Day Trading

Trade first on a simulator to test your theories at Investopedia.com

When you start making "virtual" money, then you can risk your own.

http://simulator.investopedia.com/home.aspx

http://investopedia.com

http://investing.sitesled.com/

http://futures.tradingcharts.com/learning/

Blogs

http://winners-and-losers.com/

Training & classes

http://bettertrades.com

http://investedcentral.com

ETF news and analysis

http://ETF-World.Org/

Article: Trading is Timing

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/trading/06/TradingisTiming.asp

Stock Charts

Bigcharts.com

http://www.stockTA.com

http://www.stockcharts.com

http://www.incrediblecharts.com…

www.prophet.net
americanbulls.com

Books on Investing

"Which Is Better, Buy-and-Hold or Market Timing?"

"Do You Have What It Takes to Be a Market Timer

The Beginner's Bible in Technical Analysis is:
Edwards & McGee"Tech. Anal. Of Stock Trends"

Droke, ClifTechnical Analysis Simplified

Kahn, Michael N.Tech. Anal. Plain & Simple

Kamich, Bruce M.How Technical Analysis Works

Lefevre, EdwinReminiscences of a Stock Operator

Lofton, ToddGetting Started in Futures

Lowenstein, RogerBuffet (Warren)-The Making of a Capitalist

O'Neil, William J.How to Make Money in Stocks

Oz, TonyHow to Make Money From Wall Street

Rotella, Robert P.Elements of Successful Trading, The

Schwager, JackStock Market Wizards

For the price, you can't beat Telechart. It has everything you'll need in one place. Speed and efficiency is unsurpassed. You can sort thru 8000 stocks in seconds to find any criteria (and I mean ANY criteria) you can think of. If it's not a function of TC, then you can easily write your own personal criteria formula.

Each function key on your keyboard can represent 12 different chart configurations, so you can look at these 12 different criteria in seconds. As soon as you hit the "F" key, the chart is displayed on your screen.

Did I mention that it has all the industry groups? If you looking at a stock and you want to know how the industry is doing, just switch over to the industry group with a click of the mouse.

All the indicies are also grouped together. You can also download that group of stocks that meet your criteria into a CSV file for importing to XL. I especially like this feature.

The support you get from the Wordens is unsurpassed also, and I couldn't get by my day without reading the daily wisdom from Peter or Don.
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My experience has been that a "trade" is considered to be the order ans all of its fills. In the attached link, the SEC makes it very clear that a pattern day-trader is supposed to be a real day-trader. Counting each fill would snare too many customers in the net.

From Rule 2520:
"The term "day[-]trading" means the purchasing and selling or the selling and purchasing of the same security on the same day in a margin account"

"The term "pattern day trader" means any customer who executes four or more day trades within five business days. However, if the number of day trades is 6% or less of total trades for the five business day period, the customer will not be considered a pattern day trader"

It's pretty clear to me that to "execute" a trade. I place an order and get fills. The order and the fills are a "trade". Now, if your two "buys" are based upon two separate orders, then the pattern you ask about would be two day trades.

Further info:
Interactiveborkers gives clear examples of day trades on their website. Another reason why I like that firm so much. Looks like your two buys and one sell example is just one day trade.

Day trading is tricky, whether your doing it for real or as an exercise like you are doing here. The primary problem is that over very short periods of time, individual stocks as well as the stock market indexes can be extremely volatile. You might as well throw darts at a dart board marked out with all of the stock symbols because it pretty much is sheer luck over such a short time frame anyway.

I'm not familiar with CNBC's Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge, so I don't know what their investing time horizon is like for this task. Depending on how long that horizon is, I would probably make different sets of choices for your million dollars. Over a longer horizon, I would probably do some research and then pick 20 stocks, $50,000 each, and then let them sit there and do nothing for several months as that is, historically, the best way to get a return on investment. Too much "in and out" of the market would kill you on commission costs alone anyway.

I use Scottrade and love it! The stream from Scott works great. I don't know about BofA, but I suspect it's comparable. I'd think again about using Scottrade, they do one thing only and are very good at it. BofA does hundreds of things, some good, some not so good.

Based upon your diction I would suggest you start with some research. Try http://www.marktetstock.net for starters.

You better know what you're doing and have been doing for a while. and thay you understand the maket and the rules governing it.

Here are four rules you must have, if you don't you will loose money
1 – A written sound trading/investment plan with rules that will not only help you but more importantly protect you, mostly from yourself.
2 – Sufficient trading/investment capital. Use your own money, there’s no need to go into debt so that you trade/invest.
3 – A written money management program in place. Remember never invest 100% of your capital into any one security and never have 100% of your capital invested.
4 – A full and complete understanding of the rules & regulations of the industry.

Here are some of the rules that I follow, in additiona to the four cardinal rules above.
Never buy or sell based on anyone's, including your own, market predictions.
Stick with up-trending stocks.
Never buy stocks in danger of filing for or actually in bankruptcy.
Never average down.
Always sell when management cuts sales or earnings forecasts.
Only buy stocks with real sales and real earnings.
Always diversify between industries.
Don't buy stocks just because they've gone up.
Never sell a stock because an analyst proclaims it is overvalued.
Always look for companies with new ideas, new styles or new products.
Orders after an execution – a “stop loss”
No security is to be purchased at a price that is below the 50-day moving average price.

Good luck, based on your question, you're going to need it

DIY?

Online trading has lowered commissions to the point where they are no longer the primary consideration. Ditto for good execution, if indeed they are Direct Access. If you decide later to trade commodities, options, futures, or currencies, TerraNova may be the only one that you can trade everything, real time, online, direct access. A lot of online brokerages claim to give you direct access, but if they take more than a second to execute your trade, it aint direct.

What you probably should be concentrating on is the best trading software or trading platform. But even then, everyone's criteria are different.

Find the articles online that have evaluated and compared online brokerages. I found a good one online in Barron's, but you'll find others in the trading magazines. Active Trader, Futures Mag, etc.

This is worth putting a little time and effort into, because it's a pain to switch, so once you choose, you're kinda stuck with it.

Townsend Electronics, the Parent company of TerraNova, is the one that digitized and electronified the Nasdaq. They are technological industry leaders and have a powerful and well built trading system.

I use RealTick at TerraNovaOnline, but it costs $275/mo. I think the Investor package is free to use, and just uses one screen.

What you should try is a free trial of their Investor platform, which is free. Their rates are good also, but of course, it depends on how often you trade. It will take you months to learn all the bells and whistles of what this program can do.

The other top-of-the line program is TradeStation, but it costs big bucks to join and operate. Some people consider it the Cadillac of trading and technical analysis.

TerraNova is the home of the Day Trader, so they think nothing of you making several hundred trades a day. You don't have to do that, but it's okay here if you do.

You might want to take a look at http://www.top10traders.com – this is a free site that lets you create a portfolio of stocks with $100,000 in "play" money. Each day the site ranks the best performing portfolios, so you can see how your picks perform compared to other investors. You can read posts on investing from the best traders, as well as share your own investing ideas. There is a charting feature, so you can see how your portfolio performs compared to the S&P 500. Also, you can create your own "group" so that you can see how you are doing compared to your friends.

Here are this month's best traders:

http://www.top10traders.com/Top10Standings.aspx

Hope this helps.

You pay tax on the profits when you fill out your 1040 tax form at the beginning of next year. Make sure you keep enough money set aside to cover the taxes you will owe. If you make high profits, you may want to send in quarterly estimated tax payments so you don't get hit with on underpayment penalty.