Comment by Projectiboga

The best is just buying the whole market via a index fund. Much lower management and overhead costs. Trying to trade without being online all the time is a battle against time delays and costs. To buy stocks, and especially options you are always against the bid/ask spread. The basic math problem for a statistics major is the Gambler's ruin problem. And basically your chances are your money over the whole table's money in total. Even worse if you don't have an exit strategy your chance of going bankrupt is near certain if the odds are even slightly below 50/50. That bid ask spread and incomplete order completion drive your odds down, and for short term trading it is basically a zero sum scenario.