Day Trading

http://www.stockmarketresources.blogspot.com
http://www.picktherightbroker.blogspot.com

I have been studying the market for about 2-3 hours a day for maybe 5 months now, and I have developed some guidelines. Just so you know, a few weeks is considered swing trading. But there is no "quick money" and here's why:

Investing in mutual funds should require about 20 hours of research
Investing in stocks - 100 hours
Trading - 250 specialized hours

What I mean by specialized is that if you trade stocks, you need to be studying stock price movement and trading strategies EXCLUSIVELY for 250 hours. Personally, I have, at the least, around 350, and I have spread my knowledge around to stocks, options, general education and investing, futures, financial info — everything. I haven't even started paper trading my strategy, and I expect to be another 150 hours from trading, which I expect to start in July.

The smartest way to start off is to sit on the sidelines and educate yourself until you feel you're ready for whatever you decide to take on. I hate it sometimes, but I know the profits from my learning will be more than worth it. Best of Luck!

Btw, if you cut corners, you will regret it! There are plenty of people who either give up or cut corners and fail. It takes a special kind of person in this field. Email me with any questions if you like.

The books recommended by others here are great. It's hard to advise you further not knowing how much you do/don't know about the market. The paper trading practice sites are an essential. Try those out in earnest and you'll save yourself from unnecessary mistakes later when errors cost real money.

I find that it's important to do a few things:

1. Chart the S&P for uptrends and downtrends - when you see an established trend the market will tend to move that way, and stay within the down slope and up slope "channel" in its daily activity for multiple days. This gives you added confidence as to when to "buy", when to "add to" your position, and when to cash out. When a stock busts out up or down that can be the opportunity to get in or out (depending on direction) of a given index, ETF, or stock. This will also help you stabilize your stock monitoring because you will focus on the stocks at present which are near "support (floor)" or ceiling (resistance)" positions. To help me do this, I've found it is incredibly valuable to have a second computer screen (I use two PCs because I'm mobile when I want to be) with several key screens of data/chart references.

One screen has no more than 6 stocks I'm watching that day, with charts on each screen.

One screen has all major sectors' charts on it - by sector fund (USO, OIH, etc.)

One screen has 52 week uptrending stocks I'm monitoring for pullbacks

Other screens are categoric (e.g., AG companies)

2. Using other resources such as the 52 week high stocks (WSJ, YahooFinance, Google Finance, etc.), and Top 100 (IBD.com) are also opportunities to check for trends, and determine whether to jump on this momentum during a given day, or to wait for a pullback and get in before a multi-day upswing for a multi-day "swing" trade. If you put in the time, you will identify pending breakouts.

3. Listen to Fast Money to pick up on hot trends and expert interviews that can indicate stocks to watch since they have such a wide audience.

4. Keep track of volume levels and beware of low volume days.

5. Track sector movement and rotations. Institutional buyers will dictate what will move, whether it "makes sense" to you or not.

6. Listen to Art Cashen (sp?) - every morning about 9:15 AM EST before the market opens. His insights are usually good indicators to align with or watch for. Good pulse on the market.

7. Know that a margin account can be traded every day with no interest if you don't carry it over night. Non-margin accounts will have a 3 day carry cycle until you can reinvest the funds.

Best wishes for success. Cramer can be a goof on some topics, but knowing what he's tracking can also give you one or two key stocks to watch for the next day if conditions align to support those stocks. His trading rules lists are very good.

The damage they do is to their own accounts, plus they add a small amount of noise to the market pricing structure, but they don't do any significant harm that I can think of.

Just because I think long term is years, and daytraders think long term is overnight, doesn't mean they don't have a right to trade that way. Their brokerage fees subsidize mine, for one thing, and lemming-like momentum moves by daytraders sometimes provide opportunities for long-term value investors to step in.

Also, be aware that if you make 4 or more day trades within any 5 consecutive business days you will be labeled a pattern day trader. At that point you must maintain a margin account with a minimum balance of $25,000.00.

You have to remember that for every given deal the company gives they expect to make all that money back. And if you earn a lot of money trading or investing quickly enough to make the deal worthwile, then that's great. But the odds are highly against you.

As for your desire to "try trading," I think this is the worst mistake someone could make in the market. I would not even think about it until you have had a thorough understanding of the markets and 200+ hours of specialized trading research behind you, and then I would paper trade for a while more. Once you do this, I would suggest you create some hard rules for trading such as limited capital and relatively strict stops. You may benefit from reading "Mastering the Trade." It's a great walkthrough. I'm reading it myself. Don't remember the author but I have more information on my website. It's a good place to learn about the market and brokers (I think I have links to 40+ brokers or so).

http://www.stockmarketresources.blogspot.com

Best of Luck

If your current/future employer offers an employee 401k plan. Invest up to the matching % of your employers contribution. If plan offers an election to invest in a money market fund you may want to invest in it until you learn more. Next invest in a Roth IRA up to the max allowed(yearly). If you then have more money to invest, go back to your 401k plan and invest the max allowed(yearly). So after you do all the above and want to invest more you should be able to decide how. Only invest money that you can afford to lose. Making some quick money is nice but if you lose it, it gets right ugly.

You may also think about ETF's instead of mutual funds, stocks. and options.
http://finance.yahoo.com/etf

Try what you learn on demo sites. They can be a very fun but educational way to learn from mistakes. If you pick 75% right with play money then you might be ready to start slowly investing.
http://simulator.investopedia.com/
http://simulator.zacks.com/
http://www.fxcm.com/open-free-100k.jsp
http://www.alpari-idc.com/en/metatrader4…
Or just google for more.

I use Lightning Strikes Trading System for trading in any time frame and it works on forex, stocks, bonds, etf's, mutual funds, etc… They have 3 free training sessions a week and you don't have to buy the software to join in the live chat and text. You can even watch some recorded past live sessions. Here are some past charts that I used.
http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/MB16R0zjjaZ…
http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/MB16RxjOUQt…
There are 7 indicators (2 short, 2 medium, and 3 long term) and if volume is reported another one is added (on balance volume). Plus whatever time-frame is used the 2 green horizontal lines are the support and resistance for that time frame. So when indicators are all touching the bottom price is at or very, very near support. At top is at or very, very near resistance. Which helps my entry/exits and risk/reward ratio.
http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/MB16R9Wv-wt…
http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/MB16R9wSKdV…
http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/QCt6R2fYIj6…
http://f1.grp.yahoofs.com/v1/QCt6R3R0VQe…
If you can not view charts above I can email them.

Here are my favorite sites.

http://stockcharts.com/
Has basically all you need from fundamental to technical terms. Plus stock screens, charts, public chart lists, and much more useful info.

https://www.fidelity.com/
Has good learning resources.

http://moneycentral.msn.com/home.asp
In addition to yahoo finance.

http://www.reuters.com/
For news and more.

http://www.marketwatch.com/default.aspx
For news and more.

http://www.valueprime.com/index.php
For rating stock risk/reward ratio and reports.

http://www.barchart.com/
For investing in more than stocks.

http://www.investopedia.com/
For more great learning tools.

http://www.lightninglive.com/
For best software timing your entry/exits any time frame for day traders and long term investors.

Others worth exploring.
http://www.equis.com/
http://www.stockta.com/
http://www.secform4.com/

Best Wishes,
Burt Whitley