I’ll answer this in multiple layers.
First, let’s talk about 2 major ways to make money (assuming you’re not talking about inherence and winning prizes). It’s either through work or through passive income.
Passive income includes investing in dividend paying stocks, and/or bonds, CDs. Anything that’s “set and forget” would be passive, including collecting royalties after a book is already written.
Work means trading time and/or labor for money. Swing trading and day trading is the latter category, it’s not passive. Passive is great, but for most people with less than 100,000, you probably can’t get more than 1% a month or $1000 a month, so not enough to rely on for living.
Secondly. since we are talking about working, think about how much you can make TODAY within an hour. $5? $50? $500? That’s where the selection process begins. If you can make $100 an hour, good for you. If you can only make $5 per hour normally, then you should start looking for more ways.
Or alternatively, within the realm of “working” there’s basically 2 major categories: consistent time exchange, or skilled, challenging, trained work. Being a landlord would be considered the former, being a trader would also be the former. So to be clear, daily trading is closer to consistent income, like a per hour job.
Thirdly, why is day trading predictable? Because the biggest factor for profits is how much money you have. So it’s very much like owning a reseller business, but with far less labor, far faster transactions, far fewer moving parts. Just like being a landlord, the biggest predictor is how much your property is worth, not how many hours you put in.
Following? We have established that day trading is a form of income that’s not passive, but also predictable.
Why is day trading better than owning a business? Simplicity is key. Day trading has just as much consistency as business hours, and has far fewer external factors and risks.
Fourthly. if I’ve convinced you to trade, why is stocks better than forex or options or cryptocurrency or flipping houses? That’s both easy to answer and hard to debunk or argue against. Stocks are shares of a company, this means there’s always inherent value as long as the economy is moving. Stocks have specific trading hours, this means there are 5 days a week, and some bad days too. Stocks are subject to news and events, far more directly than speculative forex and cryptocurrency. Stocks are more concrete and material than crypto. But why not options? Options expire once a week, you have to be twice right, if not thrice. You need to be right on the direction, amount and day.
Let’s rank again.
Stocks are best because they are both intrinsic value and only trades 5 days a week.
Forex is bad because while they have intrinsic value, there’s far less news to influence a daily fluctuation.
Cryptocurrency is bad because you’re a fucking idiot if you still don’t know.
Options is bad because you need to be right thrice: direction, amount and date. (or rather, price and date, as opposed to just price)
*ipka* 