Weniger als 20% der Daytrader gewinnen

In den Foren taucht des Öfteren die Frage auf, wie hoch die Verteilung zwischen Gewinnern und Verlierern an der Börse ist. Sporadisch und nur hinter vorgehaltener Hand bekommt man von Brokern bzw. Mitarbeitern Zahlen dazu genannt. Sehr selten findet man im Internet dazu Fakten.

Eine Studie von 2004 erstellt von Brad Barber, Yi-Tsung Lee, Yu-Jane Liu, and Terrence Odean über 50.000 Daytraderkonten über einen Zeitraum von 5 Jahren ergab folgendes Bild: nur 2 von 10 Tradern erwirtschaften Geld und weniger als 2 davon konsistent.

Brett Steenbarger hat dazu folgende zwei Posts in seinem Blog verfasst (blaue Schrift ist verlinkt):

Do Individual Day Traders Make Money?

Trading lore has it that the average trader loses money in the markets. Some estimates put the proportion at 80% or even higher. When we think of all the potential disadvantages of the individual day trader, it's not hard to believe those numbers. After all, the individual day trader as a whole:

* Does not participate in the long-term upward drift in stock prices exhibited by equities;
* Does not have a team of analysts providing researched trade ideas;
* Does not have a dedicated IT and programming staff to support and automate trading;
* Does not have a rich array of colleagues to share ideas and learn from;
* Does not have access to the best trading software and news services;
* Does not enjoy preferential commission rates available to exchange members.

Those are formidable obstacles. But what does research tell us about the success of individual day traders?

A 2004 study from Brad Barber, Yi-Tsung Lee, Yu-Jane Liu, and Terrence Odean was noteworthy in that it studied the complete transaction history of the Taiwan Stock Exchange over a five-year period. From that mass of data, they were able to identify specific market participants and categorize their trading as day trading vs. investing. Moreover, they were able to separate active day traders from others.

Interestingly, day trading accounted for 22% of the volume of individual traders, but only 5% of the volume of institutional participants. Moreover, volume in day trading is highly concentrated in their sample: the 1% of largest day traders accounted for half of all day trading volume.

The major conclusion of the authors is that "day trading is treacherous, but not entirely a fool's game." Specifically, "a large fraction of day traders, more than eight out of ten, lose money, though a small fraction of day traders earn large persistent profits." Not surprisingly, the heaviest (largest) day traders were most likely to be profitable; as a group they made money before transaction costs but not after. The smaller, less active day traders lost money even before transaction costs were factored in.

I believe that the results of the research suggest a Darwinian mechanism at work. The largest day traders are likely to be the best capitalized, and hence the best able to survive their learning curves in markets. The most active day traders are also those who are most apt to lose their money simply due to the cumulative impact of slippage and commission costs. The least active traders (part-time, occasional) get the fewest looks at markets and hence are least likely to learn and internalize pattern recognition skills essential to day trading. This creates a selection mechanism in which a relatively small number of large, frequent day traders survive to dominate volume and profitability.

So what keeps new traders coming to an arena in which far fewer than 20% of participants are profitable after costs? Odean's research suggests that overconfidence plays an important role. Just as participants in lotteries and casinos overestimate their odds of winning, individual day traders may place too much confidence in their ability to read market patterns out of the gate. If that is true, the majority of individual day traders should fail relatively early in their careers, something that has been mentioned to me by executives at brokerage firms.

But this only scratches the surface of the authors' findings regarding success and failure in the day trading arena. My next post in this series will take a closer look at what separates the winners from the losers.

und

How Common Is Elite Talent Among Day Traders?

In my recent post, I reviewed research that suggests that the great majority of individual traders fail to make money, particularly after commission costs are factored into returns.

Still, the research finds that a small group of individual traders possess a high degree of skill and can earn returns far above those expected by chance. This is precisely my experience working with proprietary trading firms: a small proportion of traders accumulate the lion's share of the returns. Moreover, those same traders tend to dominate the earnings list from one year to the next.

According to the authors of the research, their findings "paint a rather dim portrait of day traders." "Over the typical six month horizon," they note, "using lower range assumptions regarding transaction costs, less than 20% of day traders earn profits net of transaction costs." What that suggests is that the proportion of day traders who can actually make a living from their trading is surely quite small.

That is exactly what the authors report: "We identify day traders who earn substantial profits over a six-month period and analyze the performance of their subsequent trades. These profitable day traders continue to earn stellar returns." Indeed, the very top traders in the research sample averaged earning over $ 1 million NT per six month period, far greater than the average income in Taiwan. Interestingly, however, the *median* six-month earnings for these top traders was $125,761 NT. What that means is that a relative handful of the top traders accounted for the lion's share of the profits.

And how elite was this top group? The authors studied over 50,000 individual traders for their study, and only 386 were part of the top group--less than 1%. When you see how returns were distributed within the top group, however--with the mean so greatly exceeding the median--it is clear that truly top traders are probably about 1 in 1000.

Is this a depressing finding? I do not find it so. Would the distribution of elite talent look any different for musicians, basketball players, research scientists, or chess players? A high and sustained level of success in any of these domains is rare, but it *is* attained and attainable. It is achieved as the result of a developmental process, not as the uncovering of any magic setup or indicator. The single greatest challenge for traders and trading psychologists alike is to harness this developmental process. Are you on a learning curve that can lead to the acquisition of expertise? I can think of no more important question for self-evaluation.

Auf die Frage eines Lesers:

Do you know the amount of time it took those traders took to get to the top 1% spot. I am sure there are some naturals who can obtain that level in 1-2 years, but on average how long does it take for everyone else.

antwortete Dr. Brett Steenbarger:

My experience is that sustained success is typically achieved over a period of years, though I think traders can accelerate the 10 year rule--

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eröffnet am:	29.10.09 22:01 von:	Antoine	Anzahl Beitr�ge:	6
neuester Beitrag:	31.03.10 17:56 von:	hardyman	Leser gesamt:	4341
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Antoine : Weniger als 20% der Daytrader gewinnen

Do Individual Day Traders Make Money?

How Common Is Elite Talent Among Day Traders?

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hardyman : Studie �ber Day und Short-term Trading

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Dunsany : Das Parato-Prinzip steckt halt �berall drin

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FDSA : Und deswegen gelten immer die 5 % im Jahr...

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Dunsany : Pareto

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hardyman : Trading is hazardous to your wealth

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