Day Trading

Trade first on a simulator to test your theories at Investopedia.com

When you start making "virtual" money, then you can risk your own.

http://simulator.investopedia.com/home.aspx

http://investopedia.com

http://investing.sitesled.com/

http://futures.tradingcharts.com/learning/

Blogs

http://winners-and-losers.com/

Training & classes

http://bettertrades.com

http://investedcentral.com

ETF news and analysis

http://ETF-World.Org/

Article: Trading is Timing

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/trading/06/TradingisTiming.asp

Stock Charts

Bigcharts.com

http://www.stockTA.com

http://www.stockcharts.com

http://www.incrediblecharts.com…

www.prophet.net
americanbulls.com

Books on Investing

"Which Is Better, Buy-and-Hold or Market Timing?"

"Do You Have What It Takes to Be a Market Timer

The Beginner's Bible in Technical Analysis is:
Edwards & McGee"Tech. Anal. Of Stock Trends"

Droke, ClifTechnical Analysis Simplified

Kahn, Michael N.Tech. Anal. Plain & Simple

Kamich, Bruce M.How Technical Analysis Works

Lefevre, EdwinReminiscences of a Stock Operator

Lofton, ToddGetting Started in Futures

Lowenstein, RogerBuffet (Warren)-The Making of a Capitalist

O'Neil, William J.How to Make Money in Stocks

Oz, TonyHow to Make Money From Wall Street

Rotella, Robert P.Elements of Successful Trading, The

Schwager, JackStock Market Wizards

>>How, with only 10 billion shares outstanding, can XXX be so actively traded at this volume and why would XXX sit at the same price and trade billions of shares, when all press and reports about the company are positive?

The market is at a price consensus or is in a consolidation phase. The bulls and bears are in consensus; no one is more powerful than the other.

You will also find that penny stocks are usually less volatile than bigger value stocks.

>>My take is that someone is deliberately swapping shares, huge chunks at a time, at ridiculously low prices to keep the stock price down? Why go to the expense?

No I doubt anyone would be doing that deliberately. There is no point to such exercise – waste of time and money.

Maybe people who bought earlier at a cheaper price are taking profits and people who are hearing the news are buying in.

Good Luck!

To me, minimum is $30k. $150k to $200k is a good start. so much money? yes it is. you need software to consistently watch the market AND detecting the signal, subscribe to numerous newsletter and good monet management (such as stop losses, limiting profits etc).

you are not just investing here, but have a business operations to take care of. without proper tools, how can you expect to compete with all the professional traders worldwide? and on Daily Basis??

Stops aren't working? are they in the right places?
and you're not hedged with options, I take it.

***
with the current capability of computers, browsers and broadband, why limit yourself to only one news site?

you can have multiple such sites open in multiple browser tabs or multiple browsers.

look for the upcoming news/events list in places such as
money.cnn.com
yahoo finance
your TDAmeriTrade brokerage site

and/or any subscription services you get such as
investors.com
wall street journal online
bloomberg news
etc.

If you have to ask this question you are in no way ready to trade stocks online. Really.

Learn how to invest:

1. Do not chase past returns. People that buy stocks or funds because they have done well in the past are doing exactly that.

2. Do not market time. Market timing is buying based on your (or your newsletter, or your TV, or neighbor's) guess about what is going to happen in the future. Even if someone knows something, you've already missed the boat. The price already reflects what you just found out.

3. Use index funds. Over time, index funds outperform actively managed funds, mostly because they do not have those high expense ratios. Some actively managed funds do beat their index, but the ones that do usually do not do so consistently. So why gamble? Use index funds. If you want to use a few actively managed funds, make sure that the costs are very low. Vanguard has some good ones.

5. Diversify. Don't put all your eggs in one basket. Own a mix of bonds, domestic equities (large, small and mid cap funds), an international fund and perhaps a REIT (Real Estate Investment Trust) and emerging market fund. Four to six funds is all you need. Know your risk tolerance and set up an appropriate asset allocation. Rebalance as needed.

6. Consider taxes. Use the least tax efficient funds in your tax-deferred accounts and the most tax efficient funds in your taxable accounts.

