Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Lifestyle Of Traders

Trading can be a very active lifestyle. Whereas day traders spend hours every day in front of a computer monitor scalping small movements in price, the active trader does have a "rich" lifestyle both in money and time.

Lifestyle Depends Upon Trading Style

Professional traders usually make their income from scalping short tick charts, day trading from open to close, or swing trading over a matter of days or weeks. The trading style differs with the lifestyle. Scalpers can profit heavily in just a few hours to have the rest of the day to relax and read up on the markets. Day traders benefit from taking positions when they want through the course of the week, often taking full days off at a time. A swing trader has the luxury of placing few trades every few weeks, allowing for plenty of down time.

Improving Your Trading Skills During Your Down Time

Many traders use their down time to participate in trading seminars to meet new people in the financial world. Trading for the big firms is all about whom you know, and indeed, getting involved in the trading community is the only way to work your way to the top of the trading world. For the smaller investor, time may be better spent on an online home study course to further their trading potential.

Skill-building activities, such as looking at old charts, reviewing failed trades, or sharpening your trend line drawing skills, are a great way to spend the surplus of time trading provides. Developing a trading plan planner is another good way to spend the extra time, as a complete trading plan will give you the confidence to trade, even when the market goes against you.

Trading isn't just about investing in the markets, but also in your own ability to trade. Locking in consistent profits means more time off and more time to review your trading plan. Bettering yourself at your own job means less time studying and more time off, while bringing in consistent profits.

Earning a Relaxed Lifestyle

To the person on the outside, the financial district appears to be "stressed out" people huddled around computer monitors for the bulk of the day. For many people on the inside, trading provides a profitable career and a relaxed atmosphere. For the home trader, a job as a day trader provides a luxurious income and the chance to be your own boss. The ability to take off work whenever you want easily trumps the consistency of a 9-5.

About the Author:
Leroy Rushing is an active, professional day trader trading coach and author. He is the Founder and CEO of Trading EveryDay, a distinguished provider of educational trading products and services that are available worldwide. Trading EveryDay also has many articles with unique perspectives on day trading.

Business

Blog
Weightloss
Onetime

Friday, March 13, 2009

Day Trading - What is It?

Day trading is basically the buying and selling of stocks over a relatively short period of time, sometimes minutes. It was once only available to floor traders and investment banks but now the Internet has made day trading accessible to anyone with a computer system. There is good money to be made (and lost) using this method.

As an example, a day trader might buy 1000 shares of stock A at 10:00 as the price begins to move upwards on good news, then sell it at 10:04 when the stock price has risen (for example, by $0.50). The day trader would make $500 profit, less his commission which with today's low commission rates of around $30 or less per trade, that's a nice $440 or better, excluding taxes.

Day trading usually follows one of two approaches, either beating the spread or attempting to catch short term trends. The spread is the difference between what is being offered for a stock (the bid) and the price being asked for the stock (the ask). With spread trading, you attempt to buy at the 'bid' and sell at the 'ask' as many times as possible. Spread traders can make hundreds of this type of trade every day.

ECNs or Electronic Communication Networks are a recent development. They are completely electronic exchanges with very low commissions and very fast execution of orders. As a method of encouraging traders to use their networks, some ECNs offer incentives in the form of a rebate. In some cases, this can allow a day trader to make money simply from buying and selling a stock at the same price.

Day trading can be very profitable if you get it right, but you need to research as much as possible and take advantage of the free simulation software that is available for you to practice with before you take the plunge. Remember, day trading isn't for the faint hearted!

To find out more about day trading software, take a look at my Day Trading Blog

Practice before you dive in with free simulation software at my Day Trading Blog

Business

Mascaramakeup
Earn Money From Home
Hot Stocks