New to daytrading/shorting... Need Suggestions!

[joypeace75]

I am new to daytrading/shorting, I have been practicing for a little while now and I feel confident enough to begin making live trades but I have no idea as to where to start so I am asking anyone to give me some suggestions. I need to know what are the best companies to work with, ones with quick turn around times and allows the option to short if I decide to do so. I already use TD Ameritrade for my long-term investing needs and are satisfied with them for that purpose but they like many others take several days to mature and that just doesn't suffice for what I want/need to do. Any suggestions will be most appreciated.

Joyce A.

 

[joe4422]

Hey Joy,

First of all if you're going to day trade I would recommend opening an account with interactive brokers. You'll need to save some money on commissions.

FAS and FAZ are really nice for day tradig. They give great returns and you can just buy FAZ if you want to short financials or buy FAS if you want to go long. In the money call/puts on SPY are really nice to get some leverage on the broad markets.

AAPL, RIMM, GOOG, CME, BAC, F, MS, GS, UNG, SRS, URE, DDM, SSO, SDS, These are some that I regularly trade.

I also trade the ES, the SandP 500 futures contract.

 

[Charlton]

I am new to daytrading/shorting, I have been practicing for a little while now and I feel confident enough to begin making live trades but I have no idea as to where to start so I am asking anyone to give me some suggestions. I need to know what are the best companies to work with, ones with quick turn around times and allows the option to short if I decide to do so. I already use TD Ameritrade for my long-term investing needs and are satisfied with them for that purpose but they like many others take several days to mature and that just doesn't suffice for what I want/need to do. Any suggestions will be most appreciated.

Joyce A.

Following on from Joe4422 advice you might like to look at the heat map on FINVIZ.COM.

This shows sectors and then individual stocks that are currently strong or weak, that you might wish to include in your initial stock picks. They also have a screener that can provide a useful initial list to look at.

Charlton

 

[only1abhi]

Guys,

I'm an absolute newbie and have some basic questions (any help would brighten the intelligence of this gentleman twofold!)

1. What are lots? Are they the size of the margin you trade? What is the value of a lot (£1000?) Does it even have a value? I hear lots everywhere but I seem to be struggling to get a definition of a lot.

2. What is a mini-lot? How much in size/ratio is it mini to a normal sized lot?

3. What are contracts? How is this different to a lot? 1 contract = how many lots?

4. How can a day-trader make their money their money from spreads (I'm assuming this is making money from the difference in ask-bid price).. I don't seem to understand this.

5. General: Why can't I start a new thread? Grrrr.. I've activated my account so it'd really help if I could start my own threads, rather than jumping on the back of others!

Much appreciated fellow members! I'm here to stay

 

[cuotes]

As a piece of advice I would suggest to begin with something relaxed.
I don't think that ES is for you at this stage.

Have you considered start with CFDs?
I don't think it's a good product for serious daytrading, but I reckon it would be perfect for a first approach.

 

[only1abhi]

As a piece of advice I would suggest to begin with something relaxed.
I don't think that ES is for you at this stage.

Have you considered start with CFDs?
I don't think it's a good product for serious daytrading, but I reckon it would be perfect for a first approach.

ES? *confused*

I've traded paper CFDs... I wanna be day-trading.. and that's where my interests lie.

If you could answer my questions above, that would be of much help! (assuming u know the answers obviously!)

 

[cuotes]

I'm sure that you're a great trader, but maybe it would be worthy to expend just a little time in learning some theory.

From your questions I assume you are focused in FX, and that is a field that I avoid like the Black Death. But sure there are many fellows over here that can kindly assist you.

btw, 'ES' is the ticker for the e-mini SP500 future contract

 

[only1abhi]

From your questions I assume you are focused in FX, and that is a field that I avoid like the Black Death. But sure there are many fellows over here that can kindly assist you.

I'm looking to be a futures day-trader.. working not just FX markets, but mainly indices.. S&P500..

I think I just need to get going.. do you know any paper based futures trading simulators? CQG ask u to sign a massiveeee contract even for their demo version.

Any help would be appreciated