Day Trading, in the final count, is really a combination of skill & luck. In that sense, it's akin to gambling.

Sure, using TA methods like Japanese Candlesticks, and RSI and MACD will help you get a SLIGHTLY better picture, but TA does not allow for the emotional aspect of it – say, when a stock in a particular sector blows up due to mismanagement or fraud, all the other stocks in that sector go down because of "guilt by association".

And, when folks panic for whatever reason, they dump stocks regardless of whether they are good or bad.

If I were to resume Day Trading ( I gave that up some time ago ), I would depend most heavily on the MOMENTUM indicator, and not hold for more than a few hours.

From experience, it is VERY difficult to make money consistently in Day Trading, and I hope you will consider a longer term perspective.

Choose stocks with good fundamentals, good management, a stable market space, then buy some. The probability of being able to exit with a profit increases the longer you hold it.

The news affected my long stocks although some have recovered pretty well. One coming up to earnings next week (NTO) gained back everything and a little more. I had opened up 3 shorts on Monday morning (IMGN, PRXI and MEH) that far exceeded my expectations because of the China sell-off. Two longs I also opened on Monday got dumped (OPSW and ACTU)

I'm making a killing on the USDJPY. Sold $100k on Sunday when it broke 121, sold another 200k late Monday night when it broke 120 and did another 100k Tuesday morning when it broke 119. Closed out 300k today at 116.73 and am holding the other 100k over the weekend.

Between stocks and Forex, this is one of the best weeks I've had in quite a while.

Best way would be to study trends such as fuel prices bottom out before winter comes and top out mid-late summer that sort of things.

As far as day trading it could be really sketchy at best because the trend is on a 24hr schedule but reading the news on recals product safety that sort of thing or what ever the news.

Ok case in point XM is doing great

Howard stern says hes signed a 5 year contract with serrius

Overnight 10's of thousands signed up for service.

I'm willing to be XM's stock slid nearly as much as sirrius's went up.

The big issue with premarket trading in my experience is that the spread is often times very large. There are exceptions to this, and this is when the stock is heavily traded in general (such as QQQQ or DIA) or that day (such as a stock that just came out with an earnings announcement). Thus, if the spread is low, after hours trading should ideally be no different than during the day.

Now, keep in mind that the premarket trading doesn't open where it left off the day before, but rather, where the current bid/ask prices are. Thus, if a stock closed yesterday at 10 bucks, came up with stellar earnings this morning at 7:30, you'd expect the initial bid/ask to be above 10 bucks (as everyone, not just you, got this news). Now, it is possible that the last trade for the stock this morning was lower than the pre-market bid/ask. But it is the current bid/ask price that matters and tells what you can get for it now. Thus, you wouldn't be able to pick it at 10 bucks pretrading. Now, it is possible that if you premarket trade and you get the stock early in the day, you can appreciate the continued rise during the day of that stock (although you probably could have done the same by just buying it at market open). However, the premarket trading could have also over-reacted (in particular, if the stock is very lightly traded). If the latter is the case, then you would have been better off just buying the stock at market open.

Bottom-line is that you should probably buy/sell stocks pre/after-market just as you would normally, keeping in mind everyone else has the news too. Further, you should be careful of large spreads with the after-hours trading, as it reduces possible gains. Hopefully this helps?

Day trading, basically, is profiting from small differences (and sometimes big ones) in the prices of stocks etc. on one day (sometimes 2 or 3 days). It requires experience, a lot of knowledge and constant up-keeping your information. It's taking constant working if you want to do it right, not only a couple of hours per day. It's not for the faint hearted and not suitable as a fast money maker. It can be profitable though, as I know having a staff of good people now that make my trading lighter (so that I don't have to do everything myself anymore). It took me over 20 years to get to the level I'm now. If you really want to do it, start small and/or with a practice account, read a lot of papers (not only one), follow and take in all the news you can find and read some materials and books about the different parts of trading (e.g. technical analysis, trading-systems, product-info etc.).
I wish you good luck. Don't hesitate to contact me if you have any questions.