why 8 out of 10 day traders lose money?

a study of transaction history of the taiwan stock exchange over a five-year period

had revealed the following interesting facts

* individual traders put 22% of their money for day trading

* institutions put 5% of their money for day trading

but the real shocking statistic is this:

"if all day traders (individuals as well as institutional) are arranged in decreasing order of their trade value

then top 1% account for 50% of all day trading volume!!!"

this is the crux of the study

which proves

that day trading is the game which big players play with tiny (i repeat, they said "tiny") players

--

as the authors of the study concluded

"day trading is treacherous, but not entirely a fool's game."

according to them, 8 out of 10 day traders lose money

while a small fraction (i repeat, they said "fraction") of day traders earn large persistent profits.