Well, the honest truth is that as lucrative as it can be, I would never recommend it to someone. And even though I like to day trade, I plan to hole away money in longer term investments, and swing trade as well. A lot of the people that do this and get somewhere give it all back, there are only two tiers of traders above that level: the ones that still have losing streaks but manage it well, and the ones that just don't lose much at all. That really is almost a stratospheric level of skill and self-knowledge, and most people don't even know that is what it takes. This whole thing has been a quest of the whole self, not just a hobby, or a career opportunity. So I can see why there is a stigma. People are intimidated by the challenge, and people that are arrogant enough to not be intimidated going in get their asses handed to them. Simple as that.

Because it is really really hard. And requires so much perseverance.

Look at all the negativity in the comments to this yt clip (especially a few years back)

One guy said that he has some friends that are brokers and they said that eventually everyone blows up and virtually no one makes money. How's that supposed to make a new trader feel lol?

Everyone has an opinion, that's why I say to only listen to those who make money consistently. Think about it, if 95% lose then just about everyone is going to say it's a crap shoot. A lot of the salt comes from everyone and their brother losing their money during the last stock market crash. Most people don't even realize you can use a stop loss, isn't that ridiculous?

When I told my grandma I was getting into trading she didn't understand what I was saying until I mentioned the stock market. She then blurted out, interrupting me, that there's no money in that lol. She passed away a few years ago, but I learned later that she had lost money in the market years before I was born. What I'm getting at is that typically just about everyone, at one point in their life, dabbles in the markets when they get some disposable money they want to put to work, and inevitably they'll have a bad experience. It only takes one bad experience to taint someones perspective forever and most of the time they simply won't trust the markets again. They won't give it another chance, they don't believe in paying for education. That's my two cents.

People tend to fear what they do not know.

Also the average person doesn't have the capacity to trade. Mentally and Financially.

The general direction of the market is up, if you buy an index and hold it for the best part of your life it will be the best investment you can make. It is also not as stressful as day trading.

If you look at S&P 500 Return Calculator - Don't Quit Your Day Job... you can see the annual return from 1950-2000 was 13%. The avg day trader will not see that, especially over a 50 yr career.

Another issue people have is they tie work and time to money. To generate real wealth you have to break that bond. The biggest reason is your time is finite. Also I believe that this is one reason people like day trading, it is the activity and the ability to say 'I did this'. That mentality is a great hindrance to wealth creation. Money makes money, you can make money, but if you let your money work for you it will generate far more then your time can.

grausch 

While this post my be seen as judgemental, and critical of day-trading, there are underlying issues that really apply to all forms of trading. I do think that most people who wish to day-trade are driven by greed and they believe that carrying no overnight risk will allow them to trade with more leverage and thus make more money. Note that I said "most people". Have a look at the video in this link and allow yourself to compare yourself to Mr Earl. - I found that Mr. Earl displays a lot of humility, lives very frugally, has a lot of patience, accepted that he is not an expert, and does not really make money his life's focus. Most people I know are not really that humble, need to make money to support their lifestyles, want all of it now, think they are better than everyone else and always need to keep up with the Joneses. If you now take people with the traits I mentioned above and allow them to trade with massive leverage, it becomes quite easy to see why most blow up their accounts, and also why day-trading has a bad reputation. There are very few successful day-traders exactly for that reason. Big Mike has also posted somewhere that once money stopped being important to him, he managed to turn his trading around. Yet most people who day-trade do so exactly because they believe it is the quickest route to making loads of money. As a final thought, Mr. Earl has paid off his home, put his kids through college and has more in his brokerage account than most day-traders are ever likely to have, yet most people will find a reason not to implement his method. People will find excuses that it a) won't suit them, b) they can do better, etc. and most of them never end of with his level of success. I personally don't think his method is that great, but I find that his attitude about life and money is fantastic, and that he found a way to work with his weaknesses to turn them into strengths. Edit: Oh, and as can be seen in the last sentence above, I have already found an excuse not to use his method...

I have found psychology in trading to be huge. Method isn't that important imo (after all, so many great traders have so many different approaches... if it was that important the great traders would all be using the same or similar " perfect" method), use Earl's method or don't use it. Over time my ability to read market behaviour has increased quite a bit, I've incorporated orderflow and my pattern recognition is way better and yet I am not really that much better PL wise, because of the mind I bring to the table. Compare this to a couple of backtests I did in forext with a simple " buy breakouts, fade ranges" with just price and volume, I was profitable over pretty much every single test with a few hundred trades per test because I could jsut fast-forward time and I didnt give a damn about results. I think the big lesson from mr Earl is not his methodology but his mindset. Whenever risk and emotions come into play the inner monkey takes over and we do stupid things. Mental preparation and meditation is helping me the most right now.