Day trading for a living

The claim

“Claude came up with a dead simple NQ trend strategy. 71% winners, profit factor 3.24. No sweeps. No FVGs. Just trend continuation, confirmed on 3 higher timeframes.” (truncated)

@RHerman, 5 October 2026, 26,756 views¹

“NQ” is a contract that follows the Nasdaq-100 share index. “Sweeps” and “FVGs” are chart patterns, “higher timeframes” are charts with longer bars, and profit factor is total winnings divided by total losses¹. The text does not say whether the 71% comes from a test on past prices or from real trades¹. A plainer version, from a small account we do not name, says $400 a day comes to $10,000 a month and is not hard¹. This page judges the scheme, not the people who tweeted.

The sums

The New York Stock Exchange has 251 trading days in 2026 (our sum)². $400 on every one is $100,400 a year, or about $8,370 a month, not $10,000, before any losing day, fee or tax².

Starting is cheap. In June 2026 the US regulator FINRA replaced its $25,000 minimum for frequent day trading of shares; its floor is now $2,000 in an account that borrows from the broker³⁴. Some brokers may still apply the old rule until October 2027; we did not check how many³. But the return needed does not shrink (our sums, without reinvesting gains)⁵⁷:

What happens to most people who try

In Brazil, among people who began day trading index futures in 2013 to 2015 and persisted 300 days or more, “97% of them lost money” and 0.4% earned more than a bank teller (US$54 a day); the authors found “no evidence of learning by day trading” (we read the abstract only)⁸. In Taiwan, more than eight in ten lost in a typical six months, and more than 75% quit within two years⁹¹⁰.

A wider group did better: among 36,538 ordinary US futures traders in 2021 to 2022, the median lost an estimated $100 to $200 and about 4 in 10 at least broke even, though the regulator’s data miss same-day trades⁶⁰.

“Prop firms” sell paid tests on practice accounts and share profits with those who pass²⁴. By the firms’ own figures, about 17% of Topstep starters and 11.5% of Tradeify starters received any payout (our estimate, assuming both percentages describe one group)²⁰²².

The upside

Success is real, measured and rare. In Taiwan “about 13% earn profits net of fees in the typical year”, but “less than 1% of day traders (1,000 out of 360,000) are able to outperform consistently”¹¹. Even for that group, day trading was “only 6% of total capital at risk”, so this does not show a living¹¹.

The best documented individual is Ross Cameron, founder of Warrior Trading. His page states gains of $18,810,638 from 2017 to the end of 2025³⁵. This is his own publication, with an accountant’s report we did not open; it says figures “may represent gross or net gains”³⁵. His company, the one in the regulator case below, sells memberships and says his “results are NOT typical”³⁶.

By our estimate, the most likely first year is a loss of fees and some capital. A good one is ending slightly ahead after costs, or passing a prop test and receiving one or a few payouts in the low thousands of dollars, against several hundred dollars of fees²⁰²²²⁸. The payout size rests on a secondary trade-press report²⁸.

What it takes to compete

In Taiwan the likeliest to profit were “heavy traders with past success and experience”¹¹. Nothing we found shows that buying a system or membership puts a person in that group.

A test at Topstep costs $49 to $199 a month²⁴. At Tradeify, participants started a median of 3 tests and resets each²⁰. One course seller’s memberships run from $997 to $3,997 at list price³⁶.

To tell early, log every trade with fees. In Taiwan, the traders who kept beating costs had a profitable record and more than 40 days of day trading in the past year; that is a minimum of activity, not proof of skill⁹. Set a budget and a stopping point first: in India more than 75% of losing traders kept trading¹³. Before paying anyone, ask for account size, dollars risked per trade, every losing day, and whether the account is real money; the collected tweet texts give none¹.

Who else makes money from it

Our collection file records 8 of the 11 accounts (our agents counted 7 or 8) as showing a community, course, tool or channel¹. Brokers are paid per trade whatever the result⁵⁶. Prop firms collect a fee from everyone who starts a test; Tradeify pays referrers 15% on plans and 5% on resets, the fee for restarting after failing²¹. In 2022 Warrior Trading agreed, without a trial, to pay $3 million after the US consumer regulator, the FTC, alleged that “the vast majority of customer accounts actually lost money”³⁰. We read the FTC’s press release only and found no company reply³⁰.