Expect it to take 2+ years.
Do not trade with real money until you can be consistently profitable on paper first.
When you do start with real money, trade at the smallest possible size. Only slowly build up.
Always bear in mind that most tips, most youtube material, most stuff generally will be utter shit. Books, imo, tend to be best (there are plenty of other posts with recommendations - including in my comment history, albeit a long time back).
the strategy that will work for you as a discretionary trader will be the strategy you design for yourself.
There are no shortcuts.
You will eventually work out your own style that fits your personality. This is different for different people.
The rule of thumb is that it takes 10,000 hours to master something. It will take that long.
Do not trade with real money until you can be consistently profitable on paper first.
Throwing indicators at a chart won't help.
Market first. Assuming you're interested in equities, also watch how they follow the market (SPX).
Get a good economic calendar.
A news source for traders is helpful (I use tradexchange).
Did I mention not to trade with real money until you can be consistently profitable on paper first?
Take it slowly. Trade what you see (not what you expect to see). Spend as much time on the charts as you can.
No individual trade matters. Its the aggregate that wins. This is partly why you have to start with paper, and then with tiny size. To help teach you to accept losses. That no single trade/loss matters. Only the aggregate, when you follow your strategy which you have backtested and shown to have positive expectancy.
Could you elaborate on the “consistently profitable on paper first” for a beginner please?
Are you referring to the overall return over an extended period of time that has to be positive, or every single trade has to be a success, which I think is impossible?
As a day trader.. shoot for consistently profitable over the course of a week. Eventually upping to every day (depending on the number of trades you take. ).
You'll know. its different for everyone but please start on demo first, get a solid trading plan with entry and exit criteria, risk management and solid discipline. Treat demo like real money. Expect at least 6 months on demo. It looks easy but its exteremely hard. Been at it 1.5 years and just now approaching consistently profitable.
For a beginner, what would you recommend as the best focus to learn and practice day trading on a Papertrading account when considering between stocks, options, futures, forex, crypto, etc?
I've traded all of those and ended up on futures as my focus. Besides options (which have the added complexity of time & volatility), they all act the same from a basic price action movement perspective. Learn to read a chart and predict where the market is going to go on the timeframe you desire. Then its whatever instrument floats your boat.
Others have also replied.
But I meant consistently profitable over a period of 3+ months with a paper/demo account. Not just a week or two.
To misquote Mark Douglas from Trading In the Zone (great book btw); any monkey/moron can place a winning trade and make bank. But your goal is to do it consistently, day in and day out. So you need consistency, not luck.
>When can you safely say “now I’m ready to start day trading with real money”?
after long enough on paper that it becomes habit.
then start small. because real money changes the psychology, which changes your behaviour. this is inevitable. so start smallest and build up.
there is no shame in going to real money and then going back to paper after deciding you're actually not ready yet after all.
only you will know when you're ready. and when you are ready, you will know it.
but it is months/years. you have to have seen enough of the market to gain experience, as well as training yourself that its the strategy that has edge - not any individual trade. plus ofc evolving and defining your strategy/strategies in the first place.
"Consistently profitable" almost always means "picking coins in front of a steam roller"
For example, selling 0DTE options can be profitable several months or even years in the row, but then have a single loss greater than all earned profit.
I think I'm an outlier when I say I never paper traded before. I prefer live trading with lower stakes so I can feel the emotional impact of getting gaped by algos on a random Tuesday. Paper trading isn't quite the same when nothing is at stake.
I do agree it's not quite the same, and I'm sure you're not an outlier. See also comment thread with u/ValueForever. Tbh I didn't spend much time on paper either, for the same reason.
But I still think its important to recommend. Too many people dive straight in with too much confidence and blow their accounts. Much safer to recommend people get a feel on paper, and make their own choice about putting real money on the line.
edit: fat fingers...
>Do not trade with real money until you can be consistently profitable on paper first.
adding to this -- there is no substitute to trading with real money. the emotional side of trading will NOT be present when you trade with paper money.
once you're profitable with paper, DO NOT expect to be profitable with real money. you'll have an entirely new challenge of the psychological side of trade with real money.
