day tradingsoftwareday traderstock day trading
During "Day" or "at market close?" I am completely new to trading. I want to do short term trading. Just give me an overview of trading for dummies.
Day trading


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

I am new to all this. Where can I learn the basics?
How do I find a cheap, easy to use broker? There are SO MANY - how do I chose? The ones I've heard about include Ameritrade, eTrade, Sharebuilder, TDWaterhouse, ScotTrade, Fidelity, the list goes on! What makes them all different?

What I know: I'd like do invest relatively conservatively (IE - no day-trading). I'd like to invest in ethanol. I'd like to invest for down the line…

The only resource I'm using now are
http://www.investingonline.org/index.html
Yahoo! Finance.

HELP!
Update:
I'm probably looking to invest a few thousand for now. That may increase but I dont foresee investing more than 5-10K.
As far as where I was planning to put my money - mostly in stocks in NYSE or Nasdaq. Prob not smallcaps/penny stocks, but I did have my eye on an IPO or two. BTW what are franchise stocks?

I was actually thinking about Sharebuilder - it comes highly acclaimed. Why is touted so much? Advantages / Disadvantages?

Day trading


You want to buy a diversified portfolio of stocks, as individual stocks are too risky. With a few thousand dollars, this means buying mutual funds. I like Vanguard.com, other people like Fidelity, TIAA-CREF, and DFA. Buy no-load, low cost funds. If you are like most people you will invest part of your money conservatively, in money market funds and bond funds, and part aggressively in stock funds. Vanguard.com has an on-line questionnaire which will give you an idea how aggressive you want to be.

Investing in a mutual fund IRA for retirement may give you an income tax break. Talk to your tax adviser. You may also be able to invest in a stock mutual fund via a 401K plan at work.

Believing advice you get on Yahoo answers can be risky, so read these websites for further information. If you find it too confusing, contact a professional financial advisor. They will charge you significant commissions, however.

Can anyone tell me where to find the market price, book value, and other such info that pertains to a company for years past? For example, I am looking for the market price of a company's stock for 2005. The only info I find is the price for the last trading day of 2005. I need to find the average price for a whole year (1/1/05-12/31/05). Also I need the market value as compared to market price and book value. It is next to impossible to find. It is for a project in finance class, and this is not on the income statement or balance sheet.
Are there any good sites or books that have that and industry averages for certain whole years?
Day trading


There are very few, if any sites that will provide you with average annual price. However, Yahoo finance has the information you need to calculate that price. Go to Yahoo finance and enter the symbol for the stock in question. When the data for that stock displays on the screen, on the left hand side of the page near the top you will find "historical prices". Click on that. Enter the start date and the end date i e 1/1/2005 and 12/31/2005 and press enter. That will bring up the daily stock prices for the stock in question. Next down load them to a spread sheet. At the bottom of the page you will see "Download to spreadsheet". Click on that. Once you have the prices in the spread sheet, you can calculate the average price for the year. Sum the closing prices x the volume figure for each day and put that figure in a new column. Then sum the that column down the page and sum the volumn figure down the page. Then divide the sum of price x volume by sum of volumns. That will give you the average price for the year or rather close enough. Also Yahoo finance has the has the current market value, and book value and current price. You can get the year end figures by going to the SEC filings. On the left side of the page again but further down, and when you get there displaying the 10k for the company. It will have the book value. Divide the tangible assets by the number of shares outstanding. The market value is the price of the stock x the number of shares outstanding.
Does an investor has the right to know the buyers/sellers for any stock ?
Day trading


Only the number of shares and price per trade– and even then you would have to have a fairly high level service. An investor does not have the right to another investor's trading data or to infringe their confidentiality or privacy. This information is not generally known unless the particular buyer or seller is an insider (an officer, director, or large proportionate shareholder). Ownership amounts of over 5% must be reported. Insider trading data can be found on Edgar online or Yahoo Finance (just enter a symbol and look under insider).
Which one is likely to fetch the maximum returns:-
1)successful day trading
2)mid term trading
3)long term trading.
Day trading


