There seems to be a lot of confusion, misconception and misunderstanding about day trading and its advantages as well as disadvantages. Some people even say that it is a form of gambling. In this topic I want to explain why it is not and also address the most common issues which day traders encounter and how they handle them. Thank you for your attention.

First of all, day trading is no more gambling than any other trading. If the price rises you ride the wave, if it doesn't you wait until it does. That's pretty much all. In this sense, if day trading is gambling, then all trading is essentially gambling. Besides, arbitrage is also day trading which involves quite a few trades (actually, twice as many) albeit it is anything but gambling.

Further, there is a question of limited profitability. This question has some substance but it seems that people who raise it don't fully understand what day trading comes down to. Many erroneously think that it is mostly about missing good profit opportunities. In fact, nothing can be farther from truth than that. Day trading if done right is actually about maximizing your profits, not losing them.

Statistically, your best trading strategy would be capitalizing on both short-term volatility and long-term growth. Since most price moves happen in a rather narrow range followed by relatively rare but big price changes, an optimal strategy would be dividing your trading capital into parts, smaller parts for catching short-term volatility, while bigger parts for capitalizing on longer-term growth.