Day Trading

The best way to get started: LEARN as much as you can about the market. And then start trading on a paper trading account to gain experience.

If you are new to trading, then you should definitely take a look at trading systems.

Here's why:

Every minute more than 150 Million Dollars change hands in the electronic index futures markets like the e-mini S&P and e-mini NQ. You can win or lose thousands of dollars in a few minutes; the futures markets can make you rich in a few weeks or months or wipe out your account with no mercy.

If you want to compete in the “game of games” and play against the best traders in the world, then you need to get ready. Too many gamblers are entering the arena without any plan or strategy, completely unprepared, and that's why they lose.

Trading a system will dramatically increase your chances to succeed in trading, because it eliminates five of the top six reasons why unprepared traders fail.

Here are the top six reasons why traders fail,
and how a trading system eliminates them

Let's take a look at the reasons why traders lose money:

1. Lack of a Trading Plan
2. Lack of Discipline to Follow the Plan
3. Failure to Control Emotions
4. Failure to Accept and Limit Losses
5. Lack of Commitment
6. Over-Trading

By all means you have to avoid these mistakes if you want to win.

Here's how a trading system eliminates 5 of the 6 top reasons why traders fail:

Solution #1: Having a trading plan

Having a trading system means having a pre-defined set of rules you have developed to guide your trading. Therefore you HAVE a trading plan, eliminating the No.1 cause for failure.

Solution #2: Following the trading plan

The easiest way to follow a trading plan is to automate it. Almost every trading system can be automated, and you could let the computer trade for you. You won't have to worry about your discipline any longer, as the computer mechanically trades every setup for you.

Solution #3: Controlling emotions

Trading with a system removes emotions from trading. If you don't have a strategy and you try to make decisions when the market is moving, you are liable to become emotionally attached to positions. You may experience panic and indecision when the market does not move in your favor, as you do not have a prepared response. That's when most traders lose their money. If you follow a system you will know what to do no matter what the market does.

Solution #4: Controlling your losses

You probably have heard the saying “Let your profits run”. Unfortunately most traders let their losses run. A trading system will get you out of a position when the predefined stop is hit. Unless you override the system to “give the trade a little bit more room” it will stop the loss and therefore limit your losses.

Solution #5: Commitment

You won't believe how many traders show a lack of commitment and therefore lose money. Lack of commitment means that they stop trading after the first loss, and don't give their system a chance to make back the money they lost. Trading is not a one-way street, and losses are part of our business. If you can't accept the fact that there will be losses, you shouldn't trade. Fortunately a trading system can help you to overcome this problem; an automated trading system continues trading according to the rules, and therefore adds much more consistency to your trading.

As you can see, five of the six top reasons why traders lose money in the markets are simply eliminated when you start trading with a system.

Without any guarantee, your chances of making money rise incredibly when starting with a profitable trading system.

Hope that helps.

This is just a couple of paragraphs a copied and pasted from the bottomm links ( this is a fairly long article). They helped me a lot when i was researching about short/long term forex strategies and tips. All the rest of the helpful articles are in the 'forex resources' section on http://www.forextradinghq.com

In order to profit from the forex market, you will need strategies and also the will to change these strategies. Traders who lack a well thought out trading plan are prone to panic and confusion, when unexpected swings in the forex market occur. Many traders will tell you that trade driven by emotion is the fastest way to deplete your funds. Whether or not you are using a technical or fundamental style, it is still essential that you have a proper view of the market.

Developing your own trading style is a time consuming process and is often acquired through trail and error. It is unfortunate that there is no ‘golden’ rule’ to trade in the forex market and technical and fundamental styles of trade won’t be successful all the time. Successful traders often have a unique style of trading and take up various strategies during a trading session. Only continuous practice will help you gain a feel for the movements of the forex market.

You may want to look at Collective2:

http://www.collective2.com

People can subscribe to your system there and you have a number of ways you can charge. One advantage of using them is that you have an independent auditor of your results. Another is that they do all of the billing for you.

Unfortunately, not free.

But even if you decide not to use them, you can still get some idea of what other people are charging for their methods — while seeing what kinds of results they are generating for those charges.

P.S. I hope by "developing a trading strategy for the last 6 months", you don't mean you've been tweaking historical data to generate those results. There have been a few systems on Collective2 that looked great in their presentation of backtest results, but failed miserably going forward.

Trading is not an easy road to wealth. There are plenty of statistics to say that most people who go down it fail (90%+). I'm not going to say how much I make per week, but I will say I'm in the 10% (or less) who have succeeded. To me, you need two things to succeed in trading. #1 is a curiousity of how things work. Most good traders will tell you that "systems" are constantly breaking down (i.e., what works today won't necessarily work tomorrow). If you are going to be a successful trader, you are going to be constantly doing research for new things that work. If you don't enjoy the process of researching new ideas, I think you are doomed from the start. #2, you've got to be willing to learn how to handle emotions. Things are going to go against you, and at least in my experience, humans are wired to want to get away from the pain of a trade going against you. How you deal with these moments will define a lot of how successful you are going to be trading. Make a long story short…if you are looking for an easy road to wealth…this isn't it. If you like the game, and can't learn enough about it…then you will eventually find a way to succeed.

