Become a Professional Day Trader

If you are new to trading stocks, it would make sense to start with pretend trading. There are plenty of sites that allow you to trade virtually. This means that you are not using real money, yet you are choosing your stocks, buying and selling as if it were real. You will accrue pretend gains and pretend losses. Don't laugh! Many people started out this way and then went on to make money when they felt confident enough to become a real day trader investing their real money.

Although the name is day trader, some day traders hold on to stocks for as long as three weeks. They make these decisions based upon market indicators. In order to educate yourself about the market you will need to get your hands on some day trading tools.

Before you start trading you should set up a few rules for yourself. Limit your losses. You can put a dollar amount on what you will allow yourself to lose in one day, but you must stick to it. Many day traders make the mistake of holding onto stock too long and rather than sell when the stock initially started losing money, they hold onto it thinking the market will change and they can make back what they lost. Instead, they lose even more money than they would have had they sold when the stock hit their loss limit.

Don't invest every penny you own in day trading. That simply is not smart. Just as if you would like to hold a stock portfolio of diversified stocks, you also don't want to put all of your eggs into the day trading.

You do not have to trade every day to call yourself a day trader. Skip a day if you need to attend to other business or if you aren't up to the task. It is better to be able to focus your full attention to day trading than to participate half-heartedly.

Now that you have an idea of what it takes to be a day trader, do you still want to do it? If so, do an Internet search for virtual day trading to start your practice.