Day Trading

2. The Stock Trader: How I Make a Living Trading Stocks by Tony Oz

3. The Nasdaq Trader's Toolkit by M. Rogan LaBier

4. The Master Swing Trader: Tools and Techniques to Profit from Outstanding Short-Term Trading Opportunities by Alan S. Farley

5. Tools and Tactics for the Master DayTrader: Battle-Tested Techniques for Day, Swing, and Position Traders by Oliver Velez

6. The Undergroundtrader.com Guide to Electronic Trading: Day Trading Techniques of a Master Guerrilla Trader by Jea Yu

7. Day Trading on the Edge: a Look-Before-You-Leap Guide to Extreme Investing by Leslie N. Masonson

8. The Guts and Glory of Day Trading: True Stories of Day Traders Who Made (or Lost) $1,000,000 by Mark Ingebretsen

Inability to See or Act Upon Quotes. Some firms only allow investors to view quotes from the one trading system the firm uses for after-hours trading. Check with your broker to see whether your firm's system will permit you to access other quotes on other ECNs. But remember that just because you can get quotes on another ECN does not necessary mean you will be able to trade based on those quotes. You need to ask your firm if it will route your order for execution to the other ECN. If you are limited to the quotes within one system, you may not be able to complete a trade, even with a willing investor, at a different trading system.

Lack of Liquidity. Liquidity refers to your ability to convert stock into cash. That ability depends on the existence of buyers and sellers and how easy it is to complete a trade. During regular trading hours, buyers and sellers of most stocks can trade readily with one another. During after-hours, there may be less trading volume for some stocks, making it more difficult to execute some of your trades. Some stocks may not trade at all during extended hours.

Larger Quote Spreads. Less trading activity could also mean wider spreads between the bid and ask prices. As a result, you may find it more difficult to get your order executed or to get as favorable a price as you could have during regular market hours.

Price Volatility. For stocks with limited trading activity, you may find greater price fluctuations than you would have seen during regular trading hours. News stories announced after-hours may have greater impacts on stock prices.

Uncertain Prices. The prices of some stocks traded during the after-hours session may not reflect the prices of those stocks during regular hours, either at the end of the regular trading session or upon the opening of regular trading the next business day.

Bias Toward Limit Orders. Many electronic trading systems currently accept only limit orders, where you must enter a price at which you would like your order executed. A limit order ensures you will not pay more than the price you entered or sell for less. If the market moves away from your price, your order will not be executed. Check with your broker to see whether orders not executed during the after-hours trading session will be cancelled or whether they will be automatically entered when regular trading hours begin. Similarly, find out if an order you placed during regular hours will carry over to after-hours trading.

Competition with Professional Traders. Many of the after-hours traders are professionals with large institutions, such as mutual funds, who may have access to more information than individual investors.

Computer Delays. As with online trading, you may encounter during after-hours delays or failures in getting your order executed, including orders to cancel or change your trades. For some after-hours trades, your order will be routed from your brokerage firm to an electronic trading system. If a computer problem exists at your firm, this may prevent or delay your order from reaching the system. If you encounter significant delays, you should call your broker to determine the extent of the problem and what you can to get your order executed.

So in a nutshell depending on your broker you may not be able to sell overnight. If everyone is trying to sell then there may not be enough buyers to actually fill all the orders. You have to ask your broker for the information that specifically pertains to you and the after hours policy.

Some strategies you can research are:

Trend Following
Scalping
Momentum Trading
Range Trading
News Trading (buying/selling on news or anticipation thereof)

All but news trading involve some form of Technical Analysis which I would advise you to read about as well.

I would also recommend you start looking into an ECN (electronic communication network) to use as your primary trading platform.

Wiki has a lot of information you can use, but I would always recommend reading independently and doing research online. Some authors you can look up are Alexander Elder, Michael Covel, Curtis Faith and John Murphy to name a few.

Investing or day trading can be done through an eBroker (electronic brokerage or online broker) Some may be more adept at handling day trades than others,

Investing and day trading both require a knowledge of the underlying market and its dynamics.

Those three references should only be the beginning of a long term commitment to learning.

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.

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 demo. 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.

The time it takes to settle stock trades is 3 business days.

As soon as the balance goes below $25,000, the trader must fund the account with more money OR a whole new set of trading rules applies. This varies from broker to broker, but the $25K is a hard. fast rule.

Your Q2: In the U.S. this is referred to as "swing" trading.

Broker electronically track every trade by every trader. When the trade is placed, you confirm the trade AND you have the iopportunity to print every trade placed, confirmed and completed. Yuor account also reflects the balances.

Your Q3. Day trading is in and out [entering and exiting] the same shares in the same company on the same trading day – regardless of the price.

Your Q4. You decide your own buying and selling prices through various kinds of orders.

Your Q5. Refer to my remarks.

Your Qs 6 & 7: I DON'T believe they apply to the U.S. exchanges.

You can usually find excellent, easy-to-understand definitions of many financial and investment terms by going to this free site, recognized by Y! A as a "Featured Knowledge Partner":

http://investopedia.com

Investopedia also has a free, paper trading platform. You can set up a virtual account and almost trade as though you were trading with your own hard-earned money.

http://finance.yahoo.com is also recognized by Y! A as a "Featured Knowledge Partner"

Thanks for asking your Q! I enjoyed answering it!

VTY,
Ron Berue
Yes, that is my real last name!