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.
“What do the colors mean on Time & Sales?
• • • Green = trade occurred on the Ask.
• • • Red = trade occurred on the Bid.
• • • Cyan = trade did not occur on the Bid or Ask.
• • • Yellow = trade broke either high or low for the day.”
Regarding Cyan, what kind of trade is it if it doesn’t occur on the bid or ask? I see them often with up to 4 decimal places and sometimes in large volume. What kind of trades are these and what are they called?
The yellow trades, are they the ones that have a (T) beside them i see in after hours trading? What kind of trades are these and what are they called?
There are thousands of stocks and trillions of shares in existence, and theoretically, each share could have a single owner. During a regular business day, billions of shares change owners. Every single transaction (date, time, number of shares traded and the price) is recorded somewhere and broadcasted over the internet, so others can get
real-time quotes and historical quotes and charts for each stock…
Some kind of super computer must be working in the background to keep track of who owns what or else the stock market would not work. So, my question is where is all this information stored and what kind of computer is responsible for handling all this important data and making the stock market work? How is it possible for this huge system to work so smoothly? Explain plz.
If you have a brokerage account at Wells Fargo then they have your information.
You are right, there 9 billion shares of Microsoft in the Planet but Wells Fargo only handles 0.01% of them with a regular $999 Dell Personal Computer.
If you have a brokerage account at Bank of America then they will have your private information and the same case applies.
There are thousands of banks all over the World and each one of them has a few thousands of Microsoft shares.
When you sell your Microsoft share to me Wells Fargo reduces the number of shares in your brokerage account from 1 to 0 and it only takes a nanosecond.
In contrast, the number of shares of Microsoft increases in my brokerage account from 0 to 1 and it only takes a nanosecond.
There is a middle man between Wells Fargo (Your bank) and Zecco (My broker)
In this case, the middle man is the NASDAQ.
Please do not send links to your marketing or business websites. My goal is to buy & sell stocks only.
Also, for your reference, I'm seeking people with substance in their answers. I am conducting a social experiment & competing in the CNBC Million Dollar Portfolio Challenge.
I am a day trader and often try to derive profit from the disparity in currency rates at various points of time. People who try to make some huge profit can incurr loss using this techniques but if we try to capture small pips then its a winning strategy.
One of the fund Manager of FINEXO suggested me to try this once when i was looking up for high returns. Surprisingly i made huge pips in just 1 hour and thats how i became a Day trader.
Anyways the basic requirements for successful Day trading are:
1. Excellent Command on Technical charts.
2. Look beyond what common man does.
3. Foresightedness
4. Be Different.
5. Good Source of market news and technical charts
6. Ability to draw conclusions from market updates.
If you have these you can very easily succeed here. I am using Finexo charts and updates which are quite accurate and reliable for me. If you have other sources it would be an added advantage.
Is that enough to open an account and start the real work?
My original work is with computers so I always have access to internet during the work… I was thinking if I open an account and start with maybe $5k day trading.
1-Do I have to pay some monthly fees for the account that I open or I wont have any expenses if I dont trade?
Any more info would be appreciated
I have been trading IT stocks mostly (AAPL, msft, goog,…)
There's not really a big problem in beginning to daytrade, but you need to be cautious. I'd advise you read this http://www.nyse.com/pdfs/im01-9Microsoft%20Word%20-%20Document%20in%2001-9.pdf
Then, you may want to continue paper trading, but you can trade for real if you set up strict losses. When I kick up my live account, I will close all my positions immediately if I lose 20%. Then, I will go back through my journals, the charts, and more paper trading until I get it right.
You can get all expenses lists from the individual sites under their fees + comissions and/or pricing tabs. If you are unclear of what they all are, just email the brokerage (I did this with several of tradeking's fees). You will need to get used to emailing and contacting people and services you will use or look into. Half of the battle of trading is finding everything you need — brokerage, information resources, software, data feeds, etc.
I've probably spent about half my time doing those kinds of things.
ON one stock exchange, i even noticed that the idiot who designed the site, had even forgot to include an intraday aswell the 5 day price area.
Does anyone know where I can actually get live intrady prices as described above.
If anyone knows the answer, include your email address and I will reward you by means of telling you how to thrive and profit from such information. Theres a nice little incentive for you if youre interested !!!!
Hope this helps
before you do it, learn how to trade in the right way, and how to read market pulse or read indicators. market by itself is living pulses, if you can take the pulse you are wll on your way of financial freedom.
Yes you could learn invest by yourself. it is your money, you should know how to do with it. for starter check this site out.
http://www.pathtoinvesting.org/index_fla…
http://www.stockcharts.com
http://www.streettalklive.com>… university. a lot amount of information. It will serve you well
I accumulate in good amount in 401k at the young age.I could share with you. when consider invest in stock market. you should consider basic 3 things:
fundamental analysis==(economic data,finincial health, management, business model, competetion)>>what to buy
technical analysis==(chart+indicator)>> when to buy
Sentiment/schycho analysis==>>mood of investor, Contrarian point of view.
Market cycle===>> check out book Trader Almanac by jeff hirsch will give you inside stuff
When you combine 3 thing, It is one of the powerful knowledge goinh with you for the rest of your live
At the age of 32. my 401k is amassed 71,000.00 and 30000.00 in taxble account. by follow simple rule
1) There is such a thing as extended hours or after hours trading, via electronic networks (you can access them via a normal broker). The volume is generally a lot lower, and the spreads usually wider, but you can still trade stocks 12 or more hours a day.
2) If there was some news (for example, many companies report earnings after the close or before the open) overnight, the price automatically adjusts. The market maker, the company committed to buying and selling at "reasonable" prices, will adjust the buying and selling price, using judgment, based on the likely impact of the news. Or, people will start buying and selling before the bell (the official opening if the market), so that by the time 9:30 rolls around, the price has already moved. Of course, to the casual eye, it seems that the price "jumped," particularly when you only look at "regular" charts that don't include before or after-market moves.
The "Average Joe" shouldn't be worried about gaps up or down, but rather should concentrate on longer-term patterns. And, as I pointed out, almost anyone with any broker has access to after-hours trading. It's not exactly unfair when everyone can participate – it just may seem that way. By the way, all regular traders know, or rather should know, about gaps.
The market is unfair in many ways, but perhaps not in this way.