Comments on How to Become a Day Trader

Over the long run, swing trading or long term investing should attribute to more reliable gains. Pick shares according to the financial statements, and performance history. It is important to learn how to read and understand the audit reports, and to know how to read the technicals (graphs). If you are going to take a try at day trading, choose shares that have a gaining projection, so that if they dip down, you an hold them for a while to recover, or gain. My personal advice is not to be greedy, and invest with a conservative approach. Any shares that you buy will have a risk. Investing in shares that pay out dividends have an advantage. If the share price goes down for a while, or is not gaining in a strong fashion, at least you will collect some income from them. My best performers for reliability have been in the energies, and the banks. The best gainers, but volatile have been in the metals, and minerals. I like to invest about 15 to 20% in to the metals.

I've been trading (day trading) for roughly three years now. It's true what they say; that anywhere from 70-80% loose more a day then they make. A helpful hint: Don't get greedy. Although, you'll need that greed to get you where you want, but don't let it take control. If you see the stocks are rising, ride with them for a while, but follow your gut instinct and get out once you reach an acceptable trade amount. Fortunately, by following my strategies and my "Don't get greedy" rule, I've cut my loses in half. Although I won't deny there's a lot of luck involved!

I've been trading (day trading) for roughly three years now. It's true what they say; that anywhere from 70-80% loose more a day then they make. A helpful hint: Don't get greedy. Although, you'll need that greed to get you where you want, but don't let it take control. If you see the stocks are rising, ride with them for a while, but follow your gut instinct and get out once you reach an acceptable trade amount. Fortunately, by following my strategies and my "Don't get greedy" rule, I've cut my loses in half. Although I won't deny there's a lot of luck involved!

100% of day traders, who aren't illegally trading on material non-public information, lose money in the long run. There are plenty of textbooks, not to mention empirical studies, that prove this. The best you can hope for is to get lucky and get out.

There's good advice here to learn and practice before you invest. It's important, too, in order to know how to record and track buys and sells and get in the habit of doing so. Many pay at tax time because they haven't a clue and have no records.

1. Plan on losing all of your risk capital at least once. 2. Be prepared to sacrifice all other activities (including family members) in the process of learning. 3. Message boards posters are usually trying to pump the stocks you trade. 4. Become a specialist by following only a few stocks or industries. Fuse F&A with T&A with your trading gutt. Paper trading is as good as preparing yourself for a gun fight with squirt guns. When your life (trading capital) is on the line, your emotions behave much differently. Paper trading is pretty useless. Having made over 1 million trades in my career I can freely say that.

Most "day traders" as they like to call themselves, do very little if any research into the trading process or the companies they are trading! It's all because they heard some "hot tip" from a friend, and they are trying to get in on it before knowing anything about the system and how it works. If anyone is considering day trading, I suggest they try paper trading for 3-6 months first so they get to know what the ups and downs can do to their investments.

100% of day traders, who aren't illegally trading on material non-public information, lose money in the long run. There are plenty of textbooks, not to mention empirical studies, that prove this. The best you can hope for is to get lucky and get out.

1. Plan on losing all of your risk capital at least once. 2. Be prepared to sacrifice all other activities (including family members) in the process of learning. 3. Message boards posters are usually trying to pump the stocks you trade. 4. Become a specialist by following only a few stocks or industries. Fuse F&A with T&A with your trading gutt. Paper trading is as good as preparing yourself for a gun fight with squirt guns. When your life (trading capital) is on the line, your emotions behave much differently. Paper trading is pretty useless. Having made over 1 million trades in my career I can freely say that.

Most "day traders" as they like to call themselves, do very little if any research into the trading process or the companies they are trading! It's all because they heard some "hot tip" from a friend, and they are trying to get in on it before knowing anything about the system and how it works. If anyone is considering day trading, I suggest they try paper trading for 3-6 months first so they get to know what the ups and downs can do to their investments.