Day Trading - Where to start?

26 replies
Ive been looking at buying stock for a couple of companies and need advice of the best way to do it.

Itll only be a 100 or so shares of each so Im looking at etrade BUT no clue as to wich plan to join under. Or if there is even a better way.

Suggestions?

Garrie
#day #start #trading
  • Profile picture of the author getsmartt
    Day Trading is a tough way to go, between the fees and the potential losses you can loose quite a bit.

    I normally use sharebuilder or buyandhold but they would be worthless for day trading.

    Good luck
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  • Profile picture of the author GarrieWilson
    Hi James,

    The companies I'm looking at are for more long term. 6+ months.

    Does day trade imply short term? ie Buy today - sell today?

    Garrie
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  • Profile picture of the author getsmartt
    Yeah day trading means buy today sell today. If you are looking at buy and hold for a while I highly suggest
    ShareBuilder from ING DIRECT: Buy Stocks Online and invest your money at ShareBuilder
    or
    http://www.buyandhold.com
    much cheaper than etrade
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  • Profile picture of the author GarrieWilson
    Thanks James.

    If they have an affilate program, send me your link.

    Garrie
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  • Profile picture of the author getsmartt
    thanks for the offer but I do not have an affiliate account with either one, not even sure if they offer one
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    • Profile picture of the author Marhelper
      I find Sharebuilder to be more expensive and less reliable than Scottrade. ST has straight $7 trades and I have found their fills to be the best in addition to top notch customer service. That's my experience anyway. Good luck.
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  • Profile picture of the author Mark Alexander
    If you know what stocks you want to buy, and don't need the assistance of a broker, Check out zecco.com, they offer 10 free stock trades per month (as long as your account balance is above $2500). The other two brokers that I use are optionsxpress and think or swim.

    I am not affiliated to these guys in anyway.

    Feel free to pm me if I can be of any help

    Mark.
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  • Profile picture of the author LB
    Given the current economic situation...I would buy gold instead of stock. That's just me though.
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    • Profile picture of the author JeremiahSay
      Originally Posted by LB View Post

      Given the current economic situation...I would buy gold instead of stock. That's just me though.
      That's exactly what I thought.. Gold might be expensive to some.. nonetheless you could try out silver, oil etc ... commodities

      Personally, I think it's much safer than stock, mutual funds and the likes

      Jeremiah
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      • Profile picture of the author samjaynz
        Originally Posted by JeremiahSay View Post

        That's exactly what I thought.. Gold might be expensive to some.. nonetheless you could try out silver, oil etc ... commodities

        Personally, I think it's much safer than stock, mutual funds and the likes

        Jeremiah
        Agreed also. Gold makes for good investing these days, especially with so much excess liquidity and QE from reserve banks - gold is the perfect inflation hedge.
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  • Profile picture of the author VegasVince
    Originally Posted by GarrieWilson View Post

    Ive been looking at buying stock for a couple of companies and need advice of the best way to do it.

    Itll only be a 100 or so shares of each so Im looking at etrade BUT no clue as to wich plan to join under. Or if there is even a better way.

    Suggestions?

    Garrie


    Hey Garrie....

    Based on your op it doesn't appear you really looking to "day trade".....sounds like you're looking for a way to buy some shares of stock in a couple companies, capiche? I hope that's the case cuz day trading is best left to the pros and even they lose their asses from time to time.

    Day Trading......requires a minimum bankroll of at least 50K...and that's on the low side......and it better be 50K you can lose and not even blink over. True.

    Day Trading also requires balls of steel, and a yellow sticky note with the nearest suicide hotline number....cuz when the market moves against you....it often blows through your so-called "stop losses."

    I had a friend who literally lost his entire empire in one session of trading....

    If you're looking to just jump in and buy shares of this or that.....almost any reliable online broker can handle that for you'se.

    And that's a good plan.

    I personally love this nose dive the market is taking because it is free enterprise at its finest. The market is telling the government...SCREW YOU....AND YOUR BAILOUT....WE'LL DECIDE WHEN WE HIT ROCK BOTTOM.

