Day Trading Guide – Chapter 4: Day trading Facts

 

This is chapter number 4 out of 13. Read the rest:

Read Day Trading Guide – Chapter 1: Introduction
Read Day Trading Guide – Chapter 2: An overview of day trading
Read Day Trading Guide – Chapter 3: Taking Up Day Trading As a Living

In order for you to be able to avoid losses and make profits, you will need a basic understanding of certain concepts like the fact that:

• Day trading currencies requires only a few hundred to start off with. Whereas, to trade in stocks, by law in the US, you will need a minimum of $25,000 to start off. In addition, day trading currencies is easier and simpler than day trading in stocks as there are only a few currencies pairs which you can trade in.

 

• You need to limit your losses with day trading. This is the main reason why individual day traders incur losses. Maybe it is due to greed or the inability to take losses that some day traders continue holding on to a losing position well into the next day trading session hoping to recoup their losses. It must be remembered that day traders do not hold overnight position.

 

• Conduct day trading with only a portion of your money. You should never day trade with all your funds. This is due to the fact that you have absolutely no idea that you will be successful in your endeavor as a day trader. In addition, everyone has a learning curve. And during the period of this learning curve it is likely that you will be losing money. By the time that you have wised up, you might have depleted all your funds.

 

• You need training and practice in day trading to be an accomplished trader. All practices and training requires effort on your part. Without practicing for instance on a live day trading simulator and setting aside a few hours a day to educate yourself, you can never be in tune with the market as a day trader.

 

• Every one of us is different. Some of us will take to day trading like ducks to water while others require substantial efforts on their part to be able to grasp the principles behind day trading. Remember that the learning curve for all of us is different.

 

• For day trading stocks, you will need a direct access broker to execute your trades. Using online or full service brokers to day trade stocks is inefficient as these kinds of brokers are inflexible and slow to execute your orders within the timeframe of minutes for day trading.

 

• Daily profit targets are a waste of time with regards to day trading. It is not possible for you to be able to say that you are going to “consistently make $X,XX per day”. This sort of goal is nearly impossible to achieve due to the timeframe a day trader works with. All traders will eventually make or lose money in day trading. Nevertheless how much they make or lose overall depends on their own discipline level.

 

• There is actually no hard and fast rule which states that a day trader must trade everyday regardless of his situation. If for whatever reason that you do not feel like trading than you should not trade at all. This is because your mind must be on your trading to keep track of the fast moving market. 

 

Read Day Trading Guide – Chapter 5: What You’ll Need to Get Started
Read Day Trading Guide – Chapter 6: Day Trading & Investment Basics
Read Day Trading Guide – Chapter 7: The different kinds of order for buying and selling stocks
Read Day Trading Guide – Chapter 8: Market makers
Read Day Trading Guide – Chapter 9: Technical Analysis
Read Day Trading Guide – Chapter 10: Choosing a broker
Read Day Trading Guide – Chapter 11: Costs of a direct access broker
Read Day Trading Guide – Chapter 12: Paper Trading Stocks
Read Day Trading Guide – Chapter 13: Conclusion