no, it is not nearly as easy at it is. Anyone who says otherwise is either exceptionally lucky or is lying . if it really was as easy as it seems, many of us wouldn’t be buying real estate too. and that in itself is not a walk in the park too.

I don’t try to be right all the time. I just try to be right enough time to be worth the hassle. If that means taking much smaller bites each time, so be it. And if I am consistently wrong for a stretch of time, it means I should spend more time doing a passive index fund. I don’t trust myself to put everything into my own abilities. it’s just dumb luck. Tax time is a pain in the ass. Before one use to have to enter all 300+ transactions into turbo tax. Now, a lot of it is figured out for you by your brokerage including cost basis and wash sales rules. But sometimes the do get it wrong. Especially when it comes to option contracts. I don’t think I have filed a 1040 less than 100 pages in a long time, and I have a weird case that I need to always mail the state tax in, and can’t do electronic. at least I’m creating jobs. someone had to scan/enter >100 pages into the system.