Day Trading

If you're daytrading, then it can be riskier depending on the level of margin you're utilising and the volatility of the stock you're trading… personally I DayTrade and I have no issue with it, equally, if you're doing it sucessfully as well, don't worry and focus on what you see.

Tax-wise… that depends on what country you're trading from and you should obviously discuss the matter with your local authority.

The best technical indicators for daytrading depends onour comfort level on which one to use. Any of these indicators (oversold, overbought) and trend indicators (higher high, higher low) should help. How many charts depends on what timeframe you plan to trade. You would usually need at least 4 charts. An hourly chart, 15 minutes chart, 5 minutes chart, and 2-3 minutes chart. 5 minutes chart is most traders use for entry/exit intraday, you could make at least two good trades with 5 minutes chart on fast moving stocks.

JessicaM has a very nice summary on Market Profile, you might want to a look at the market profile approach on daytrading.

Day traders can buy and sell the same time every hour it they have a desire to do so. Brokers love this as they make lots of dollars in commissions. It's a tough bussiness.

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).
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Be aware that 90% of day-traders lose money. The odds are way against you. I recommend trying swing-trading (a few days to a few months time frame) first. The pressure is less and the timing not so quick. The exact same principles that apply to swing trading will prepare you for trading on shorter time frames. Or … you might decide you were making enough money in swing trading to stick with it.

As for sources, check with your brokerage. Many of them make learning tools available to their clients.

Best of success.

SEC rules apply to broker/dealers, if you trade using a US Broker/dealer you are subject to the SEC rules and regulations.

All customers using US Broker/dealers would have to follow the rules that dictate policy & procedures to that broker/dealer.

If you going to play in the US, directly or indirectly, you have to play by the rules

If you go to a book story, you can find many books on day trading. However, none of them have methods that are proven to work. I can't recommend any of them. The truth of the matter is that most day traders lose money, while most buy-and-hold investors make money. There are no tried and true methods for day trading.

Most highly trained professionals refuse to day trade. Many amateurs think they are smarter than the pro's and try their hand at day trading. Fools rush in where wise men fear to tread…

Read these links:

http://www.sec.gov/investor/pubs/daytips.htm

http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2000/05/daytrading.shtm

http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/invest/daytrade.shtm

http://www.fool.com/investing/small-cap/2004/12/27/daytrading-dangers.aspx

Have you read John Carter's book yet? Mastering the Trade.

Also read Tom Busby's book, Winning the Day Trading Game.

They'll give you a good primer. Fantastic books to get you started. After that, you'll have a much better sense on what and where to go next.

One option would be to work with a mentor. Todd Mitchell looks interesting at tmitchell.com or tradingconcepts.com for trading.

Though if you go to daytrading, you'll need to practice a lot more than a couple of weeks. Most successful day traders I know practiced at least months before being somewhat successful as there's all sorts of nuances, the shorter the timeframe that you trade in.

Let me know if you have any questions.

Hope that helps!

Ah the lure of daytrading! The funny thing about watching the market is that you always remember the trade you should have made. There is something professionals say all the time when someone starts discussing a trade they wanted to make you will be interrupted with "shoulda, coulda, woulda".
Unfortunately you are right, you do need money to day trade and as a previous writer noted you need $25k for a broker to allow you to consistently day trade. I believe that is a Fed Reserve requirement not SEC. Note that I say consistent though. The broker can't prevent you from selling a position you recently bought but if they identify you as a daytrader you will have to bring your equity up to $25 before they let you do it again.
Try the top 10 trader thing below or any kind of honest papertrading. And while your at it try a long term paper portfolio for kicks. I'll bet in a year you'll wish you really invested the long term ideas – its amazing!

No one can give you a definite number of trades you can do without knowing what stocks you are buying, the price of the stock, and you balances in your accounts, both cash and margin.

If you’re not buying and selling the same security you will not have any problems

As long as you trade within in you buying power limits, or meet any and all margin calls, you should be able to trade as often as you want,

You can always buy twice you SMA, you can trade your buying power(which is twice you SMA).

I will give you what info that I can. Although there are many others who are far more expeienced with daytrading than I am. I have tried many different kinds of stock trading, including daytrading. Of them all, daytrading is my least favorite. It may not be the most work (but it ain't easy), but it's definitely the most stressful. In my experience there are far easier ways to make money in the stock market.

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.