day trading - what's the catch?

[qral]

Hello,
I'm just interested if is it possible or there is some catch. I see that price of BTC on stocks is different (of course) but the difference is big enough to make money with just buying on one stock and selling on the other one. So my Q is what's the catch? I already checked fees and still it's should be ok.

I've never trade BTC (yet) so correct me if I'm wrong or there is only classic risks like falling price..

I check price @  http://bitcoincharts.com/markets/currency/USD.html

Thanks in advance for your time.

[merockstar]

the catch is you're going to guess wrong at some point and lose out on a lot of money.

this is because there are people with enough funds to manipulate the market when it still has such a small market cap.

buy and hold.

[CEG5952]

To be honest, it's not that difficult to make $$ trading BTC, considering its history. Buy low, sell high. Buy high, sell higher. Not realizing the loss when the market moves against you has historically always worked out -- but we'll see how the $1100+ crowd fares.

Now, that's making $$. Making both $$ on BTC profits is a lot more difficult. You may find even though you are making more $$, over time, you may be losing coins.

[Stinky_Pete]

I see that price of BTC on stocks is different (of course) but the difference is big enough to make money with just buying on one stock and selling on the other one.

This sounds more like arbitrage than day trading. Are you sure you know what you are doing?

[fatguyyyyy]

Daytrading in any form, is similar to gambling imo.

Dont get me wrong, daytrading is totally different from just buy bitcoin at its low then holding on to it.

When you are doing day trading, your making multiple trades within that hour depending on your approach.

[CEG5952]

Daytrading in any form, is similar to gambling imo.

Dont get me wrong, daytrading is totally different from just buy bitcoin at its low then holding on to it.

When you are doing day trading, your making multiple trades within that hour depending on your approach.

No, that's not necessarily true. To be specific, that would be "intra-day" trading. Day trading positions can take place over the course of days (plural) to be sure. I rarely make more than one trade in a day (scalping), but I do trade on the 1hr/4hr charts, so, days.

[Gimmelfarb]

the catch is that a lot of people don't have the psychological and emotion control to be winning traders. it may look easy, but it's not. it takes skill, hard work and a lot of patience to let your trading positions play out.

[Malin Keshar]

Daytrading in any form, is similar to gambling imo.

Dont get me wrong, daytrading is totally different from just buy bitcoin at its low then holding on to it.

When you are doing day trading, your making multiple trades within that hour depending on your approach.

No, that's not necessarily true. To be specific, that would be "intra-day" trading. Day trading positions can take place over the course of days (plural) to be sure. I rarely make more than one trade in a day (scalping), but I do trade on the 1hr/4hr charts, so, days.

Intra-day trading is perfectly possible, on bitstamp for example its common see more than 0.4% variations when the market is sideaways, so its possible have at least small profits from day trading. 

[Gimmelfarb]

Daytrading in any form, is similar to gambling imo.

Dont get me wrong, daytrading is totally different from just buy bitcoin at its low then holding on to it.

When you are doing day trading, your making multiple trades within that hour depending on your approach.

No, that's not necessarily true. To be specific, that would be "intra-day" trading. Day trading positions can take place over the course of days (plural) to be sure. I rarely make more than one trade in a day (scalping), but I do trade on the 1hr/4hr charts, so, days.

Intra-day trading is perfectly possible, on bitstamp for example its common see more than 0.4% variations when the market is sideaways, so its possible have at least small profits from day trading. 

i don't think he was saying it wasn't possible. he was making a distinction between day trading and intraday trading, since a lot of people erroneously think that day traders always close positions before the end of day, and multiple times a day.

[InwardContour]

Daytrading in any form, is similar to gambling imo.

Dont get me wrong, daytrading is totally different from just buy bitcoin at its low then holding on to it.

When you are doing day trading, your making multiple trades within that hour depending on your approach.

No, that's not necessarily true. To be specific, that would be "intra-day" trading. Day trading positions can take place over the course of days (plural) to be sure. I rarely make more than one trade in a day (scalping), but I do trade on the 1hr/4hr charts, so, days.