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.

There are many trading systems/methods and software programs based on them. An online course would likely be based on one trading system or a particular software program. You want to first look at different trading systems and choose the one you are most comfortable with. Just do a search on Amazon for books on stock trading and review the ones with the best reviews.

You may also want to talk to other traders to find out what they think/use. Try:

http://finance.groups.yahoo.com/group/TradingZoom/

It's a free online stock picking group. We have a few Indian members trading US stocks.

One big drawback trying to day trade options is the bid-ask spread. If you were to try it I would suggest using one of the 13 option series trading in the penny increment pilot program. The pilot program consists of the following securities:

IWM – iShares Russell 2000® Index
QQQQ – Nasdaq-100® Trust Shares
SMH – Semiconductors HOLDRs
GE – General Electric Co.
AMD – Advanced Micro Devices Inc.
MSFT – Microsoft Corp.
INTC – Intel Corp.
CAT – Caterpillar Inc.
WFMI – Whole Foods Market Inc.
TXN – Texas Instruments Inc.
A – Agilent Technologies Inc.
FLEX – Flextronics International Ltd.
SUNW – Sun Microsystems Inc.

Implied volatility (IV) does not usually change much during a typical day. Events which have a big impact on IV usually come out as press releases while the market is closed.

Without significant changes in IV or time until expiration, you will be unable to get much help from vega or theta in your trading. That means you will have to rely on delta, and possibly gamma, to make a profit.

Since the delta of an option is always less than the delta of an equivalent stock position, and the bid-ask spread is almost always greater for the options than for the stock, it takes a larger move in the stock price to break even using options instead of stock for day trading.

I am one of those who believes it is difficult to make a profit day trading stocks, and since it would be even more difficult to make a profit day trading options, I would not recommend day trading options to anyone.

I recognize the large percentage profits possible day trading options, but a large percentage of a small number is still a small number. That means to make a large profit you would need to risk a fairly large amount. I am not comfortable with that risk profile in my portfolio.

Trading is not an easy road to wealth. There are plenty of statistics to say that most people who go down it fail (90%+). I'm not going to say how much I make per week, but I will say I'm in the 10% (or less) who have succeeded. To me, you need two things to succeed in trading. #1 is a curiousity of how things work. Most good traders will tell you that "systems" are constantly breaking down (i.e., what works today won't necessarily work tomorrow). If you are going to be a successful trader, you are going to be constantly doing research for new things that work. If you don't enjoy the process of researching new ideas, I think you are doomed from the start. #2, you've got to be willing to learn how to handle emotions. Things are going to go against you, and at least in my experience, humans are wired to want to get away from the pain of a trade going against you. How you deal with these moments will define a lot of how successful you are going to be trading. Make a long story short…if you are looking for an easy road to wealth…this isn't it. If you like the game, and can't learn enough about it…then you will eventually find a way to succeed.

Philly,
Forex market or Foreign Currency Exchange market is one of the biggest trading market in the world with over USD 1.3 Trillion traded in a day. It is drawing attention ever since it is open to Online trading. Forex trading can be very profitable if you take your time to do a proper research, understanding various options and choose a system that works for you. The most used Forex trading system may not be the most suitable for your needs.

There are many different kinds of Forex Trading Systems and you need to know a few facts as mentioned below, before choosing and funding a system.

1. Testimonials: Is there anyone out there who is trying to sell a system and show you testimonials from the people who actually didn't like the system? Highly unlikely. You should do proper research before indulging into a system that is completely new to you.

2. Profit: Do you want to work with a Forex Trading system that breaks even? Why? If you keep the money in your home, you will still break even, then why take all the hassles of setting up an Forex Trading account and do all the work. Really speaking, you should always do some research on how profitable a particular trading system is?

3. Drawdown: The maximum drawdown of trading system is defined as the greatest peak-to-valley drawdown in a trading system’s equity. Maximum drawdown gives us a measure of the survivability of the trading system.

4. Time to profit: The actual time it takes to achieve the results with a particular trading system. You should plan to have a long and profitable relationship with your trading system.

Try to use a trading system that let you open a Demo account so that you can practice and learn about Forex Trading without risking any money.

I have tried many of these systems in my quest to simplify my trading experience. I personally have found FreedomRocks to be the system that has worked for me. I have found no bad information on this system from anybody that has actually used it. I have found many skeptics and bashers but nothing from those that have actually tried at least the free trial they offer.

Below are a couple of links I have found in my travels around the web:

http://www.yourforexinvestor.com

http://www.babypips.com

Now as far as how much money you would need to gat started I have helped people get started with amounts ranging from $500 up to well over six figures. If you would like I could send you a spreadsheet of how to get started right with just $500 invested on a monthly bugeted basis. The spreadsheet will show you how that investment could easily grow to well over $240,000 within 60 months! Feel free to e-mail me and I will get that right over to you.
bjwells@yourforexinvestor.com

To Your Success,
Brandon Wells
877-773-5345

Try this page:

http://www.best-stock-trading-systems.com/trading_stocks_online.html

Also, here's a great book on trading for beginners:

http://www.best-stock-trading-systems.com/trading_for_beginners_review.html