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Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Trading For Beginners

Trading is becoming more popular every day and for good reason. Fortunes can be made in a day. The market is traded up to 20 billion a day. Yes, each day.
Trading is not necessarily easy. It takes often years to really get the hang of it. With that said let me tell you what you can do to get the hang of it and not lose your butt while doing it.
There are several brokers out there that offer free demo accounts. Use them! A demo account uses all the real world information, but it does not place real trades and thus real money. This gives you all the time and resources you would ever want to start learning.
You can treat your demo account just like you would if it was real. And you should do exactly that. If you really want to learn, pay attention like it was real money.
Many of the demo accounts are quite advanced too. They have rich tools to help you analyze the trades you made and lots of other info at your fingertips.
Get a demo account and spend a lot of time with it. In time you can learn enough to start making real trades. However, until you are making money just about every time with your demo account I would not put real money into it. You are simply asking for trouble. It is never a good idea to invest in something that you do not fully understand.

I actually spent just about a year on my demo account before I invested one rupee in real money. It was worth it! My first 4 - 5 months I was losing money consistently, which at the time was discouraging, but you have to learn. However, I am proud to say that I really did not lose Rs.6,000. It was just demo money.
We all dream of quitting that day job, but I can assure you that if you do not do your homework you will surely fail. The good thing is that you will only fail at first. With enough practice and patience you can succeed.
The trick is to study. When your brain is fried from all the info then study some more. Keep at it and in time you will succeed.
Just remember to use a demo account to learn how to do it.

Tuesday, November 30, 2010

Exploring The World Of Day Trading

Are you looking into a career in day trading? In the past, the tools for day trading were available only to professionals. But thanks to the power of the Internet, everything you need to get started is now conveniently online. If you have a nose for business, guts and a sharp instinct for how the market shifts, the maybe day trading is the job for you.
What is day trading? Basically it is daily, online stock trading with very short investment. The individuals who do this day in and day out are called traders, not investors in the traditional sense. A day trader is someone who will buy a stock that has high volume and liquidity and will sell that same stock within a few minutes up to a few hours.
Day trading happens only during the day. Those who do day trading usually stay glued in front of the computer and monitoring which stocks have a fast turnover. During the day trading, they quickly buy a large number of stocks at a time and sell it once they see the stock gain within the day. Day traders will make a purchase of a stock, hold it for only minutes watching constantly for the stock to go up or down, selling if it goes down only two or three cents and holding if it goes up to about five or six cents and selling. The stock is almost never held over night as there are many other opportunities and a stock that takes hours to move is not worth holding.

Day trading can be a very high paced and stressful lifestyle. There are millions of day traders across the world but it can be a very fast way to lose everything. Some people are making over 50000.00 a day but it takes months and sometimes years to learn and master day trading.
The broader meaning of the term day trading includes those who trade daily from their homes or offices, through Internet brokerages. These day traders might buy and sell stocks in minutes, but might also hold some overnight or longer. The latest buzzword for this is "swing trader," those who keep a stock within in a few days before finally selling them. To some, particularly the so-called bandits, day trading is just a numbers game. They do little research and just watch for moving stocks with good spreads. Others are more scientific about it, relying on news and technical analysis to catch everyday price fluctuations.
Day trading requires a certain amount of capital. Generally, day trading should have enough trading capital to buy at least 1000 shares of any given stock on any particular day. There are very few stocks priced under Rs.200 that have the degree of liquidity necessary to make them suitable for day trading. This means that a novice day trader should normally have day trading capital of at least Rs.20,000 to start. In addition, the new day trader should treat this as 100% risk capital and should not have to unduly worry that the whole amount of this capital may be lost very quickly.
You must also be aware that not all stocks are suitable for day trading. Day trading should never trade unlisted or thinly traded (low volume) stocks. These stocks have poor liquidity and hence a higher price volatility. This may make it hard for you to exit your day trading position quickly at a fair price. Trade only high volume, well-known stocks.

