Day Traders are Funny!

Christopher Markowski breaks down the brutal reality of day trading—no matter how many screens, charts, or fancy setups you have, you’re not out-trading Wall Street. From hedge funds to high-frequency trading, the deck is stacked against the little guy. www.watchdogonwallstreet.com

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
The Watchdog on Wall Street podcast explaining the news coming
out of the complex worlds of finance, economics, and politics
and the impact it will have on everyday Americans. Author,
investment banker, consumer advocate, analyst, and trader Chris Markowski.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Day traders they're funny. I mean, God, bless you, bless
your heart, all you day traders out there. I know
you're trying. I know you're trying. Ever see a day
traders set up? I mean they're proud of it. They
send pictures of it, they post it up on their

(00:37):
Instagram and their X pages and all this stuff. And
they've got all these computer screens and front of them. Man. Oh,
they take a picture of it, and there's charts, and
there's this, and there's that, all this stuff going on. Yeah,
it's amazing. With all that stuff that you bought, you
still you still can't even beat the S and P

(00:58):
five hundred. Man. I have to laugh. I mean, I
got I've been doing this for a very long period
of time. Again. I remember back in adopt Colm Ages,
I think it was a cover of Forbes magazine or whatnot.
They had some trader there, some kid zits all over
his face. I know, a couple of hundred thousand dollars

(01:21):
they actually had. They were actually trading floors where you
would go in and they would actually you would put
up money and they would give you money, and you
would go there and trade your day away. And dad
didn't end well. You know, people walk walk into my
office and they'll see, eh alone Macintosh on my desk.

(01:46):
There there's no stock ticker going along the ceiling. You
do realize that's all for show, right, you do realize
that's all for show. You know. I got a kick
out of the two They they use it for decoration.
They do it at college campuses too. In their business center.
They always gotta have the stock ticker going along the wall. Yeah. Really,

(02:10):
Now listen all the bells, whistles, trading software, algorithms, all
that stuff. Add yourself another computer, throw on some rock.
You know what, it's not gonna matter. It's not gonna matter.
You're not going to out trade the big banks. You're

(02:32):
not going to out trade the citadels. They will kick
the ship out of you. We had this the saying
with I'm coaching lacrosse, and you know, kids will you
know though, sometimes they'll think that they get better equipment

(02:54):
that they get better equipment, whatever it may be, it's
going to make them a better player. Quite frank, I mean,
and not be honest with you. Even when I was
a kid, I remember playing baseball and I saw this,
this wooden baseball bat, and I think it was the
same thing like Dave Winfield was using at the time.

(03:14):
It was like a two tone bat. It was like
black at the top and you know, normal color on
the bottom. And in my mind and Dave Winfield signature
on it, you know, would make me a better player. No, no,
you know during lacrosse, we used to tell the kids,
it's uh, it's not the wand it's the Wizard. So

(03:34):
you can buy all of this fancy gear and all
of this stuff, and guess what, you'll still get picked off.
They you're going to do better than just it's just
the reality of it. They want you out there, Okay,
they're counting on you. If you took if you took

(03:55):
a little league team, We'll give you the example. If
you took a little league and you gave him the
greatest equipment in the entire world, maybe a poor example,
you know what, high school college team, and then you
put out him against a professional baseball team, and the
professional baseball team has got to use the old stuff.

Speaker 3 (04:19):
I mean, we'll we'll give the high school or college
team aluminum bats and the fanciest gloves and all that stuff,
and we'll make the professional baseball team play with those
old school mits.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
I remember my dad's old baseball glove for when he
was a kid, and it was, you know, looked like
a blonking Cooperstown for crying out loud. That and wooden bats.
And guess what, the professional baseball team is going to
kick the crap out of you. That's who you're trading against.
You're not gonna win, but you're funny and your your
your setup is it's cute, it's quaint. Watchdog on Wall

(04:54):
Street dot Com