# Do 97% of Day Traders Lose Money? Where the Number Comes From

Source: https://www.tradicted.com/learn/do-97-percent-of-day-traders-lose-money/
Published: 2026-11-08

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Only for one group, in one country. The 97% comes from a study of Brazilian futures traders who kept day trading for more than 300 days.

Day trading is buying and selling the same asset within one trading session.

[Chagué, De-Losso and Giovannetti (2020)](/research/chagu-day-2020/) found 97% of those 1,551 traders lost money after fees. They were 7.9% of the 19,646 people who started day trading between 2013 and 2015.

The 97% describes the people who stayed, not everyone who tried.

Other studies measure broader groups and land between 71% and 93%. None finds a majority making money.

## Where does the 97% figure come from?

The 97% comes from "Day Trading for a Living?", an SSRN working paper by Fernando Chagué, Rodrigo De-Losso and Bruno Giovannetti. They used records from Brazil's securities regulator, the CVM, on everyone who started day trading mini-Ibovespa index futures from 2013 to 2015.

Of the 1,551 who day traded on more than 300 days, 97% lost money net of fees.

The 300-day cut fits the paper's question, whether a person can day trade for a living. Someone doing that trades on most days.

## What the 97% does and does not mean

Sticking with it did not rescue most people. Only 17 of the 1,551, or 1.1%, earned more than Brazil's minimum wage of US$16 a day.

Only 8 beat a bank teller.

It does not mean 97% of all day traders everywhere lose money. The sample is one futures contract in one country over 2013 to 2017.

It also does not describe the 92% who quit before 300 days. Quoting it as "97% of day traders" moves the number onto a group the paper did not measure.

## Every major study at a glance

| Study | Market and period | Who was measured | Finding |
|---|---|---|---|
| [Chagué, De-Losso & Giovannetti (2020)](/research/chagu-day-2020/) | Brazil, mini-Ibovespa futures, 2013-2017 | 1,551 who day traded 300+ days | 97% lost money net of fees |
| [Barber, Lee, Liu & Odean (2004)](/research/barber-day-2004/) | Taiwan Stock Exchange, 1995-1999 | 130,000+ day traders per six months | More than 80% lost money in a typical six months |
| Barber, Lee, Liu & Odean (2014) | Taiwan, 1992-2006 | All day traders | Fewer than 1% earned predictable abnormal returns after fees |
| [Barber, Lee, Liu, Odean & Zhang (2020)](/research/barber-learning-2020/) | Taiwan, 1992-2006 | 3.7 billion transactions | Lost 23.9 basis points a day after fees |
| [SEBI (2024)](/research/sebi-fo-traders-2024/) | India, equity F&O, FY22-FY24 | Over 1 crore individual traders | 93% lost money, about ₹2 lakh each |
| SEBI (2024), intraday study | India, equity cash segment, FY23 | 69 lakh intraday traders | 71% lost money |
| [ESMA (2018)](/research/esma-cfd-2018/) | EU, CFD brokers | Retail CFD accounts | 74-89% lose money |
| [SEC (2005)](/research/sec-day-trading-2005/) | United States | None | No percentage given |

The Taiwan studies are the closest to the classic picture of a day trader: individuals buying and selling the same stock on the same day, on an exchange that recorded every trade.

## Which number should you quote?

Match the number to the claim.

For "most day traders lose money," Barber, Lee, Liu and Odean (2004) is the cleanest source: more than 80% of Taiwan's day traders lost money in a typical six-month period. SEBI's intraday study gives 71% for India's cash market in FY23.

For "almost nobody makes a living at it," use Chagué et al. with its condition attached: 97% of those who lasted 300 days lost money, and 1.1% beat the minimum wage.

For "skill is rare," Barber, Lee, Liu and Odean (2014) found fewer than 1% of Taiwan's day traders could predictably earn positive abnormal returns after fees.

ESMA's 74-89% counts CFD accounts, not day traders. The SEC publishes no loss rate at all, so a percentage credited to the SEC is misattributed.

## Why do so many day traders lose?

Costs come first. SEBI found Indian individual F&O traders spent ₹26,000 each on transaction costs in FY24 alone.

The other side of the trade is often a machine. In the same data, 96% of proprietary traders' profits came from algorithmic trading.

Losing does not make most people stop. Nearly three-quarters of Taiwan's day trading volume came from traders with a history of losses, Barber et al. (2020) found.

Of the 1,551 Brazilians who day traded for more than 300 days, 8 earned more than a bank teller's starting salary of US$54 a day. The other 1,543 did not.