Lately, X (formerly known as Twitter), has been loaded with the posts of many angry traders and investors who came to know that their beloved influencers, who have been teaching them for years about the topic of how to become full-time ‘Profitable’ traders through their contents and courses, are themselves in losses.
This anger is obvious among the audience as the influencers who claimed to be profitable in many of their YouTube videos and tweets came out to be facing significant losses in their options trading (or derivative) journey, as per the historical verified profit and loss statements or the annual income tax filings. Some of these influencers have been even featured in Ted Talks and other Tier-1 college fests.
The current scenario on X and Youtube
Many traders and investors, especially Options traders, have been continuously posting their profit screenshots on X or YouTube in the last few years, showing lacs of rupees of profits in a single day while trading options.
Although showing or not showing the profit screenshot is the right of any trader in India and no one can stop them, however, editing the screenshot to lure new followers or subscribers is flawed on many levels. Moreover, showing only the profitable days and not showing the loss-making days to the followers or subscribers is also not correct.
Definitely, first-time traders or investors would want to follow and subscribe to the influencers who are saying that they are making lacs of profits in a single day and would like to learn from them through their courses, seminars, or other forms of content. However, rarely do any of the newbies know that these screenshots and profits could be faked.
What’s Wrong?
The major flaw in showing one day’s profit or loss is that the trader could be making a big profit in a day in one on their trading account (they may have multiple accounts), however, the trader might be in overall losses when seen on a yearly basis.
Rs 1 lac profit in options trading in a day doesn’t mean Rs 20 lac profit for that trader in a month, assuming 20 trading days in that month. Generally, the trader would have losses too which need to be compensated and shown, but is not shown by many of these traders.
Moreover, if the risk management is wrong, the losses might be even bigger than the profits, which may even lead to the erosion of the trading capital and losses. In addition, if you add the costs like brokerages, GST, etc., the overall take-home profits might be even less or worse.
Therefore, traders luring followers and subscribers by just showing a day’s profit and loss, but not showing the entire month’s or year’s (true) profit and loss statement, doesn’t show the right picture of their trading scenario to their followers and might be misguiding them.
Furthermore, if they are editing or faking their profit screenshot, it is definitely a fraud.
What’s right?
If an influencer is sharing their trading screenshots on any of the social media channels, they should show the entire real scenario to their followers and should not show only the profitable days. Faking or editing the trading profit screenshots by the influencer should definitely be considered as fraud.
The verified PnL statements of the last few years could help a little to understand the real scenario to the users. However, according to the recent concerns shared by a few users on ‘X’, even verified PnLs could be faked or hacked. Looking into the Yearwise ITR filings of the influencers claiming to make a lack of rupees from trading is another option, however, it might be personal as the public will also be looking into all the sources of income and expenses of that influencer.
Obviously, the trader may have losses or drawdowns in some years, which the community can understand. Nonetheless, hiding this fact and only showing the beautiful picture of making profits from options trading is not justice to the new traders or their followers.
In addition, If they are not comfortable with showing their losses, they should also not show their profits to their followers or the community just to gain popularity or grow their following.