    At least at that point...we'll have a realistic, honest starting point.....rather then one based on smoke and mirrors...a giant Ponzi scheme which this current market has been for a long time.

    There are some great values waiting to be picked up out there...and I'm excited! But I'm still not convinced the "bottom" has arrived yet. But when it has....Vinnie here is jumpin in with both feet...cuz the bargains are going to be there.

    Good luck, bro.


    xxx Vegas Vince
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  • Profile picture of the author GarrieWilson
    Hey Vince,

    Yeah. I'm looking to just pick up some stocks to hold on to. I'm not wanting to do options or anything else like that. (I actually dont even know what options are

    I thought "day trading" was just a term for "normal" people investing.

    I think I'm either going to use Scott Trade or Zecco.

    Thanks for all the help guys.

    Garrie
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    • Profile picture of the author TopKat22
      Originally Posted by GarrieWilson View Post

      Hey Vince,

      Yeah. I'm looking to just pick up some stocks to hold on to. I'm not wanting to do options or anything else like that. (I actually dont even know what options are

      I thought "day trading" was just a term for "normal" people investing.

      I think I'm either going to use Scott Trade or Zecco.

      Thanks for all the help guys.

      Garrie
      If you want to buy and hold some stocks and build a portfolio for long term growth, then you really should look into https://www.tdameritrade.com

      They have some free tools where you can (once you learn more about it) put in all the criteria you have set for your stock purchase and run it and it will give you a list of the stocks that fit within your own criteria.

      And you can even use all the real tools when you are paper trading.

      I found that some of the other sites, the real money trading tools don't work the same in the paper trading platforms.

      On TD Ameritrade, the tools work the same for real money and paper trading so that you can practice and get your system down and check your progress for real for a month or so before you invest any of your own money.

      Again, I would strongly urge you, regardless of which platform you choose, to only paper trade and get a lot of practice before you invest any real money.
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  • Profile picture of the author NewParadigm
    Look up DRIP investing. Some companies allow direct additional purchases and dividend reinvestment bypassing brokers. Some even allow shareholders to buy at discount to market.
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    • Profile picture of the author TopKat22
      Originally Posted by NY1 View Post

      The only thing that Etrade has that the others do not have or at least did not have last time that I looked, was it is easier to liquify your money. 5 minutes after you have sold off, you can take your money out if you have the debit card. (some restrictions do apply to that)

      There is actually more to consider than just when you can take money out.

      If you structure the entity correctly before you create your stock trading account, you can possibly substantially reduce or eliminate your taxes.

      TD Ameritrade has training and assistance in all such matters. Of course, they cannot give you legal or investment advice, but neither can anyone else, the training is still very valuable.
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    • Profile picture of the author Marhelper
      Originally Posted by NewParadigm View Post

      Look up DRIP investing. Some companies allow direct additional purchases and dividend reinvestment bypassing brokers. Some even allow shareholders to buy at discount to market.
      This is a 3.5 year old thread. Did you notice that when you decided to respond????
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      • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
        Originally Posted by Marhelper View Post

        This is a 3.5 year old thread. Did you notice that when you decided to respond????
        I'm rather amused at how it doesn't seem that way at all. It's almost like... hardly anything has CHANGEd... in the last three and a half years.

        Which can be taken either way, of course. It's certainly valid to say things haven't gotten any better, but you can also give a bit of a sidelong glare at anyone suggesting THE WORLD IS GOING TO HELL or anything like that.
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        • Profile picture of the author rajat2k2k
          I am new to IM but have been into trading for a long time. So here goes my 2 cents...

          Day trading is not gambling. Its totally different. You should only go into day trading if you have second income on the side. Lets say if you are already making IM income that you can live off then it is easy to go into day trading. Another case is your spouse is making significant income for both of you then it is good. So basically you need another source of income. You shouldn't be like that you are day trading since you have to make your rent payment using that money. Why ? Because you can be desperate to make money while day trading. But again OP wasn't asking about Day trading so I wouldn't go into the detail.

          I think OP was asking about Swing Trading (where trades can last from 2-3 days to few months).