Intra-day trading is perfectly possible, on bitstamp for example its common see more than 0.4% variations when the market is sideaways, so its possible have at least small profits from day trading. 

i don't think he was saying it wasn't possible. he was making a distinction between day trading and intraday trading, since a lot of people erroneously think that day traders always close positions before the end of day, and multiple times a day.

With a market that does not every technically close there really is no distinction between a day trader and an intra-day trader.

[Gimmelfarb]

Daytrading in any form, is similar to gambling imo.

Dont get me wrong, daytrading is totally different from just buy bitcoin at its low then holding on to it.

When you are doing day trading, your making multiple trades within that hour depending on your approach.

No, that's not necessarily true. To be specific, that would be "intra-day" trading. Day trading positions can take place over the course of days (plural) to be sure. I rarely make more than one trade in a day (scalping), but I do trade on the 1hr/4hr charts, so, days.

Intra-day trading is perfectly possible, on bitstamp for example its common see more than 0.4% variations when the market is sideaways, so its possible have at least small profits from day trading. 

i don't think he was saying it wasn't possible. he was making a distinction between day trading and intraday trading, since a lot of people erroneously think that day traders always close positions before the end of day, and multiple times a day.

With a market that does not every technically close there really is no distinction between a day trader and an intra-day trader.

well, i'd say there certainly is when someone defines a "day trader" as having to make "multiple trades within that hour". that simply isn't true, so it's a valid distinction to make, at least in this instance.

[ALToids]

What the OP is describing is arbitrage.  It works, but only in some areas (some countries don't have the speed to move $).  It doesn't work well on holiday weekends.  And you can lose a lot of the coin price jumps up and you're out in fiat.

[dothebeats]

Ahh. I see your talking about arbitrages. Well, there is no catch here. It's another form of risking your money if you do not have enough knowledge on what you're doing. It's also hard to go with the flow of the markets when you don't have the $$.

[cech4204a]

Before you make any decision, run a test for a short ammount of time, for example put all the choices you would make in excel and do it for 2 weeks and check if you are doing well. If you will notice you are good at it, than go ahead and good luck .

[Mudd]

The catch is it's not as easy as it looks. Sure, it looks simple buying low and selling high but it's never that simple. Give it a go and you'll soon find out.

[qral]

And thanks for reactions, I will give it a try

i don't think he was saying it wasn't possible. he was making a distinction between day trading and intraday trading, since a lot of people erroneously think that day traders always close positions before the end of day, and multiple times a day.

yea, I was more or less referring to "buy & sell higher", sorry for confusion.

[Frijj]

I think a lot of people think they can strike it rich by day trading, but very few people can make a living off of it. It takes up a lot of your time as well, but good luck if you try it.

[NapoleonBonaparte]

I think a lot of people think they can strike it rich by day trading, but very few people can make a living off of it. It takes up a lot of your time as well, but good luck if you try it.

Spot on.

Day trading is a loser game.

[galbros]

Arbitrage - making money off of differences in the exchange rates between the exchanges is possible but increasingly difficult.

Day trading - buying and selling BTC and alts is essentially a zero sum game, so your gains are someone else's losses.  So while it is possible to make a lot of profits here, it is hard to do so sustainably.

CEG makes a good point in that since the trend of BTC price has largely been up, if you buy and the market moves against you, if you hang on, you will probably be able to exit with a profit.  After all, a year ago, the price of BTC was only about 70 USD!

Note that this does NOT hold with alt coins.  They almost invariably get pumped and then dumped and then die a long slow death, check the price history of dogecoin for an example of this pattern and it was one of the more successful alts.

[Farmer17]

I believe OP is indeed thinking about arbitraging instead of day-trading.
For arbitrage, you could make profits if the price difference between two exchanges is large enough to cover all the trading, deposit and withdrawal fees.
For day-trade, you could make profits if you can buy low and sell high in the same exchange to cover the trading fee.