Welll..i would suggest u not to involve yourself with Day trading if you are just starting up investing in stock..also beware of yourself with the derivatives…..
if u have are thinking about earning some money out of your investment u need to think and act smartly..by investing for midterm and long term…all the transactions(buying and selling that u do must result in a positive long term investment…i mean your short term trading must ensure that your long term investment goals are achieved.for this remember these things carefully while trading …

when it comes to making profit..it depends on ones strategy of investing…
people can make good money if they invest properly …and if ones foolish and more greedy he might loose out every thing…things always happen in extremes in stock markets…
remember this one thing before investing….
dont hurry ur self…think about the stock fundamentals(like its financials like balance sheet or in simpler terms the profits that it made during recent times..its managing style..people in the business…competetors industry as whole etc)
when once u feel that the stock is fundamentally good..then u move on to technical aspects like how is the stock performing in recent times..take the history of atleast past 3 months…and then invest if u feel thats good..u can get the recommendations in investment channels like CNBC watch it carefully during the market hours.
when u invest u have to watch the price carefully..keep a target level..say fro example u bought it at 100..keep a target for that stock say 130…sell it at that level..i dont recommend u to sell it entirely(in bullish market when the market is goin up..sell a partial amount of your holding..and when the market is falling down..book the entire profit by selling it…)
then u can pick another stock…
even while buying the stock its necessary for u to pick up the stock when ever the market is down..it has to be systematic..by this u can average out ur buying price…by doing this u can average the price..if u see n compare the total market movement..which will be more profitable….
i hope ive given u sufficient information to start off..feel free to ask if anythin else is necessary…
Happy investing…!!!!!!

I went to this workshop on how to trade options. They charge $3000 for 2 days sessions. Do you know where I can get to learn it with less cost or no cost?
Day trading


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

I just started intraday trading calls and puts on the QQQQ and am interested in talking to others who are trading the same. Does anyone know of a forum that strictly discusses this only?
Or if you are trading the Q's and would like to start a group or just exchange info, let me know!
Day trading


Hi,

I used to do this but I found that I could gauge individual stocks better than an index. I would recommend trading on stocks with extremely high volatility like Google and Bidu if you are into intraday trading.

I've made quite a fair bit of money this way.

There are many "advisory" services for day traders that offer trading signals in chat rooms. Examples are pristine.com, marketwise.com, lbrgroup.com etc. I'm wondering how many of them are out there. And, on average, how much capital does it take to start up one of these. Taking the question further - how many "clients" do you need to break even per month on average, what's the turn over rate in clients and how do these companies go about recruiting clients. Is that too many sub-questions? (This is my first question).
Day trading


Well, just the fact that your question had so many parts probably gives you an indication of how many services there are out there.

From what I can tell, there are thousands of advisory services. Some I know of have several products (like schaeffer.com). Others just have one.

In any event, the number of subscribers needed is dependent upon your fixed and variable costs, not of someone elses. My startup costs are fairly fixed, so then, it's mainly x subscribers at $y to break even, and then after that, it's profit until such point I need another person to manage the flow of information, etc.

The key in differentiating yourself is your performance and your advertising. Both will get you more clients, however, your performance will help keep them.

Hope that helps!

Got any web sites that can assist me? thanks!
Day trading


For technical analysis the sites are
stockcharts.com
stockta.com

earnings.com (great during earnings season)

When you day trade is it something you have to do full time? I am seriously thinking about getting into to this. Others have informed me that you have to constantly watch the market so you can trade at a moments notice. Is this true?
Day trading


These seminar people for trading will charge u money and u will not be able to trade successfully. U would be much better off simply buy the stocks i tell u to buy and sell when i sell mine.
If u want u can get hooked up with one of these seminars and pay $2000-$5000 thousand for the seminar and then u take their advice and start trading and u lose tons of money. Learn from a real trading expert. Learn from me.