Stock Trading and Other Things

What is the best type of account to sign up for if i want to sart day trading?

Ameritrade has four of them: cash, cash and option, cash and margin, cash and option and margin..

Also, to elaborate on my question, is $2000 even enough to start making any kind of profit in day trading ?? And is signing up for those newsletters all over the internet that promise you the best, 'top secret' tips on potential stocks a hoax ??

Public Comments

1. open a margin account. newslettertips are useless.

2. Day treading is very risky, you will probably lose all your money! Open a cash account, margin is extremely risky!! My advice by 1200 shares of HDY and hold it for 5 years. For more info on that company go to investorvillage.com. Good luck!

3. If you have to ask, maybe you should re-consider doing any trading until you understand fully what you are doing.

Most traders have an account that permits them to do cash, margin, and option transactions.
At Ameritrade, like all other major broker/dealers you have only one basic account, and 2 or 3 types within those accounts - cash, margin & short.

In your account, you must obtain permission from the firm and sign an agreement to trade options, and option trades can be done in either your cash account or margin account, But options are not marginable but can be done in the account.

$2,000 may be sufficient to start trading but it's not sufficient to do any trading volume. And one good money management policy is never to invest 100% of your investing capital any any one time, and never 100% of what you have invested into any one security.
AND if you get tagged as "day trader" you will have to have and maintain $25,000 in equity at all times, so $2,000 is not going to cut it.

There are no "top secrets" just like there is no holy grail out there in the market, so stop trying to get a short cut, nothing beats being educated in what you're doing.

4. Margin account. Newsletters can't help you unless you're skilled at trading and understand;
Money Management
Position sizing
Risk/Reward Ratios
Stops, limits & time horizons
Technical Analysis

The SEC does not allow brokers to allow "pattern day traders" unless they have $25,000 in their account.

The "day traders" that have been successful have read many books, watched many webinars and gone to good seminars. On average it takes 3 years (or more) to learn day trading.

5. Day trading is a bad idea, it is incredibly risky. A few people seem to beat the odds but, other are not so lucky.

6. Pick the best stock broker, one with low fees.., it took me some time to see that most of my gains were lost to the fees i paid to actually buy stock and sell it, i suggest zecco, they were recently given a great review by wall streets "smart money", and are the ONLY ones who offer free stock trades.

http://friends.zecco.com/r/a7a2877caab8102b8555