Need help with getting started day trading

[MrCraphead]

I've saved up roughly $2,000 and I've decided I want to dabble a bit in some light day trading. Nothing really hardcore (I have to ease into that!), just something on the side of being a student to make some extra cash.

So I guess I wanted to ask if anyone here was a hardcore day trader, and ask if there were any tips, websites, books, or anything else that might help me in this endeavor. I pretty much know nothing, as I don't own any stock and just have a checking/savings account. How does the process work? fees? Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

 

[eakers]

bump for my interest too.

 

[michaelh20]

Isn't there some basic minimum amount of money involved? I think for real day trading you have to have 10's of thousands of dollars in the bank....... unless I am mistaken.

 

[yobarman]

You can start by flushing it down the toilet then kicking yourself in the ass.

 

[PlatinumGold]

Originally posted by: MrCraphead
I've saved up roughly $2,000 and I've decided I want to dabble a bit in some light day trading. Nothing really hardcore (I have to ease into that!), just something on the side of being a student to make some extra cash.

So I guess I wanted to ask if anyone here was a hardcore day trader, and ask if there were any tips, websites, books, or anything else that might help me in this endeavor. I pretty much know nothing, as I don't own any stock and just have a checking/savings account. How does the process work? fees? Any help would be appreciated, thanks!

Just go to vegas or atlantic city and flush it down the slot machines. there really is no difference.

 

[Pliablemoose]

Take a few of those hard earned $ & get a membership @ The Motley Fool.

Register first & they'll send you an email link for 20% off a 1 year's membership.

they have some active forums, and one of them is dedicated to day trading.

Another good resource is Yahoo finance, active forums, etc...

Good luck I just bought PIXR, MCD, MCO with short term plans for all

 

[Broohaha]

Originally posted by: yobarman
You can start by flushing it down the toilet then kicking yourself in the ass.

lmao!!!

good response

it's not worth it guys, honestly.

and if you really want advice from some hardcore financial noodniks, go to the chubbywallet finance forum. they cover all this stuff in excruciating detail.

 

[Broohaha]

here is a thread with some good, level-headed advice.

 

[Indolent]

have you done any prior investing in the market?

 

[Ocuflox]

to make money you have to have money and trust me ur research and knowledge will not help you. i had the same idea in high school and lost about 5 grand when the market collapsed. stay away from stocks and open a market money account if u can - its a pretty easy way to get ~6 % return and beat inflation.

 

[Mani]

To make much using that little money (commissions will eat you up) you'll probably need to mess with penny stocks which is pretty much a pure gamble, don't let anyone sugarcoat it. Sure, there's fundamental analysis, technical analysis, etc. but when you're buying and selling on a day to day basis it really just boils down to gambling.

That said, if you want to get into the market, now's not a bad time - just don't be afraid to lose every penny of that if you want to daytrade.

 

[nicowju]

with brokerage houses like ameritrade, if you have less than a certain minimum in your account, you get charged a quarterly holding fee. $2000 would probably not be enough to generate worthwhile returns (commissions for equities vary; i use ameritrade, and each trade costs $10.99, and selling costs $10.99+SEC fees). and with just $2000, you'll be mostly trading smaller stocks (ie, <$5-$10 per share), which generally have high betas and high volatilities, which translates into higher-risk. so like Ocuflox said, I'd recommend that you instead open up a MMF

 

[Marauder-]

Yeah - @ $15 a trade / that's 3/4 of a percent PER trade. So if you buy and sell a stock - that'll be 1.5% of your principal each time you conduct in this. You might want to practice on the Yahoo fake version of this before you try w/ your own personal money. The yahoo version works the same except that you have $10,000 and the top performers get actual cash at the end of each month.

 

[MrCraphead]

Dang, I didn't realize it was so tough...... I'll have to give that fake Yahoo version a shot then, thanks for the advice guys!

 

[flot]

It's really not worth it with $2000. Trust me. You'll end up flushing it away. This is also not a great time in the market to be fooling around like that.

