Day Trading

I use Scottrade and love it! The stream from Scott works great. I don't know about BofA, but I suspect it's comparable. I'd think again about using Scottrade, they do one thing only and are very good at it. BofA does hundreds of things, some good, some not so good.

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??

For the quality of research and tools available, I'd recommend Fidelity or Schwab.
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I'm not sure about specific courses but here are some links to websites that are known for proven stock and option trading tools. They have some courses you can sign up for.

www.investools.com

www.shadowtrader.net

www.thinkorswim.com

I use interactivebrokers.com because they are by far the cheapest, but they are not nearly as user friendly as most. Optionsxpress has great tools, virtual trading and good learning items but your at 9.99 on both sides of the trade. Ive also heard good things about think or swim, schwab, and scottrade too. It all depends on how much hand holding you need in your trading.

Good luck

Be aware that 90% of day-traders lose money. The odds are way against you. I recommend trying swing-trading (a few days to a few months time frame) first. The pressure is less and the timing not so quick. The exact same principles that apply to swing trading will prepare you for trading on shorter time frames. Or … you might decide you were making enough money in swing trading to stick with it.

As for sources, check with your brokerage. Many of them make learning tools available to their clients.

Best of success.

Day trading “well” will take most people on average, three years to accomplish. That’s after 95% of those that try…. fail.

Here are some suggestions (to start);
Read;
Mastering The Trade, John Carter
Trading In The Zone, Mark Douglas
Trade Your Way To Financial Freedom, Tharp
High Probability Trading, Link
There are plenty more books to read. The typical trader reads a book every month or two (I average every 6 weeks)… I re-read them also.

Every night I watch videos on the market;

http://www.alphatrends.net/

http://www.tradingwithtk.com/

Weekend (Sunday) video;

https://www.shadowtrader.net/videoArchive.html

My broker has weekly “chats” that may be of interest;

https://www.thinkorswim.com/tos/displayPage.tos?webpage=onlineSeminar

In one word there’s only one way to be successful: Disipline

Here’s another web page that may be of interest;

http://www.mytrade.com/

Training for a fee;

http://www.investools.com/

Good luck….. it’s been a rough year! I’ve been a position trader for 30+ years. A swing trader for the past 1.5 years. I’m just getting into day trading (also)……………………….

In November there’s a TradersExpo in Vegas… if you can, it’s well worth the effort.

There are companies that supposedly teach you to day trade. I am sure LA has its share. They make money by watching you churn your account until you go broke. Then they sign up some other batch of fools. Very few make it. Try it but don't risk more than you can afford to lose.

Some good places online to share info with others and learn are;

investorshub.com (my favorite)
siliconinvestor.com
ragingbull.com

many boards are devoted to trading at the above sites. you can sign up for free memberships at all 3. Ask the traders on the trading boards what software they use.

I have been a trader, investor, broker, etc. and it is rare to see anyone who is not a professional trade for a living. If you got it, then you will know pretty soon. You have to be able to set your stops, take your losses if needed.

Also read "trading for a living" "come into my trading room" both great books from Alexander Elder.

I will give you what info that I can. Although there are many others who are far more expeienced with daytrading than I am. I have tried many different kinds of stock trading, including daytrading. Of them all, daytrading is my least favorite. It may not be the most work (but it ain't easy), but it's definitely the most stressful. In my experience there are far easier ways to make money in the stock market.

By law the minimum amount needed to open a daytrading account is $25,000. This will open a margin account, with which you can daytrade up to four times the amount that you have in your account. So with a minimum account of $25,000 you can daytrade up to $100,000 per day. (There are some restrictions) You must pay interest on any amount that you hold overnight that is in excess of the cash in your account. Daytraders never hold anything overnight.

There are many different styles of daytrading. You can trade gaps up, or gaps down. You can trade technicals or breakouts. You can trade a particular stock or group of stocks. Each style requires a specific set of tools and the skills to use them. At a minimum you will need a good broadband internet connection, streaming level 2 quotes, and a good broker. Quotetracker is a good, free platform that you can download and try, just to get a feel for what is involved. Also I believe that Scottrade will let you download and try their platform for free.

The broker that you choose depends upon your style of trading and the volume that you trade. Flat fee commission brokers like Scottrade are fine if you trade volumes above 1000 shares at a time. On a thirty dollar stock, that's $30,000 per trade. Personally I may buy more than 1000 shares, but I'll often take a position 100 shares at a time. So in my case paying $7 for each of those 100 share trades would kill me on commissions. Instead I use a broker that charges per share, not per trade. If you're not dealing in high volume it's best to pay per share, not per trade. That way you can buy 100 shares and it will only cost you $1 in commission.

The other thing that you should consider, just in case you do make money daytrading, is taxes. Although the advent of online tax services has made keeping track of all those daytrades considerably easier, it can still be a headache. It's much easier just to buy a stock, hold it all year, and then pay the taxes on it. Very simple.

I do not believe that daytrading is the best way to go for a beginner. It would be better to start by just buying and holding, or swingtrading. Personally I now use a service that sends me alerts on what to buy and sell. It actually works much better than I could ever do on my own, and it's a whole lot easier. Still it's quite common for me to lose $1000 or more per day. But on average my up days far outweigh my down days.

Yes, I do this for a living, and it is much easier than having a real job.

Don't waste your money, the only way to learn about investing is to do it yourself. go to top10traders.com it is a free website that gives you 100k to invest and learn about the stock market, great way to learn without risking any of your own money. do this for at least 6 months and see if you are any good at it before trying it for real