you're going to turn £5k into £500k in a year, forget it! But turning £5k into £5.3k is certainly doable. Scale that initial portfolio to £5m, and you can take home £300k with relative ease in a good…