day trading... a hobby or a source of income?

Hi, I'm pretty new here (like 90 days or so)
I just bought a token amount of lindens to try to figure out the system, but I still have some questions.

In the faq, it says accounts can only purchase/sell no more than 2000$ per rolling 30 days. is that for all accounts or just for free accounts? can alts on another credit card purchase another 2000$?

next question, can day traders only have 2000$ worth of volume traded in 30 days or 2000$ worth of net change?

finally, I thought that premium accounts could turn more money... did the policy change, or did I read that in a different faq?

$2000US a month is for everyone wo has been here longer than 45 days, with te only inreases being if you are a business class or a trader class type. You can ask for increases in trading allowance by e-maling linden lab. Whether you are free or premium apparently doesn't affect this.

$2000US I belive is per character, regardless of whether it is owned by the same person or not, but I coul be wrong. My other alt has $2000 too, so when my main got filed I was able to use the other.

$2000US volume means you ca buy $2000US worth and sell $2000US worth. This can become a poblem if you buy and sell $2000US worth, but there is a big difference in the actal $L traded, meaning you ca end up with left-over $L or left-over $US.

The limitation is for all acounts, but ...
Check here : https://secondlife.com/currency/describe-tiers.php

You can request a higher limit.

ok, so you can buy 2000$ and sell 2000$ but either action does not affect the other? for example, say I dropped 2 grand on lindens, then I sold half of them in the same day. Then I still would not be able to buy any more for an entire month, right?

also, a new question. It looks to me like there propably aren't many day traders out there. Since there is a 3.5% fee on all sells, the linden would have to drop 10 points (at today's prices) just to cover the margin. There might be some people that watch the market carefully enough to make a buck or two on an especially volatile day, but based on the history, it doesn't look like the market moves fast enough for day trading.

Or am I wrong?

Each action is independent. There are people making money day trading but they have had their tier upgraded and can trade as much as $20,000 per rolling 30 day period on both the buy side and sell side. I would advise asking for an upgrade as soon as you hit the tier limit. There currently are not that many limit buyers out there as it requires hundreds or thousands of USD. What you look for is a good buy price and set a sell price you are comfortable with and wait for the sell market to come down to your price. Good luck.

Svar has it right. I think there are a fair number of day traders, but since their strategies differ, it is hard to detect some of the activity from the statistics. My trading would have to fit in the "hobby" category, as I have only lost on one trade so far, but don't make enough to be significant. I usually try to do a round trade while I am online, as I don't trust the market for longer periods of time. Hope this helps a little.

well, I can't see how day traders can make any money...yet. And no doubt if there are any serious day traders out there, they won't be discussing their strategies publicly here.

Anyway, this is how it seems... we have had the most volatile past 3 days that there have been in the past 2 and a half months. However, with all that volatility, somone that bought 3 days ago at market average, and sold today at market average would make .03% on their money after factoring in the 3.5% commision. Heck, anyone could do better than that just investing in game.

It seems like investing in lindens would be a mid-long term thing

can anyone prove me wrong with data?

421155 Limit Sell L$80,000 L$80,000 L$311 / US$1.00 2006-07-01 09:23:42 2006-07-01 14:09:29 fill US$257.33 US$248.19
421104 Limit Sell L$80,000 L$80,000 L$311 / US$1.00 2006-07-01 08:59:31 2006-07-01 13:55:16 fill US$257.31 US$248.21
421094 Limit Sell L$60,000 L$60,000 L$311 / US$1.00 2006-07-01 08:53:54 2006-07-01 13:45:17 fill US$192.99 US$186.16
421075 Limit Sell L$30,000 L$30,000 L$311 / US$1.00 2006-07-01 08:40:55 2006-07-01 13:39:25 fill US$96.51 US$93.07

421034 Limit Buy L$250,000 L$250,000 L$327 / US$1.00 2006-07-01 08:20:48 2006-07-01 09:22:36 fill US$764.59 US$764.89

Cost US$764.89, sold US$775.63, profit US$10.74. If it were sold today the sold amount would be US$809.56 based on a rate of L$298/1 and the profit would be US$44.67 or 5.8%.

that's quite impressive, but that looks to me like a mid term investment. You could have sold 3 days ago for the same profit (about 1.7%) You actually would have had to hold for 25 days to make 5.8% And you could have made another 22$ if you let it sit in ginko financial for the past 25 days (of course then you can't have any limit sells hanging out there)

The L$ was purchased on 7/1/06 if I held for 25 days it would sell 7/26/06. Come back on 7/26/06 and tell me how much money you could have made with it sitting in Ginko Financial versus it being sold at the highest exchange rate in 3 weeks, or 2 weeks on next week. Take your pick there is now way you will beat the current correction in profit potential if you are willing to hold that long. This was a day trade held 5 hours.

You would have beat out the person with their money in ginko. But I never disputed that. All I'm saying is that the market has to rise 11 points just to cover the comission on selling; and if you do sell, you are essentilly betting that the value of l$ will drop by more than 11 points in the next 30 days or else you could have just left your money in game and made the same amount. (at today's prices) Basically, you're betting that the wild swing that we just saw would happen at least twice a month. (which it might, if you have time to watch your computer all day)

Honestly, I want to play the day trading market, but every time I think about selling, I just can't turn down that great interest rate in game. I assume some day the SL banks will either have to fold or else get their interest rates down to a reasonable level. That's when I'll start playing the day market. I think there is a RL prescedent for that, too. Small upstart companies outperform blue chips aggregately, but of course there is more risk.

Thanks for all the input everybody