No day trader makes 2% a day without putting all their capital at risk. You can pick up nickels in front of steamroller till that one day it runs you over. I

No day trader makes 2% a day without putting all their capital at risk. You can pick up nickels in front of steamroller till that one day it runs you over. I day trade for a living and consider an extremely good month making 5% of total capital in my trading account. If you short high beta tech stocks on margin as you mentioned in your post, you'll get wiped out really fast. Go to Wallstreetbet subreddit and pull up the thread where a guy lost 1.5mm this year, he lost it shorting high beta tech stock that did a swing of 10% in the wrong direction forcing a margin call and a liquidation. If you wanted to capture the downside of a stock, you can buy puts without a margin account. You should probably really understand the market better before you expose yourself to a larger risk than the money you put in.