Patar Brenbt

Jason Shapiro (@Crowded_Mkt_Rpt) is spot-on. I recently spent time dissecting data from a landmark study of the Taiwan Stock Exchange (TSE). It wasn't an easy task—there are plenty of analytical tripwires and the data is incredibly dense—but the conclusions are a massive reality check for anyone in this game. The dataset covered the entire market’s transaction history over a 15-year period (1992–2006), analyzing the performance of roughly 450,000 individual day traders. - check out the work of Brad Barber, Yi-Tsiu Lee, Yu-Jane Liu, and Terrance Odean for this. - “Do Individual Day Traders Make Money? Evidence from Taiwan” The Reality of the Numbers: The 1%: While about 20% of traders might have a profitable year at some point, only about 1,000 to 4,000 (less than 1%) were able to earn a profit consistently year after year once you factored in commissions and taxes. The Friction Trap: For the majority, any "gross" profits were entirely swallowed by high-frequency transaction costs. They weren't just fighting the market; they were fighting the math. The 0.1% Club: The study did find a tiny group of traders (the top 500) who were incredibly skilled and earned significant, consistent Alpha. We’re talking about people like Jason Shapiro, Mark Minervini, Kristjan Kullamägi, and Peter Brandt. These aren't just "the 1%." We are talking about the 0.1%—roughly 1 in a thousand. The Conclusion:Genuine skill exists, it isn’t luck, but nor it overnight journey. Jason has been on the AlphaMind Podcast several times and has been vocal about the years of pain and "hard yards" required to reach that level. @markminervini told us the exact same thing when he joined us last year. If you expect this to be a quick journey, expect to be part of the 99%. Even if you make it into the 1%, you should still be aiming to be the 10% of that group who truly becomes "special." The path to the 0.1% is paved with persistence. There are no shortcuts.