Why is it hard to make profit in day trading?

Once we become traders, we have all experienced this ourselves. Similarly, the traders watching this video right now probably get the urge to enter Buy or Sell orders. When you have free time all day, you just want to jump into the market. When we start looking for where to buy or where to sell, we often end up actually placing an order. But when we enter, rather than taking a trade because it genuinely aligns with our trade strategy and setups, it's much more likely that we are forcing a setup to exist in the current market just so we can place an order. You might not even realize you're doing this. Take a moment to think back on it.

We have experienced this ourselves. Let's say you haven't found an order setup yet, and you don't know whether to buy or sell. At that moment, it just so happens that other traders, or people in other groups, make a profit when the price drops. Or the price suddenly shoots up, and they make a profit from the uptrend. They then post their profitable trades online or on social media. That's when we start questioning ourselves: "Wow, they got an order, why didn't I? Am I being lazy? Or did I just fail to see this setup?" We tend to start blaming ourselves.

To be able to enter orders like them, what do we end up doing? We start searching for new setups. We start studying techniques that we aren't familiar with. For example, let's say a trader posts online about the profit they made from that recent price surge. They do a recap, explaining things strictly from their own perspective—maybe it was because the RSI was at a certain level, or liquidity was swept at a specific area, or there was a structural break in the trend. Seeing that, you think, "Ah, I need to learn this so I can enter orders like him," and you end up studying techniques that aren't even relevant to your own style.

As a result, you accumulate a mix of too much knowledge. Because of this, as soon as you open a chart in the current market, you instantly feel like you know whether to buy or sell. This is a massive problem. It brings us right back to the original topic: instead of trading because your actual setup appeared, you start forcing a trade setup to exist in the current market.

When this happens, as so-called full-time traders, we wake up in the morning and immediately look at the market. We think about whether to buy or sell. We end up revolving around this cycle all day long. In reality, when you look at the whole week from Monday to Friday, you might find that you don't have any substantial profits, and instead, you're just facing losses.

Let me give you a practical example from my own experience. Suppose I target 1,000 pips at a certain price level and enter an order. I tell myself, "I'm going to buy this much this week and make a profit up there," and I set my Take Profit. My order might take 4 days, 5 days, or sometimes a whole week to play out.

But other traders aren't like that. They buy in the current market. Then the price drops a bit, and they want to enter a sell order there. They want to profit when the price goes up, and they want to profit when it goes down. So, if you're just sitting there without trading while others are actively trading and posting their orders, you get the urge to jump in. You end up wasting the whole week just buying and selling over and over.

Let's say by the end of the 5-day week, my 1,000-pip TP is finally hit. But what happens to that other trader? After constantly buying and selling all week, the market eventually closes, and they are left with absolutely no meaningful profit.

[9/16/2026 2:00 PM] Carl Saxx: Why does this happen? It's because you have too many strategies and too many setups. Forcing signals to appear in the current price when they aren't actually there is our main problem. Where does this problem start? Exactly as I mentioned earlier: when you sit out and don't trade, others are trading and posting their signals, or doing recaps about their profits.

Let me tell you something: history is written by the victors. The reality of the market is that only the winners talk. People doing recaps because they won is common; doing recaps when they lose is extremely rare. You need to understand this. Without realizing this, you might think, "Wow, these guys are so good, I want to make profits just like them." Don't fall for that. While they might be profiting from a quick trade at that moment, those same people could also be taking heavy losses behind the scenes. You need to be aware of this.

So, when you get into trading, you absolutely must ask yourself the question I raised earlier: Are you taking a trade because your setup actually appeared, or are you forcing a setup to exist just so you can trade? You need to know the answer.

Another point is that trying too hard to hyper-improve your trading skills can also be very dangerous. Let's say you trade with Price Action, someone else trades with Liquidity concepts, and others use Indicators. Trying to chase and learn every single method they use will ultimately lead you into deep trouble.