Help a Dummy Get Started Day Trading

[zghorner]

Im just a little fish thats been day trading online for quite a few years but only with my own personal side extra 'fun' money. I have a great time doing it, its just for fun for me, not serious investing as Ive never played around with any more than 15k-50 at the most in my accounts. I dont go to casinos or gamble much any more beyond a few pro sports so I look at my daytime stock trading as another form of gambling. The coolest part is that today with phone apps it is so much easier and I can do it wherever I happen to be. I set my limit and thats that just like my SIL does when she goes to the casino. I wouldnt play if I didnt expect to be able to lose it, any gains Im lucky enough to snag go back in it. My oldest single regular stock Ive stuck with since 1997', my oldest day stuff usually no less than a month- at the longest. Ive worked hard and feel Ive earned the right to play around with my extra money. Im 47, kids are all gone so its just me and the wife now, we have no debt besides taxes and insurances, homes and vehicles paid, CCs always paid, daily expenses and utilities come out of interest earning check accts/cash rewards debit card accts, have decent investments, decent solid and liquid assets,etc.

what online broker do you use? I plan on trying tradeking out as well to see which I prefer.

 

[nofearfactor]

Scotttrade is usually most peoples choise because theyre the best. Tradeking is a good one too.

Top 5 Online Brokers for Stock Trading - StockTrading.net

 

[montesa]

I started trading with 3k. I'm now up to a loss of about 800 bucks. From what I can tell its like anything else. You need to be obsessed with stocks/trends/research. I think you should pick a sector and learn everything you can and focus on that. I bought 10,000 shares of sandridge. Might loose all that money but you never know. It's 6 cents a share.

 

[zghorner]

I started trading with 3k. I'm now up to a loss of about 800 bucks. From what I can tell its like anything else. You need to be obsessed with stocks/trends/research. I think you should pick a sector and learn everything you can and focus on that. I bought 10,000 shares of sandridge. Might loose all that money but you never know. It's 6 cents a share.

man SDOC is temping but thats just too much of a risk for me. "Shares of SDOC are trading at $0.063. The stock had sustained gains in the ten cent ballpark until recently when the company raised concerns of share holders after filing for chapter 11" - Yahoo! Finance.

This is the only place I have seen it stated that they have in fact filed for chapter 11 bankruptcy...everywhere else is saying they probably will in the near future.

 

[Shadowrider]

I started trading with 3k. I'm now up to a loss of about 800 bucks. From what I can tell its like anything else. You need to be obsessed with stocks/trends/research. I think you should pick a sector and learn everything you can and focus on that. I bought 10,000 shares of sandridge. Might loose all that money but you never know. It's 6 cents a share.

I think you can kiss it goodbye but.... If I'm wrong you are going to fairly wealthy.

I made $350 on a measly little $1200 buy in a matter of 3 hours a few weeks back on CHK. Had I not been working in a courthouse I could have got in quicker and tripled that. I just did it on whim and I'll take that return all days of the week. They've settled down since, they were swinging 30+% a day for a while in the 1st part of the year. Back then you could day trade it and if you could get the timing down you could clean up. Now it's more like week trade with that one and it's tougher. Today for instance, opened and climbed nicely then crashed. Gotta be right on top of it to do any good.

I have accounts with Scottrade, TD Ameritrade and E-Trade. Scottrade has the easiest site to use for me.

 

[nofearfactor]

www.scottrade.com/LP/mobileapp/index.html

 

[CHenry]

The easiest way to make a small fortune day trading is to start with a large fortune.

This

 

[Mad Professor]

My goal with day trading is to use it as my job. spend the mornings at my desk and clock out around noon. I would like to start with $10k and see where that takes me. If I lose it, then I will re evaluate and go from there. If I am able to grow it, I will add more money.

This is where I see people making mistakes.

Start out with $10k. Turn it into $15k. Add anothe $10k, start using a margin account. Now worth $25k but are trading 35-50k. Now it is worth $30k cash and start getting more aggressive and reckless. Boom the market adjusts and you are lucky if you are left with $5k

It takes discipline. I never day traded. I was more of a week or month trader. About 90% of my sell were short term, the other 10% would be capital gains. That was years ago and I don't have any single stocks now, just play with a few mutual funds.

Be careful!!!

 

[djcorrell]

TD Ameritrade has Think or Swim. By far the best platform out there bar none. You get Trade Architect too. Also unlimited access to streaming CNBC, Tastytrade, and more. Many of the best news articles are presented in live streams with the ticker you are looking at. Think more in terms of 30 to 54 days on positions, to let yourself have more time to be right. If you haven't done so, watch some of the Tastytrade videos, on their website or youtube. The best introductory book I can think of is Jim Cramer's "Getting Back to Even" http://www.amazon.com/Jim-Cramers-G...TF8&qid=1463078556&sr=8-7&keywords=jim+cramer . The only reason to have a margin account is to be able to sell options naked. When you start levering up using borrowed money, you are taking excessive risk. Most margin cost run 10%. If you can make guaranteed 10% returns, why play. The plays I look for are 1 to 2 % per month, or so. Often you can take those off much sooner.
Hope that helps. NOTHING HERE SHOULD CONSTITUTE FINANCIAL ADVISE.

If you are worried about tax consequences, you can open a self directed Roth IRA and max out your contributions. Then put the excess funds in a second account. You can move over the maximum amount every year. While this may not seem like much, it adds up over time.

 

[montesa]

I think you can kiss it goodbye but.... If I'm wrong you are going to fairly wealthy.

I made $350 on a measly little $1200 buy in a matter of 3 hours a few weeks back on CHK. Had I not been working in a courthouse I could have got in quicker and tripled that. I just did it on whim and I'll take that return all days of the week. They've settled down since, they were swinging 30+% a day for a while in the 1st part of the year. Back then you could day trade it and if you could get the timing down you could clean up. Now it's more like week trade with that one and it's tougher. Today for instance, opened and climbed nicely then crashed. Gotta be right on top of it to do any good.

I have accounts with Scottrade, TD Ameritrade and E-Trade. Scottrade has the easiest site to use for me.

I knew it was a Hail Mary. I just wanted to take the risk for some reason. Who knows. Maybe they'll get things in order and in five years SDOC will be with even a dollar a share. I'll be losing less than 600 on that though. 10k shares isn't that expensive when they're pennies.