When I was assigned this story, I figured it would be easy to get behind the scenes at a day-trading office until people started hanging up on me. Sorry, no takers. You reporters have given us a lot of bad press. Only Gregor Bleimann, one of the two owners of Landmark's San Francisco franchise, invites me to observe. At our height a few months ago, we had about 23 traders.
People love to trade in a long market.
Now trading conditions are tougher. Over the past year, day trading's image has been radically tarnished. When the Dow soared to historic highs last winter, stories spotlighted this curious new breed of stock trader. But seven months later, day trading has become not the John Wayne, but the Rodney Dangerfield of Wall Street. As the increasingly unpredictable market churns out more losers, regulators are uncovering questionable trading practices.