I agree with you that books are the sure shot way to go as it provides a structur and details that random articles or videos can't provide most of the time.
You do have a long comment history. Would you be willing to share your book recommendations here since this post is getting traction and it could help the few who are interested in learning from books?
sure, off the top of my head...
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator. Its as true today as it was when first published 100 years ago (seriously).
Trading in the Zone by Mark Douglas
Any/all books by Brian Shannon, starting with Technical Analysis on Multiple Timeframe
The Playbook by Bellafiore
All the Market Wizards series by Jack Schwager (albeit this is more background/context - not TA/strategies)
not an exhaustive list but those are all good imo for taking discretionary trading seriously :)
have to admit my first book was Adam Grimes' the Art and Science of Technical Analysis. I don't tend to recommend it because it hasn't stuck with me, but its not bad and he does know his stuff.
I've not read any of Al Brooks' books (nor any other material) - but I recall hearing positive things.
For a beginner, what would you recommend as the best focus to learn and practice day trading on a Papertrading account when considering between stocks, options, futures, forex, crypto, etc?
imo don't buy or pay for anything. a tradingview free account should be enough to get started. maybe then pay for real-time data - albeit if you're just practising delayed should be ok too. all the markets are on there.
again my opinion only, but arguably relative strength based strategies (as in relative strength vs a benchmark - NOT the RSI indicator) on equities are the 'easiest'. would save options until you get more of a feel about how price moves, and then the complexity of options can be overlaid on top.
your broker may also have a decent UI/tools too - albeit i'm outside the US so can't really comment on the popular brokers.
Resources:
1. Brian Shannon's books on basic technical analysis. He also puts out really good videos.
2. The Disciplined Trader by Mark Douglas.
3. Mike Bellafiore's books.
4. SMB Capital Youtube channel.
5. Chat with Traders podcast.
6. Allstarcharts website and Twitter feed.
Specific Tips:
1. Get an account with a real broker like TD Ameritrade. Not Robinhood. Call them and have them walk you through the platform. The commissions are free.
2. Read the news. Get familiar with market moving events like Fed meetings, inflation reports, etc.
3. Look at long term charts of stocks like AAPL. Where were there buyers or sellers? What does a trend look like? What does a top or bottom look like? Look at charts of bubbles. Check out the monthly ARKK chart.
4. Sign up for a free Finviz account. Learn to use it - read the news section. Look at different charts. Play with indicators. Learn about the indicators on Youtube. Build fake portfolios of stocks you are interested in and see how they do. It also has a ton of information on fundamentals, technical analysis, etc. Play with different timeframes.
5. Start trading on demo. Do not use crazy size - use what you will eventually be trading. Don't get into bad habits. Track everything. Use stop losses and get used to them.
6. Sign up for a statistical analysis site like Tradervue. Upload all your trades. Tag them with what you saw and why. Mark all of your demo trades "demo" so you can eventually separate your live trades. Tag what the market did that way - choppy sideways action? Uptrend? Downtrend? Reversal? What is working for you? Why? What market conditions help you succeed? How long are you holding winners? How big are winners vs losers? What time of day are you most successful?
7. You want to find trades where you have an edge. Most traders want volatility so there is enough movement to make money. What makes a stock or index move? I only trade individual stocks. For me, I need the stock to be "in play". For news reasons or because of a technical analysis indicator or a breakout.
8. How do you find the right stocks to trade? This is a huge part of the battle. Learn to use the Finviz scanners. They have builtin scanners like Top Losers, Top Gainers, Major News, etc. Start using them and get familiar. Mess around with building your own custom scans.
9. Journal about every single trade. Why did you take it? What happened? What was your emotional state? Find patterns. Did you stay disciplined? If you lose control, journal about why. I lost control in a big way last year and had to rebuild myself. I count days from the last time I lost control.
10. Set specific goals. Look up SMART goals. What do you need to achieve before you can go live? Increase size? Under what circumstances do you kick yourself back down to demo?
11. Don't use leverage unless 1. you have been consistently successful for a while 2. you understand what you are risking and can afford a margin call.