You really need $5000-$10,000 to make any sort of quick profit on trades. Otherwise, the commission and stress isn't worth it. The funny thing is, even while you're flushing your $2000 away, you'll be congradulating yourself on your quick thinking for every $150 profit you make.. but then the next day when you're down $200 you'll be telling yourself it was just bad luck or the stupid market etc. hehehe. Not you personally - that's just the way it is.

Of course, the problem is that with $5k-10k on the line you have a lot more risk - so you won't be making half the trades that could be profitable for fear of losing your shirt. This is also the same reason why the fake stock trading situations are no good - you will be MUCH more likely to make risky trades with your fake $2000 and you will be MUCH more likely to be profitable with the fake money.

Honestly? I flushed $2k day trading a while back. In retrospect, I wish I had just gone out and spent the $ on something ridiculously cool and frivolous instead.

Oh yes: the alternative - this isn't a bad time to put money into the market for mid/long (2-50 years) term investing. In 5 years your $2000 might be worth $4000 without you doing any work about it at all. The question is, would you rather have $2000 now or $4000 in a few years? And do you have the nerve to put your money somewhere and leave it there?

 

[Encryptic]

I saw an infomercial for some guy's "Trend Trading" program that you might be interested in.

 

[flot]

Oh and just to give myself SOME credibility, after my run in with the $2k (which I lost when the market was doing great), a few years later I started trading with around $5000-7000 while the market was doing TERRIBLY. My daily balance in my brokerage account probably hit a low of $3500 and a high of $11,000 - I was also doing a decent amount of margin (2x your actual money) and "day trading" trades (4x your actual money). Anyway when it was all said and done, I spent a lot of time watching the markets, completely stressing out, etc, and in the end I made a couple thousand $. I mostly stuck to 3-4 different stocks that were pretty volitile and had good swings during the day.

The irony: If I had just waited for any of those stocks to hit an "apparent low" and then held on to them for a few weeks and waited for an "apparent high" I probably would have done just as well. It's interesting to watch just a couple of stocks and track their ups and downs throughout the day... Of course, in the last year they pretty much all set significant improvements in their 52 week highs... but by now many of them are back down to about what they were when I was trading.

 

[DrPizza]

Hmmm.... I'm not sure it still exists, but a couple of places let you buy on margin or something like that....
meaning, if you have 2000 to invest, you can actually invest 5 or 10 times that amount... The risks are even greater though... My coworker lost $5000 that way.... tried again, lost another $5000. Then, tried yet a 3rd time... and, the 3rd time is the charm for him.... He doubled his $5000 in less than a year; he's now taking out $1000 a month as "pay" for himself. However, that's sitting at his computer for 5 or 6 hours a day, reading everything he can, watching all sorts of different trends and things, and getting tips from a couple of friends who work for brokerage firms (not insider trader types of tips though). To be honest, I'm surprised he's actually made anything. I keep hearing from him stories about how he made $2000 in one day, then the next day he'd lose $2000 on something else..... IMHO, it's 20% skill, 80% luck. Someplace I read that over 80% of daytraders lose their entire investment within the first year, however, those who tried a 2nd time tended to do much better. Still, though, the trend was a losing trend. To make a lot of money fast, it doesn't matter which way the market is moving, just as long as it's moving... but, that tends to be when it's most volatile, and has the highest risks involved.

Just a quick example of the math, if you get to buy on margin (or whatever it is), Start with 2000, buy 10,000 worth of $1 stock. Stock goes up to $1.10, and you made $1000. Stock goes down to 80 cents, and you lost your entire $2000 in 20 minutes.

 

[Pliablemoose]

Originally posted by: Pliablemoose
Take a few of those hard earned $ & get a membership @ The Motley Fool.

Register first & they'll send you an email link for 20% off a 1 year's membership.

they have some active forums, and one of them is dedicated to day trading.

Another good resource is Yahoo finance, active forums, etc...

Good luck I just bought PIXR, MCD, MCO with short term plans for all

MCD, up 8.3% today