EIGHT rows of men sit facing north, shunning the morning sun in favor of watching the pulsing computer monitors lined up, three to a man, in front of them. Occasionally, the hush is broken by the thump of a fist and a muttered profanity.

These men are not video game fanatics. They are day traders, at work one recent morning at the Fifth Avenue office of the Schonfeld Group. Day traders, that species of investor who tries to profit from short-term movements in stock prices over a few days, hours or even minutes, were a fixture in the city in the late 90's. But when the market tanked, their dreams of riding the soaring Nasdaq to a life of affluence - preferably on their own private island in the Caribbean - vanished. Chastened, they went back to their jobs as construction workers, teachers, pharmacists and mail carriers.

Now they have returned. Although the number of day traders is nowhere near what it was at the height of the dot-com bubble, defectors have gradually started to return, thanks to the relative strength of the market over the last 18 months. This is especially true in New York, where the beating of Wall Street's heart may be louder than anywhere else in the country and where day traders, now strewn across the globe, first captured the popular imagination in the mid-90's.

With the renewed interest comes the individual spirit of these "active" traders, a term many of them prefer so as to distance themselves from the excesses of the 90's.

"What is risk in life?" asked Gene Bonnano, who worked for I.B.M. for 22 years before becoming a full-time trader three years ago. "Working for Enron and having your pension taken away? Working for a big corporation like I did and not being able to spend time with your family?" A growing number of people seem to be thinking the same way. In February, about 5,100 people attended the International Traders Expo, a show catering to active traders at the Marriott Marquis in Midtown, up from fewer than 3,900 last year.

Trading is up at many local brokerages, too. Track Data, a brokerage based in Fort Greene, Brooklyn, that is geared to high-volume traders, reported a 15 percent jump in trading by individuals so far this year. And Schonfeld's 500 individual traders are buying and selling 35 million shares a day, up from 20 million this time last year.

Critics say such trading is basically gambling; on its Web site, the Securities and Exchange Commission warns investors, "Day trading is extremely risky and can result in substantial financial losses in a very short period of time."

Parts of the industry have been rife with abuses, and some have been the targets of legal actions by the government. But, in addition to offering the independence that day traders typically desire, advocates say day trading is safer than long-term investing and is an easy field to enter. All someone really needs to start is a chunk of cash, time and a willingness to learn. Today's day traders tend to be a little older and a lot wiser than those of the late 90's. Cary Gruber, an apple-cheeked man with perfect white teeth, has been trading his own account full time at Schonfeld since 1998, when he quit his job as a broker. Mr. Gruber, like other survivors of the dot-com years, has become more methodical, arming himself with innumerable charts and filters, a daily game plan and a lot of discipline. Unlike his wife, he has no aspirations to work on Wall Street. "It's not that glamorous over there," he said. "I control my destiny. I love that."

Peter Kaplan, who makes his living both by trading and by teaching traders, works from his home, a spacious, newly renovated apartment near Gramercy Park. A sandy-haired 36-year-old with a goatee, Mr. Kaplan listens to electronic trance music while he works. "It keeps me jacked up and focused," he said from his perch in front of three flat-panel monitors plastered with financial data.

His profession is very different from the one he intended to pursue. After graduating from Skidmore College in 1990 with a degree in English, Mr. Kaplan spent five years working on a novel. The book was never published, but he managed to make a tidy living from his stock-trading hobby. His father, who works for Bear Stearns, was proud - sort of. "He wanted to see me put on a suit and tie and go get a job," Mr. Kaplan said. IN 2000, he decided to get some education to help him beat the brewing bear market. After taking an intensive weekend course, he sat his wife down and told her: "Honey, we're going to be millionaires! Pull out a map and pick out an island!"

That didn't happen. In fact, with $400 to $500 a day in trading fees, he started losing substantial money. It took him more than two years to unlearn his fast and furious trading habits and to develop his own philosophy. These days, he works more slowly and steadily, and is obsessed with charts. One of his students, Stan Raj, divides his time between the buildings he manages in Staten Island and his home trading office there, where he is equipped with four monitors and a cable modem. "I'd much rather trade than anything else," he said. "There's freedom involved. You can do it from anywhere in the world. All you need is a computer. No boss. No employees." Still, making it as a day trader is tough. The show at the Marriott Marquis closed with a live trading duel, conducted with fanfare under four large chandeliers. Two men, both in gray, both balding, sat before laptops. Behind them, on two large screens, sell orders ticked by in red and buy orders in blue. There was no sweat, no blood, no tears - just a steady stream of numbers.

During the duel, those present discussed practical issues surrounding the profession. "How much money should you make your first year?" asked Scott Kohl, who is the head trader at Alaron Trading Corporation and who provided steady narration during the electronic duel. His answer: "Have enough left over so you can start your second year."