          First you need to select a broker. If you are in US zecco.com, and few others. Get the best commission structure. There was a recent barron survey about top brokers in terms of commisions ( to keep your cost low). If you are anywhere else except US go with interactive brokers. But before using interactive brokers (their commissions are super cheap) make sure you know a little about how to trade. If you don't then go with a premium online brokers where commissions will be a little high but you can learn trading and placing orders and make your mistakes along the way. So while starting keep your trading capital small.

          Since you are looking for short term investments (swing trading) using technical analysis will be best for you. Go to the business section of your local bookstore and you will find several books on technical analysis. Any basic book will do. Like swing trading for dummies book is a good start. Its not a good book but it covers everything to get your feet wet.

          On internet there are a lot of free resources where you can start learning about day trading. But be aware as with any scammers and then there is a real deal. One of

          To the OP: I have few books that I am ready to give away since they are beginners level that will start you off with the basics of day trading. I can mail you those for free - you will have to cover the cost of shipping!
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  • Profile picture of the author TopKat22
    Day trading is very risky.

    Building a stock portfolio to hold and grow is less risky and options trading is riskier than holding stock but less risky than day trading in my opinion.

    However, I would advise you NOT to put in a single penny until you have taken some courses and have "paper traded" for a least a month or more to see how you do.

    Paper trading is real trades done without real money.

    I would recommend https://www.tdameritrade.com

    They have some really great training for beginners and a lot of other features and to my knowledge, the lowest fee schedule available.

    I have personally met one of the guys who wrote some of the training and he trades weekly and this is the main source of his income.
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  • Profile picture of the author warriortrades
    Just wanted to add that "buy and hold" strategies are risky as well. I've been trading for 10 years and now do so full time. Quick fact; 90% of traders fail. I agree that you should seek sound advice before putting real money into the market. I would point you in the direction of real trading education but you're looking at buying and holding, so whoever you seek advice from should tell you the basics of diversification. There are many ways to diversify your funds. I know a lot of people are getting into precious metals ie..gold, silver, etc...Good luck!
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  • Profile picture of the author Michael Ten
    Look into Zecco perhaps. I think that they offer some free trades under certain circumstances.
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  • Profile picture of the author samjaynz
    Don't start.

    That's my honest advice. Day trading is extremely difficult and requires an ability to distance yourself from emotion (especially the emotion of losing money) It's like gambling, only with different jargon.

    Of course there are some truly talented day traders, but they are few and far between.

    And once you start leveraging anything, you can quickly find yourself "up $hit creek, without a paddle"
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  • Profile picture of the author rambo9600
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    • Profile picture of the author CDarklock
      Originally Posted by rambo9600 View Post

      I personally have met some of the most successful traders in the history of the world. You need to be non-emotional, strict as a CO in the military, and have a plan, a so called system or black box.
      I used to have a friend who was a day trader. His life worked like this.

      Monday-Thursday: up at dawn, 18 straight hours of work, bed
      Friday-Sunday: party like Charlie Sheen for 60 hours and pass out

      Everybody was jealous of the partying like Charlie Sheen


      but nobody wanted to admit (or accept) that he could only do that because he worked like a damn dog the rest of the week.

      They wanted to be the day trader partying on the weekends, but they simply didn't comprehend the part where you don't get to do that without the 72 hours of staring at charts and monitors and (eek) doing math.

      I toyed with the idea for a while. I did some trades on paper. I sucked at it. I threw the paper away and turned my attention to other things.
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  • Profile picture of the author rajat2k2k
    This is the survey I was taking about. I think Zecco.com has increased their commissions. Tradeking will be the best broker since you are a beginner and still want low commission structure. Once you have 3-4 months of experience with tradeking you can move to tradestation or interactive brokers.

    Barron's 2011 Online-Broker Review - Barrons.com
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  • Profile picture of the author warriortrades
    check out thinkorswim.com

    They can give you a per share commission structure ($1 for 100 shares, $2 for 200 shares etc...) They have other options but compared to just about everyone else they are competitive and cheap. They also have some of the best learning tools available for FREE. They offer a lot.
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