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Be sure you know the difference between trading and investing in stocks.
Also look at E*Trade and Schwab. They have training courses.
If you are trading - hold stocks for short period of time - you want to limit each trade to not more than 10% of your trading fund and pick a price to get out of the trade. Both a loss price and a profit price. Go slow. The risks can be high. Do not use margin. Do not become over confident if your first few trades are winners.
You will need some luck.
The other poster probably copied and pasted some info he read about day traders who have suffered at the speed of program trading. Day traders try to profit on very small price movements and might lose out to program trading that can execute a lot faster.
I day traded for a living for seven years and my previous answer still applies: Different trades, different time frames, etc. My 2-hour day trades were like long-term investments compared to the scalps the machines go after. The only real effect HFT had on my trading was it added a little extra volatility, but that worked in my favor as often as it hurt me, so it all evened out.
You're right in that most day traders do fail and not because the big, bad machines are out to get them.
To be a successful trader you need to understand technical analysis. I've been doing it for a very long time and have had great success. I would recommend reading this book, even professionals have referred to it as the bible.
I have been reading a lot of articles and learning about the stocks and shares. I am very new to Trading world
A good basic book to start with is "How to Make Money in Stocks" by William O'Neil. O'Neill's company also publishes the Investor's Business Daily(IBD) newspaper and runs the investors.com website. I suggest getting the free two week trial for Investors Business Daily-search for it, its widely advertised.
IBD has many resources for stock selection. For example the Monday and Wednesday editions have the IBD 50 and the Friday edition has "Your Weekly Review" .
Another way to find stocks is to watch the companies you are familiar with. If you know cloud computing maybe you could follow CRM or if you are in the pharmaceutical business you can follow companies like JNJ or GILD.
Even if you do not have cable you can watch the Bloomberg channel live online. Their Asia feed seems to have more sophisticated analysis in the evenings.
Nightly Business Report is on public television around dinner time and is a quick 25 minute summary of business news(general stock news-not specific trading info)
Another good book for beginners is The Right Stock at the Right Time by Larry Williams. Its definitely a bit dated but is a good introduction to the concepts of cycles and sentiment.
For an advanced analysis of stocks and trading entry points you can look at Carolyn Boroden's fibonacciqueen.com website and sign up for her free video of the day. She also wrote a book on Fibonacci trading. Her work seems to be based on Robert Miner's Dynamic Trading and Bryce Gilmore's Geometry of the Markets.(A great book but not for beginners)
Tom McClellan's free weekly chart is worth looking at too:
Finally its very important in trading to control your risk and manage your emotions. Mark Douglas wrote two excellent books on trading psychology, The Disciplined Trader and Trading in the Zone.
I day traded for a living for seven years and my previous answer still applies: Different trades, different time frames, etc. My 2-hour day trades were like long-term investments compared to the scalps the machines go after. The only real effect HFT had on my trading was it added a little extra volatility, but that worked in my favor as often as it hurt me, so it all evened out.
You're right in that most day traders do fail and not because the big, bad machines are out to get them.
Day traders fail because of human error (or lack of an understanding of trading).
It's your emotions (be it greed taking too big a risk, or fear causing you to bail when you should hold) that betray you.
You can insist you have your emotions in check, only to watch them crop up at the worst possible time.
I trade the 6E futures contract exclusively very short term (avg trade 8 minutes) and I have no problems with the algo's. I use the Depth of Market and tape in my trading and they are easy to spot; I am not at all concerned about algo's. You have to use the right trading tools though since most standard platform dom and tapes are basic.
Guess you haven't been in the markets for the last couple of years as a trader.
OP.....if you are serious about learning the trading world, I would suggest that you take a free trial at Tide Traders. Rick caters to young (time wise), inexperienced traders, publishes a litany of very helpful videos on everything from money management (how to handle your "nut") to watch lists to S&P trades to technical analysis education. He goes very slowly, documents everything, publishes his trades before he puts them on so YOU can be first and goes out of his way to educate inexperienced newbies. It is a great resource for traders and exactly the kind of thing you want to expose yourself to. He isn't "selling" anything, bragging about how he made millions, promising you that you can become wealthy, nor making claims which most trading sites make about what superstars they are. He isn't hustling a "system"; just being one of us.
Guess you haven't been in the markets for the last couple of years as a trader.
OP.....if you are serious about learning the trading world, I would suggest that you take a free trial at Tide Traders. Rick caters to young (time wise), inexperienced traders, publishes a litany of very helpful videos on everything from money management (how to handle your "nut") to watch lists to S&P trades to technical analysis education. He goes very slowly, documents everything, publishes his trades before he puts them on so YOU can be first and goes out of his way to educate inexperienced newbies. It is a great resource for traders and exactly the kind of thing you want to expose yourself to. He isn't "selling" anything, bragging about how he made millions, promising you that you can become wealthy, nor making claims which most trading sites make about what superstars they are. He isn't hustling a "system"; just being one of us.
I've been actively trading for over a decade and I agree with Long Arm. In the end it really doesn't matter. You trade based on price movement. Whether it's a bunch of retail investors buying XYZ or some automated trading algorithm buying XYZ, it doesn't matter.
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