How to Best Stocks to Day Trade

Finding the best stocks for day trading is a tricky business. A lot of money can be made in a short period of time, but a lot of money could be lost, as well.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

1. Watch the stock market for at least a month before investing your money. You need to get a feel for the market fluctuations if you hope to have any success.

2. Figure out how much you need to make to break even, and concentrate on reaching that amount for the first few weeks.

3. Look for stocks that fluctuate by at least $2-$3 per share within a day’s time. Look at the history of the stock. If there are a few dollars swing on a regular basis, you can quickly make a profit each day. These are the stocks you will be trading. You won’t normally want to hold stocks overnight as a lot can happen in a few hours.

4. Buy low. Pay attention to the news for events--or even the news itself--that may affect the stock. Oftentimes, the market overreacts to the news and will correct itself later. Watch for a stock that you have good reason to believe is about to rebound, and invest early in the day. Look at the after-market news and trading during the evening to see if there is buying activity. That is a sign the stock will open higher early when the U.S. markets open.

5. Sell high. Decide at what point you wish to sell your stock, and arrange to be notified when the share price reaches your target.

Tips & Warnings

• Don‘t beat yourself up if you set a selling price and thereafter the price goes even higher. The ‘if only’ game works both ways: ‘if only I’d waited’ could have easily have been ‘if only I had sold earlier’.
• Don’t get in over your head. This is easy to do, particularly with ‘leveraged’ buying - when you are trading with borrowed money.