12-15-2004, 10:19 AM
Abramelin,Dec 13 2004, 03:43 PM Wrote:Instead of buying stocks as a long term investment (1,2,3 ..years),wouldn't it be better to buy and resell the stocks on the same day/week ? I know someone who makes money by buying stocks in the morning and then reselling on the same day, stocks worth thousands dollars;he told me that he could earn thousands dollars each month by buying and reselling stocks,still I don't know if tells me the truth.It is possible-according to me,but I never did it-to make money on the same day/week by buying/reselling;a little variation of 1,2 or 3 % of a few thousands (or dozen of thousands) dollars worth of stocks is enough to earn at least,as much as a daily wage.
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Others have touched on the riskiness of doing this, but let's put it in perspective. The real quality of a company typically does not change all that much from day to day. What changes are certain perceptions that affect stock prices. Maybe there is a press release, or an earnings report, or the CEO gets thrown in jail. But overall, companies are not typically growing at the rate you would pay in broker fees (even cheap online ones) to furiously invest your money in new stocks every day.
The point is, day traders are almost playing a sum zero game with each other. They want to buy low and sell high, and don't otherwise care about the actual quality of the companies. When you make money by speculating on a stock in this manner, someone else is losing just as much money as a result (you either bought undervalued stock from someone or sold overvalued stock to them, more or less). Thus, if you are going to day trade, you had better be more informed and have better instincts than your competition.