Day Trading

The books recommended by others here are great. It's hard to advise you further not knowing how much you do/don't know about the market. The paper trading practice sites are an essential. Try those out in earnest and you'll save yourself from unnecessary mistakes later when errors cost real money.

I find that it's important to do a few things:

1. Chart the S&P for uptrends and downtrends – when you see an established trend the market will tend to move that way, and stay within the down slope and up slope "channel" in its daily activity for multiple days. This gives you added confidence as to when to "buy", when to "add to" your position, and when to cash out. When a stock busts out up or down that can be the opportunity to get in or out (depending on direction) of a given index, ETF, or stock. This will also help you stabilize your stock monitoring because you will focus on the stocks at present which are near "support (floor)" or ceiling (resistance)" positions. To help me do this, I've found it is incredibly valuable to have a second computer screen (I use two PCs because I'm mobile when I want to be) with several key screens of data/chart references.

One screen has no more than 6 stocks I'm watching that day, with charts on each screen.

One screen has all major sectors' charts on it – by sector fund (USO, OIH, etc.)

One screen has 52 week uptrending stocks I'm monitoring for pullbacks

Other screens are categoric (e.g., AG companies)

2. Using other resources such as the 52 week high stocks (WSJ, YahooFinance, Google Finance, etc.), and Top 100 (IBD.com) are also opportunities to check for trends, and determine whether to jump on this momentum during a given day, or to wait for a pullback and get in before a multi-day upswing for a multi-day "swing" trade. If you put in the time, you will identify pending breakouts.

3. Listen to Fast Money to pick up on hot trends and expert interviews that can indicate stocks to watch since they have such a wide audience.

4. Keep track of volume levels and beware of low volume days.

5. Track sector movement and rotations. Institutional buyers will dictate what will move, whether it "makes sense" to you or not.

6. Listen to Art Cashen (sp?) – every morning about 9:15 AM EST before the market opens. His insights are usually good indicators to align with or watch for. Good pulse on the market.

7. Know that a margin account can be traded every day with no interest if you don't carry it over night. Non-margin accounts will have a 3 day carry cycle until you can reinvest the funds.

Best wishes for success. Cramer can be a goof on some topics, but knowing what he's tracking can also give you one or two key stocks to watch for the next day if conditions align to support those stocks. His trading rules lists are very good.