If I'm being honest, I trade as a form of gambling. And I treat it just like I'd treat traditional gambling if I partook (the most I'll do is $5 or $10 in a poker machine). I only trade with money I can afford to lose. It's a fun pastime, and I have been lucky (yes, lucky, not smart) enough to come out ahead so far. But I'm always sure to avoid getting cocky and throwing in money I can't lose.

Did you 'come out ahead' in the sense that you made money, or in the sense that you beat the S&P or similar indices?

I don't doubt that you, specifically, may have beat the S&P, but I think lots of people don't keep a great track record of how they've done, tend to forget their average or bad trades, and overemphasize their good trades in their minds. I'll then ask them how much their overall portfolio has grown from year 1 to year 5, and then calculate the S&P's growth in that time, and they almost always have only managed to match it (with a lot of time wasted to do so) or actually did worse.

I keep obsessive track, and over the last 12 years I've been roughly equivalent to the S&P 500 (which, again, I attribute far more to luck than anything else). Like I said, this is for fun, not for true investment purposes. So anything that doesn't lose money is a win in my eyes. My real investments are primarily in index funds.

* I think lots of people don't keep a great track record of how they've done

Ha! This is true for me, I only realize how much I've lost when I see those negative numbers in TurboTax before filing my tax return.

Agree, mostly. The one advantage of being a small trader vs. the hedge funds is that your trade blocks are too small to swing prices, so you can get in and out of positions quite easily. I would definitely also not recommend day trading per say, a timeframe of 1-5 days per trade is IMO better as you can actually see a decent swing in price.

It is possible to win, but you need to be good, and most people who do it in their part time simply don't have the knowledge or experience required...

There are a lot of studies and theories which can help you to outperform professionals. There are also a lot of examples on amateurs doing much better than professionals. You can check "Random walk down Wall Street" if you are interested on this matter.

Right, but those aren't for day traders. Most of those strategies depend on holding for long periods of time.

Also if you know where to look (twitter, forums), you can find plenty of amateurs that outperform the market, and post their trades publicly.

Just like you can find plenty of people who toss heads more often than tails.

Do you care that you might be quite uninformed on this particular matter?