I want to start day trading and need some advice?

3 Answers

1. 
   

   
   

   Derek on Feb 10, 2011 Reply

   You’d be better off investing in mutual funds before learning day trading.

   I wouldn’t recommend it though.

   0 Votes 0 Votes  0 Votes

2. 
   

   
   

   robe on Feb 10, 2011 Reply

   With the current market making moves that have taken weeks and months in past years, it is not unwise to trade – it is unwise to trade without an understanding.

   I strongly recommend you take a trading course from the Online Trading Academy. Their headquarters is in San Diego and they have trading centers throughout larger cities in America. The 5000 you spend for a week of training with their money might seem like a lot, but I guarantee you you’ll lose far more than that if you try to start trading on your own without a platform and a plan. Contact them via their web site.

   All the best with your decision and your results. Remember the best opportunity, as in sports, is to take what the market is giving you, not what you want the market to be. Right now, there are some outstanding opportunities, but to the novice they can also wipe you out if you don’t know how to recognize trading patterns and use stops. Get schooled on the patterns and indicators and you can do very well. There will be a lot of people who tell you this is not possible, because they don’t understand what they are talking about. This is true of most people who think they know something about the market. Go to the people who do.

   0 Votes 0 Votes  0 Votes

3. 
   

   
   

   JohnGalt on Feb 10, 2011 Reply

   Education is your number one task. I can’t say whether Day Trading Academy (a previous post) is a good school or not. My take is as follows:

   You will ultimately need to learn for the rest of your life. If you take a class (and there are MANY available), be very careful about how much capital you commit to one strategy at the beginning. Get LOTS of recommendations, and spend as much time researching a trading school as you would researching a two year college. The $5,000 you spend on a week of school is not as significnat as the money you will lose if you are taught badly. Ultimately it takes time to learn to trade and part of your tuition is teh money you lose at the beginning..And remember you will be learning forever. I have day traded for ten years, and I just spent a week and about $3000 on more education. And I will spend even more as a result of that trip.

   Futures and ETFs are different, and not all brokers can handle both. Usually the compromises to do both in one place are large, but not always. I have been using Interactive Brokers to do both for a couple of years, but will likely be moving my daytrading account (futures) to another broker by year end. My advice is to NOT use a big stock company like Fidelity or Scwab to trade futures, even if they offer it. Better to choose a futures broker who also handles stocks.

   0 Votes 0 Votes  0 Votes