Day Trading Training - What Makes The Pros So Good?

Written By Chouhab on jeudi 1 janvier 2009 | 05:32

By Sam Lockwood

Day trading is an excellent way to make good money, but if you've heard it's easy or a form of passive income, you've heard wrong. You need to put some work into it.

Day trading stocks and commodities is really a highly lucrative job. Just like a regular job, it needs you to have a number of traits in order to succeed, as well as a number of firmly ingrained habits.

The first thing you need is a great sense of time. Anyone who has trouble getting up first thing in the morning or needs to jumpstart with that first cup of coffee will only be miserable day trading. That's because the best time to figure out what you'll be doing on the market on a particular day is right before the opening bell. That happens at nine am in New York City - six am in California and five am in Hawaii and Alaska. You can't just be an early riser, though. You also have to have an excellent internal scheduling system and clock.

Habit number two that you'll need is having a good set of skills for quantitative thinking. You'll make or lose money in day trading just by operating on gut instinct. Making informed decisions, on the other hand, requires you to be able to look at numbers and understand them completely without even thinking about it. This means that numeracy and the ability to deal with numbers in your head is vital if you're going to tell whether something's a blip or a trend, and deal with it correctly.

Of course, that doesn't mean you have to be a trained mathematician. You can learn how to deal with numbers correctly, even it's never been your strong suit. Some numerical skills can almost become second nature once you get going.

Another habit all successful day traders need is to combine patience, organizational skills, and a strategically short memory. This is a hard skill to learn, since you can't allow yourself to feel disappointed if you miss getting a stop at its top, or if you lose money because the short you were hoping for never showed up. Don't get caught up in your losses, or over focus on the times when you really pick a winner.

Habit number four is dedicated research. Day trading won't require going through accounting statements to the degree that conventional long term investing does, you do still need to have a constant inflow of analysis and data. You also have to be proactive about the shares you buy and sell. That means making quick, accurate judgments and acting fast. The only way to make the correct judgment calls is researching properly. However, you shouldn't let the need for research paralyze you.

You should also keep in mind the fact that much of this analysis isn't directly done by you. The best traders always keep lots of tools available, and can quickly access a number of different data and research services.

If you're thinking about getting into day trading, you'll also need to build up a support network. That requires dealing with a broker, as well as finding investors who will help you apply leverage to the market. You have to understand that this is work, and that this kind of work requires intelligence, focus, and a strong will.

If you've got all these skills and can develop these habits, day trading could be a great way to make a fantastic income. This is a job you can call fun honestly, and it can be pretty enriching, too.

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