Regarding taxes, in the US, if you make $60000 daytrading, you will pay short term capital gains. On the other hand, if you lose a net of $60000, you can only write off $3000 per year, until the $60000 is written off (about 20 years).
swh
With that being said I'd think long and hard about day trading… most folks who do it end up losing their money over time. The problem with day trading is that you get charged so many transaction fee's by the broker, and you won't have the kind of insider information to know when a merger is going to take place or when less than expected earnings are about to be announced that will affect the stock price up or down. Your are just as well to go to vegas and lay the money on black or red on the roulette wheel… at least then the house only takes 1% of all bets- the brokers take a lot more than that in fees.
As for WHY your would want to this, contrary to the last answerer'a assertion that brokers don't find bonds sexy and hence don't bother learning about them, throughout their 135-year history, Edward Jones made their business on selling quality bonds to individual investors. I've found some of the most knowledgable people I know regarding bonds to work for Edward Jones. In addition, they do so much bond business that they get optimal pricing and that is in turn passed on to you. When calling around for price quotes, at the very make sure you include them, you won't be sorry.
I should point out that unless you need the money, now is probably not a good time to be selling your bond. Although long-term interest rates (i.e., that of most bonds, which are driven by economic factors) have little to do with short-term rates (which are directly driven by the Fed), we are nevertheless in a rising interest rate environment and your bond undoubetdly is worth less than it wa a year ago. Of course, you could be banking on that and need a tax loss for some reason, but barring that, if you're getting good interest, hold onto it until rates go down again to get a more advantageous price.
Of course, when buying bonds specifaclly for the interest income, you should learn not to even care what the price is. It's hard psychologically, and it takes some getting used to, but it's worth it. After all, if you're buying a cow for the milk, then what the hell do you care about the price of beef?
Hope this help!
–J.
P.S. I live in Canada
There's a special address for Canadians, https://www.thinkorswimcanada.com/.
Simply the best for swing trading stocks and options. There's even an audio program all day (9:15-11:30AM & 1:30-4:00PM, EST) . The program also answers questions on specific technical questions (on specific stocks) & there's a video/chart which you can see the "ShadowTrader" actually show what he's referring to.
The platform is great (really great!!!). Charts are great (both TOS and Profet). Service is great.
They have many conditional order types including;
Blast 6
One Cancells Other (great for putting in a stop and limit price at the same time).
1st Triggers next
Chose by time & date execution.
Market Close
and many more
There graphs art great. Service is great. You'll be amazed. This platform was rated #1 by Barron's in their March 2007 best online broker article ((for software based brokers).
They were an incredible hit in Las vegas at the TradersExpo this past November. More people were checking them out more than any other broker.
I've been with them since April 2007.
(I have used Schwab (active trader program), Ameritrade, Scottrade and Fidelity).
The only thing they lack is "BackTesting" and that's coming out in this month.
Other ideas for good platforms;
TradeStation (good charting, backtesting + much more)
Iinteractive Brokers (fair charting, over 40 order types).
You can trade futures on the Hang Seng index from a number of brokerages, including Interactive Brokers. (You cannot trade an index directly. You have to use some tool such as a futures contract or an ETF.)
<<<I've noticed that very often the Asian Market follows the US market's previous day's results, am watching to see how often this happens. What a trading advantage it would be to be able to predict with fair accuracy what will happen in Asia and be able to trade accordingly. Any ideas?>>>
I am not sure how you expect to use US market results to improve your trading results. Every other trader in the world has the same information readily available, so any impact will be factored into the price at least as quickly as you can submit a trade order.
You might not make mistakes in order entries. But many people do. Your broker is looking out for them.
You could always open a new demo account after the 30 days is over and you can continue doing this forever with some brokers.
I am using a great system to trade the forex market successfully with no guess work. A revolutionary software uses a hedging system that minimize your risks and loses.
If you would like to know more about this system, click on http://www.4xmoneytrain.com
By law the minimum amount needed to open a daytrading account is $25,000. This will open a margin account, with which you can daytrade up to four times the amount that you have in your account. So with a minimum account of $25,000 you can daytrade up to $100,000 per day. (There are some restrictions) You must pay interest on any amount that you hold overnight that is in excess of the cash in your account. Daytraders never hold anything overnight.
There are many different styles of daytrading. You can trade gaps up, or gaps down. You can trade technicals or breakouts. You can trade a particular stock or group of stocks. Each style requires a specific set of tools and the skills to use them. At a minimum you will need a good broadband internet connection, streaming level 2 quotes, and a good broker. Quotetracker is a good, free platform that you can download and try, just to get a feel for what is involved. Also I believe that Scottrade will let you download and try their platform for free.
The broker that you choose depends upon your style of trading and the volume that you trade. Flat fee commission brokers like Scottrade are fine if you trade volumes above 1000 shares at a time. On a thirty dollar stock, that's $30,000 per trade. Personally I may buy more than 1000 shares, but I'll often take a position 100 shares at a time. So in my case paying $7 for each of those 100 share trades would kill me on commissions. Instead I use a broker that charges per share, not per trade. If you're not dealing in high volume it's best to pay per share, not per trade. That way you can buy 100 shares and it will only cost you $1 in commission.
The other thing that you should consider, just in case you do make money daytrading, is taxes. Although the advent of online tax services has made keeping track of all those daytrades considerably easier, it can still be a headache. It's much easier just to buy a stock, hold it all year, and then pay the taxes on it. Very simple.
I do not believe that daytrading is the best way to go for a beginner. It would be better to start by just buying and holding, or swingtrading. Personally I now use a service that sends me alerts on what to buy and sell. It actually works much better than I could ever do on my own, and it's a whole lot easier. Still it's quite common for me to lose $1000 or more per day. But on average my up days far outweigh my down days.
Yes, I do this for a living, and it is much easier than having a real job.