Day Trading

The most important thing to know about day trading is most people lose money. I would do some research before I got into it.
Especially since you apparently don't understand investing. If it were easy, why would people go to work? Learn how to invest the right way and prosper!

There is a great website called Sharebuilder.com that will lead you through what you need to know. They have a great starter kit that costs about $50.00 but they give you a $50.00 certificate to purchase stock with. It is a very well executed website and the documentation should point you in the right direction.

The most important thing to look at is risk versus reward. It takes a lot of skill to be successful at day trading, and a lot of cash. According to SEC regulations, you must maintain an account balance (minimum equity level) of at least $25,000. However, you will only be classified as a day trader if you buy and sell (or sell short and buy to cover) the same security within one day, and do this four or more times over five days or less. This means that you can make a day trade (or two or three) and not have to worry about your account being frozen, but make a habit of it and you will see your account suspended for up to 90 days.
Besides account requirements, there's also taking into consideration commissions versus trade value. To buy and sell stock can cost anywhere from $10-$40 overall, so you should be expecting profit exceeding this before entering a trade, which means trade size is a key component. Average daily volume of a stock wil lgive you an idea of what you can expect to be able to buy or sell.
Utilizing different technical indicators such as stochastics, RSI, MACD, moving averages, and price change patterns could give insight into possible future price changes, but these are all speculative and should be used with caution. I would caution anyone who is a beginner trader/investor about day trading. For short term gains, it's better, and less risky, to find stocks about to increase over the next few days/weeks/months. You'll more than likely realize more gains at less of a risk. It's up to you to learn how to do this correctly, but it can be a much more reliable method of trading rather than day trading. Good luck!

People spend years learning how to trade & you want a short quick answer……… sorry…. there is no such thing.

If there was a "best time" to trade… wouldn't all the professionals be doing it. I do have some rules for myself;
I never buy/sell before 10:00PM EDT
If a stock reaches its high 5 minutes before 4:00PM, I'll buy.
I never trade during the hours of 11:30AM-1:30PM (lunch)

BUT…. these rules mean nothing without a ton of information I or anyone here can give you.

Here's some places to start;
http://www.alphatrends.net/ (best "sum up" of daily activity on the web).
http://www.tradingwithtk.com/ (good teacher, dangerous stocks).
http://streamer.thinkorswim.com:8000/shadowtrader.m3u
(great market comentary during the day, 9:15AM - 4:00PM EDT).

ya@eriestocktrader.com

Try this
http://adityamoney-aditya.blogspot.com/

Yes, there is a very good tool. If you use one of the trading sites online, such as E-Trade or AmeriTrade, you will find simple instructions on how to use it.

I would recommend you do a lot of research before you get involved with real money. Do "pretend" investing while you study the Motley Fool site carefully. It is full of great ideas.

Really you want to short the retail (domestic) A-shares. I think this is more difficult but you might be able to get an over-the-counter swap with an investment bank. That's about the only bright idea I have beyond what you suggested, and not really executable except at the institutional level.

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DO NOT DAY TRADE THINKING YOU'LL GET RICH QUICK.

It is true that 80% of all day traders eventually lose all their money. Then again, about 60% of the remaining 20% make enough to live off of or at least provide a second income. The remaining 40% steadily lose money.

The keys to success in day trading (% of importance):

1) money management - knowing how much to bet on each stock, when to take profits, and when to cut losses (40%)

2) emotional control - patience, not acting out of greed or fear, never averaging down, only buying high probability set-ups, etc. (35%)

3) a good system - knowing when to enter and when to exit (25%)

You'll notice that the system is the least important factor for success. Almost any system is profitable (although some much more than others), but the real important part is whether you can actually use it correctly or not. It might not match your personality, for example. Also, if you don't manage your money correctly, you can go bankrupt on even the best system in the world.

Unless you have amazing emotional control, have a natural inborn talent for trading (I've never met anyone like this, though), or have a brilliantly flexible mind that adapts quickly, you will most likely steadily lose money day trading for at least the first few months.

The worst part about getting started in day trading is that there's very little way to tell if you'd be successful before you actually start buying stocks and losing (or making) money. Paper trading is not even close to the same as real trading, because there's no emotion involved, or commissions or slippage.

On the other hand, once you have reached the right point, the rewards can be substantial. It took me 15 months of swing trading and staring at computer screens all day long and three months of day trading (losing 50% of my entire equity in the process) before I turned the corner. Now, I can quite conservatively double my money each year (but notice it took me a year to recover from the first year and a half). That's probably a typical story. If you read about Stock Market Wizards by Jack D. Schwager, you'll notice that almost every master trader went bankrupt at one point or another.

Most people quit before they reach this point, and I'd be the first to agree that day trading is not for everyone, or even for most people.

Also, remember this: any person with a truly successful and profitable day trading system would never sell or share it. You can make much more money using a winning system than selling it. Okay, maybe 10% of the systems out there are legitimate, but you'll never know which 10% until you've bought it and lost lots of money on it.

Be careful when looking for winning systems, and always look for a money-back guarantee.

The key to success is not the system the person uses so much as it is the person using the system.

One last word of advice: Unless you're willing to sacrifice thousands of hours in front of the computer and thousands of dollars, and able to stand the emotional and financial pain you will endure, then don't even start.

No.

$3000 is too high a cost to pay to learn what's all free and available all over the net.

Go and download the "OPTIONS TOOLBOX" and play with it. Everything you need to know is there.

You can get this from http://www.cboe.com/LearnCenter/RCTools.aspx

Explore CBOE - Chicago Board Options Exchange, for wealth of free information on options. There you have links to other sites too - Options institute etc.

Buy the book - Options as a Strategic Investment by Lawrence G. McMillan, for lot less than $3000 ( think it's $50 at Amazon.com )

p.s.
Mr.DowJones assessment that Option trading is riskier cannot be more wrong. On $ for $ basis, with respect to Risk & Reward, stock trading is lot riskier than option trading. Options goal is to minimize risk and maximize reward. No such thing with stock trading