For Most, a Losing Game Securities regulators estimate that 70 percent of all day traders will end up as losers. Stuchiner is part of this statistic. One of Landmark's neighbors on Kearny Street is a business with window signs offering payroll advances to anyone short on cash.
Many day traders end up very short on cash.
Regulators are increasingly worried about the number of financially naive individuals who are chucking their day jobs and blowing their life savings in just months. Proposed regulation isn't designed to curb day trading, but to ensure that people aren't suckered in without understanding the risk. Over the summer, the state accused Landmark of using improper loan schemes at its Boston branch to provide cash at usurious rates to traders running out of money. Landmark officials denied the charges. At the San Francisco office where Stuchiner trades, the franchise owners say they reviewed procedures to ensure that there were no improprieties.