Question: I want to become a day trader and want access to charts stocks. Where do I get all technical information?
I am thinking of becoming a day trader and want to slow with little initial capital. I have been trading stocks and options for a while but I want to become a day trader who has live information about the the technical stuff including the trends, all the charts, bearish/bullish patterns, and deep research on stocks. Where do I begin? I looked at some web sites like bigcharts, MarketWatch, CapitalIQ etc. but nothing as comprehensive as I want. Any suggestions?
Answer:
For the past 2 1/2 years, I have been following (online) a professional stock trader with 27 years experience who does live webcasts each day. His name is Brian Paragamian and unlike most day traders, he really knows what he is doing. Whatever he trades, I trade. In 2009, his results were about a 300% return for the year. In 2010, about a 350% return on day trades and a 25% return for the year on swing trades. I am not sure how much, but this year he's also ahead nicely. Members of his service, which is called ProfessionalStockTraderLive.com, can watch him and follow along as I do each day and learn a lot from Brian.
Who is your broker - they should have all the bells and whistles you need
If not, find another discount broker
Charles Schwab, and Fidelity were rated among the best for this
Who have you been trading stocks and options with? They should have a trading platform. Often though, a broker only allows trading through a website or web browser. A day trader must have a dedicated trading platform downloaded to the computer. The data feed for stocks is a minimum of $50/mo.
Check out NinjaTrader. The futures and forex data feeds are free through Zen-Fire. The best you can do anywhere is about $45/mo for the stocks data feed.
Download a free trial and start building your own historical database of prices for charting and analysis.
http://www.ampfutures.com/index.php
Before you decide to become a day trader, check out these articles, first by the SEC (Securities & Exchange Comm), second by the FTC (Federal Trade Commission, and third by the Motley Fool:
http://www.sec.gov/investor/pubs/daytips…
http://www.ftc.gov/opa/2000/05/daytradin…
http://www.fool.com/investing/small-cap/…
You really need to learn more about trading before you start making decisions about a system ... I would suggest initially exploring these sites and authors ...
http://www.iitm.com/ (Van Tharp)
http://www.hardrightedge.com/ (Alan Farley)
http://www.elder.com/
They each have books on amazon, which you can review before purchasing.
Also: New Trading Systems And Methods by Kaufman
About.com: 'Becoming a Day Trader'
http://daytrading.about.com/cs/education…
About.com: 'Day Trading'
http://daytrading.about.com/#b
AskMen.com: 'How To Become A Day Trader'
http://www.askmen.com/money/investing_10…