Friday, November 26, 2010

Top 8 Share Trading Tips for Successful Traders

Everybody wants to be rich", and you can become rich if you follow these share trading tips. But, if you don't follow these share trading tips, you'll probably end up broke. Also, If you ever lose money on a trade, make sure you understand why. Re-read these share trading tips and figure out how many of these share trading tips were ignored.
1.) Have a Definite Plan and Stick with It - You must take time after each trading day to analyze the action of the market, consider the technical and fundamentals, then plan what you will do the next trading day - buy, sell, or hold. Before the opening of the market each day, you must recheck your analysis from the previous day. Since, something new could have occurred over night.
2.) Do not Trade Impulsively - The biggest weakness of every trader is giving in to impulse trading. Impulse trading is basically gambling and can cause you to lose the largest amount of money by invoking your emotions of fear, greed and inability to recognize you made a bad trade. Successful traders know they will make bad trades from time to time. But they never hold on stubbornly to a losing position. They try to keep their losses small.
3.) Look for Special Situations - Avoid low volume trading shares. Why waste your time and tie up your funds with inactive shares? Instead, look for shares that offer you an opportunity to gain at least 30% or more in only a few weeks. Usually, this means you must turn your attention away from certain shares you personally like and trade in shares that looks ready to move in a definite direction.
4.) Learn How to Sell Short - To make the most money from share trading you must be ready and willing to sell shares "short". Short selling is the selling of shares that the seller doesn't own. More specifically, a short sale is the sale of a security that isn't owned by the seller, but that is promised to be delivered. In fact, you can make more money faster selling short than you can by going long.
5.) Never Sell A New High - If the market keeps making new highs, there are good reasons for it. It's smarter to be "long", bet on shares rising, and go with the up trend than try to go "short", betting on shares falling, and fight against the trend. There's no way of knowing how high the market may move against you. Wait a few days for a definite indication of a reversal in trend. It might be several days or weeks.
6.) Never Buy A New Low - If the market keeps making new lows, there are good reasons for it. It's smarter to be "short", bet on shares falling, and go with the down trend than try to go "long", betting on shares rising, and fight against the trend. There's no way of knowing how low the market may move against you. Wait a few days for a definite indication of a reversal in trend. It might be several days or weeks.
7.) Trade Only with Funds You can Afford to Lose - If you can't afford to lose whatever money you have, you will find it almost impossible to win. The reason is you won't be able to follow the tips given in this article. And, if you fail to follow these tips, you probably won't make any profits.
8.) Cut Your Losses and Let Your Profits Grow - This is the most important tip. It's also the hardest to follow. But you must embrace this tip or you'll never become rich from trading. Few traders have the discipline to take small losses. If you are one of the few who can do this, you have a very good chance of becoming an elite trader. When most traders make a trade, they believe they're correct. If the market moves against them, they stubbornly hold on. They hate to admit they're wrong. Even when their loss grows larger, they refuse to take that loss and get out. They hope the market will turn around soon and prove them correct or at least move back to reduce their losses. But, more times than not, the market does not return to that level. When you place your order to buy or sell "short", you'll usually know whether you are right or wrong before the week is over. If you are wrong and the trade you made shows a loss of 20% or more, you should get out before the close of the market that day. Taking such a loss takes a lot of courage.
Finally, make sure all of the Share Trading Tips are pointing in the same direction, up or down. If your financial mentor also agrees, then you have a good chance of making a successful trade.

DAY TRADING RULES

There are 3 basic legs to trading: the Strategy, the Psychology and the Risk Trade Management


A large part of day trading is mental. One needs consistency in one’s mind since the market is largely a random walk and you’re in the fight and need to be alert and ready to act reasonably. When the times the market does set up to give you an edge and you must be mentally prepared to take advantage of it, like a cat ready to pounce on the mouse it's been waiting for for a length of time.
One needs to wait till the right situation develops and then pounce on it. One has to wait till the right moment and then act. One needs to simulate trade until they have all the mechanics figured out and can exercise smoothly.
It is a game of not making mistakes and keeping one’s losses to a minimum. You need to be disciplined and not violate any of your rules. These rules are the result of individual back testing and verified by the trader. You always need to protect your capital with a stop market order and keep risk at a minimum. If the risk is too great, pass on the trade.
One must be awake and not emotionally stressed. One needs to be ready, clear headed in order to make decisions and act on them and master their emotion. One must be able to deal with bad trades and control their emotions in order to bounce back quicker. One need to cultivate the confidence to trade without emotion.

A detailed trading log is a must. One needs to hold oneself accountable. You need to record how you felt and what you were thinking when you made the trade. What indicators you used and how the trade developed. This is a kind of biofeedback that allows you to talk to yourself rationally and can be referred to. This allows you to see if your strategy is working or not.
One needs a clear strategy and objectives to back up against. Trade with a set of rules! Keep a list of your day trade plans on index flash cards so you can review the strategy if necessary before you make a trade. Back testing your strategy is vitally important. One needs to back test and convince oneself that the strategy is on target.
Money management rules need to be rigidly adhered to. Risk no more than 2% on any trade. Without proper equity management new traders are tempted to take risks far out of proportion to the amount of equity they have in their account. One can lose around 50% of their trades and still make money with good disciplined money management policies. Trading can be a very prosperous career choice as long as you are armed with a winning strategy, sound money management and have you emotions and psychology on an even keel.

Thursday, November 25, 2010

Day Trading Stock

Day trading stock can be a great way to make profits in today’s market.
The concept is simple: You enter a stock position at or after the open of the day and you exit the same stock position at or before the close of the day.
Stock selection is important in day trading stock because the time frame in which you can profit is much shorter that in medium and long-term trading strategies.
Stocks that have a large range during the day are preferable. This simple logic is that the more a stock moves during the day the greater potential a trader has for profit during the day. Profits can be made day trading stock with smaller intraday ranges. Remember, thought the smaller the intraday range the more shares you must trade to make a profit.

Let’s look at an example Stock A has an average intraday range of 5 points and Stock B has an average intraday range of 1 point. Assuming a perfect day trading stock execution in each stock you would have to trade 5 times as many shares of Stock B to equal the profit of of Stock A. Also consider that with the number of shares traded commissions costs will also rise.
Commissions costs will logically rise in some instances when day trading stock because the more frequently you trade the higher your commission costs will be. Obviously if you trade 10 times a day every day your commission costs will be higher than if you traded the same number of shares once per week.
One of the characteristics of day trading stock that traders like the most is that there is no overnight risk. When you close your positions for the day that’s it. Your positions won’t be affected by any bad news or earth-shattering events.
Many traders prefer this method of trading because they say it lets them sleep at night.