Losers 2.0

Pretty pathetic NYT article on modern (as opposed to ancient, i.e. late 90s) day traders. It seems journalists get off on portraying day traders as clueless, dim-witted losers and this article is no exception.

The traders' lingo is ridiculed as "teenage haiku", the point that they face daunting odds when it comes to making money day in, day out is belabored throughout. Some rather creative insults are hurled at day traders in general:

As a job, “day trader” registers in roughly the same way as “disco ball manufacturer” or “Brooklyn farmer.” You know that someone has to be making disco balls and that maybe there are still a few plots of arable land in Brooklyn.

and at the day traders featured in the article in particular (they look like "members of a mellow Southern California rock bank that split up 15 years ago").

Some of this is obviously right on the money, especially the part about algorithmic trading wreaking havoc on overly simplistic day trading strategies. As a matter of fact, the way one of the traders reacts to a "robo trader" supposedly screwing up his trade:

That was nothing but an algorithm boogie. Goddang it. Drives me crazy. My analogy is that whole sector is doing great and they find one weak animal in a herd and they’ll attack it.

cracked me up because it sounds like an updated version of what I used to hear on the trading floor every second of every trading day in the late 90s: "it's the f**king specialist!". Which goes to show there's always somebody (or something) out to eat your lunch.

At the risk of adding some more tired clichés and teenage haikus, day trading is indeed a "tough gig". It has always been and will always be a very difficult way to make a living. It can be emotionally taxing if not downright heartwrenching, and when it's easy, it's never easy for long. It is also intellectually stimulating, almost never gets boring and can be quite rewarding emotionally and financially. Only a gullible journalist out for a facile article ridiculing what is, in my admittedly biased opinion, a noble profession could pretend first to believe day trading to be an easy endeavor then pretend to discover how much harder than it looks it really is.