In the overwhelming world of trading one can get easily get distracted as to what direction they should take to get started. I hope my journey into the trading profession helps to provide some guidance.
Study and Learn: I began studying day trading as an aside to my investing portfolio 3 years ago. Never thought it would become the be all end all for me. I read books continuously (find list of books in BOOK menu) all kinds to broaden my thoughts around the field. I focused on day trading stocks mostly pennies when I came upon an ad for Tim Sykes my path was made clear.
- Books: Read, Read, Read. Not many books actually teach a particular type of trade and how to do it. I hope to fill that gap here in my blog, but books are valuable for so many reasons. Check out my Book list for some great ideas.
- Tim’s DVD: “How to Make Millions“, although the title is cliche is provides all the basics to day trading pennies and more. It was the beginning and from there I grew.
- Nathan Michaud “Textbook Trading“, this is true textbook trades. Nathan explains very clearly and makes trading for these trades appear easy. Probably got the most out of this DVD because I had been trading for a while and thus everything was relevant.
- Tim Gritanni “Trading Tickers“, is an awesome DVD as Tim trades live and uses level2’s and you can really get the grasp of timing your trades just right.
- All the DVD’s, 1000’s of training video’s, Blogs and more are all offered through Profit.ly.
Join a Trading Community: This is a must to provide support, comradery, and trading ideas.
- Became a member of the Profit.ly community. This is a 100% transparent community that allows you to see 100’s of other traders and their specific trades, what kind of trade they made, where they enter and exit, how much they made, the ability to follow them and chat with them as well. This site was most valuable to me and my learning.
- In searching for a community to join I found many. Many are just money seekers. I found Profit.ly to be the the real deal with many well known traders in the chat room. Profit.ly is the most affordable and best to begin in my opinion. Investors Undergound is another terrific community with more advanced traders but also highly credible and costs more. I may join IU one day.
Join a Chat: Most communities will have a chat room to use. Chat rooms are beyond valuable.
- Profit.ly Chat is the chat room that comes with the Profit.ly community subscription. Chat rooms are great to get the jist of the day. Hundreds of eyes searching for stocks over just yours. Ideally you want momentum around your stock pick so this clearly helps to see what everyone is talking about.
Find a Broker:
- The hardest to do but cant trade without one.
- Depending on the size of your account, under $25,000, will require you to abide by the PDT rule. Which is the pattern day trader rule and means you can only make up to 3 trades in a 5 day trading period. Ha !!
- For small accounts you must keep track of the commisions/fees. You can really get eaten up by these quickly if you don’t do the math.
- See “Trading Platforms” on menu for more info on Brokers.
Find a Scanner: Scanners help you run pre-market scans and intraday scans to locate stocks on the move. Although the chat rooms are great you eventually must learn to run scans and become a self reliant trader.
- FinViz: I use mostly because its FREE. They have a more advanced scanner for a price.
- Yahoo Finance runs %gainers and more for FREE
- Your trading platform usually has scanners as well.
- EquityFeed, Stocks to Trade, Trade Ideas are all terrific scanners that will cost a pretty penny per month. If your a very active trader that makes mucho $$ you may want one of these more advanced Scanners.
- The key here is to locate a scanner that gets the job done, provides you with the best trades that continually makes you money.
Lastly– Keep monthly expenses down !!!
- Trading costs money to make money !! Consider it the cost of doing business. But in business you do turn the lights out, turn running water off and so on not to simply waist or over spend the valuable dollar. Do that with your trading too !!
Hope this helps,
Jules
JULES DAY TRADING JOURNEY 