Stock Trading and Other Things

Does anyone know the in's and outs of day trading?

I have been contemplating for some time about diving in to day trading. I have been simulating trades based on 5% gains per trade and have been quite successful, but still, I have not put my money in it and I would just like to know if anyone can better inform me or provide some tips as I am just about to go ahead and jump into this and hope for the best. I've got my minimum to jump in, I would appreciate any advice and tips for any of you that may be currently day trading

Public Comments

1. I think nobody knows it except the market itself...one thing, particular, is the trader himself/herself is one part of that market...

2. When you use words like "hope" and "jump in", I think you will be one of the day traders that fails. But the prrof is in the results, so if you have been "quite successful" at HONEST paper trading over a reasonable time period, it is time to find out if you can do it when real money is in the game.

Just curious about what kind of day trading you plan to do? Stocks, ETF's, commodities, futures, forex, options? Long only, long/short, discretionary, system-based?

3. Daytrading is an asinine practice that proliferated during the "golden years" of the 90's tech bubble where thousands of investors made a ton of money trading up grossly overvalued assets.

Empirical evidence has proven time and time again that after fees, and taxes day traders will not beat investing in an index.

Look, when you day trade, who is on the other end of that trade. More than likely it's some guy at a hedge fund, mutual fund, investment bank, prop trading shop who does nothing but trade the name your buying and maybe a few others. He likely has a Bloomberg terminal, access to level three quotes and more research and information than you could afford, and he's getting faster than you. So basically your at a huge disadvantage from the start. Compounding your problems is the fees you pay on every trade and the taxes you pay on all gains.

Any investment pro will tell you, it's a suckers game. I would highly suggest you don't do it. You would be much better off just investing in index tracking ETFs. It's cheaper, less risky, and you'll keep your hair longer. If you have to play your hand in the markets at least consider a fundamental approach which allow you to do research and develop a more well thought out thesis for your trades than you could come up with on a whim 10 hours before the market opens.