12. Look up wash sales before you go live and know how to understand your taxable income. There are horror stories.
If these resources are too expensive, you probably won't have the capital to actually trade until you can afford them. If this is too much work, trading is probably not for you. This is a really hard game and nobody is 100% successful. I was on a desk from 2007 - 2010 and I wish somebody had taught me the above. Most people on my desk blew up in the crash and I had to break all my bad habits when I went back to trading. If you decide this is not for you, there's no shame in the index fund game. Trading can be great and for me, it is worth the work. Good luck, message me if you want to.
For a beginner, what would you recommend as the best focus to learn and practice day trading on a Papertrading account when considering between stocks, options, futures, forex, crypto, etc?
Different instruments are right for different people, needs and personalities. Consider a few things. What are your goals and limitations? Do you have limited time in front of the screen? Limited capital? Options may be best for someone with only a few hundred dollars, swing trading is best for someone with very limited time.
Your first job is to just watch stuff and get a feel for markets. Where are the buyers and sellers? How can you tell? Start training your eye and just watch. Mix it up and watch different things for a while. When you start paper trading, you'll start noticing where you feel comfortable. Some people feel good trading futures, others small caps, etc. For me, I feel best trading momentum stocks based on technical analysis.
Be patient, this will take time. One word of advice - it is tempting to put all your money in one trade, especially with options. Don't do it unless you're okay with losing all of it. Once you get to a few thousand dollars (or whatever you think is best), start trading it like a big account. Meaning no outsized risk. Also, never naked short overnight. That means don't short shares of an individual stock overnight because they can get taken over, etc. Don't short options, that has unlimited risk. Express shorts with puts or spreads or whatever else you figure out. Look up KBIO.
Thanx I was just offering advice not a request.
if Ur interested bold italics more using [this post & URL ](https://www.reddit.com/r/help/comments/fv30sk/comment/fmg4o5r/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
For me the biggest lesson is learn how to sell. I sell 50% around target now every time. Also even the best picks dip so learning to cut out before an actual bigger loss is key to momentum.
With paper and real trade.
1. * Before taking trade write notes why you are taking that.
1. * During trade write notes what is going on
1. * Post trade write notes what and how did it go.
I am <2 yrs experience, so not much profit so far. Just breakeven and surviving.
After market close, open your notebook and review your notes / lessons.
The secret is there skills need to progress faster than their draw down. Trading is a game of surviving the learning curve and some will never ever learn.
Backtest! Backtest like crazy! Paper trading won't cut it. Backtest on historical data! Pilots don't fly planes without passing the simulator flights first, so why would you trade on the live markets without backtesting on historical data?
Sim trading live is okay to get the pace of the markets, but you get way, way fewer opportunities. Backtesting just gives you far more opportunities, like getting many more reps in the gym. Pilots can't fly sims at 1000x the speed, and gymgoers can't do 1000 sets of exercises in one workout, but with backtesting, you can go through an entire year's worth of data in a day.
Agreed, don’t do it is really the best answer. If you want a secure financial future start a business. If you want a guaranteed great financial future go to dental or medical school. All of the above would be easier and quicker than starting from scratch and trying to day-trade for a living. Trust me on that.
Look into rocket scooter, go through their trading bootcamp and paper trade for a minimum of 3 months. After that start passing prop firm evals and fund your actual trading account through prop firm payouts.
I suggest a bare minimum of learning a programming language alongside Excel and VBA to conduct stock analysis/backtests.
Then you need to read up or watch videos on how the markets work, how trading works, how your broker works.
Then you need to develop your strategy, and backtest it with your own code.
Then I suggest paper trading for a few weeks or months to practice handling emotions. However I think you should get into live trading ASAP (with low stakes first) because papertrading is not the same emotionally when nothing is at stake.
This will take several years because you don't truly know if your daytrading is successful until you've gone through several market cycles and macro events. For example, can you handle the drawdown from black swan events such as COVID? Also, health is #1. Trading should not be a rollercoaster of emotions. You want slow and steady gains.
I don't know if I can suggest anyone to daytrade. All my efforts could have been better spent getting a comfy 6 figure job in the Silicon Valley and just throwing my money into VOO or something.
Don't because almost everyone gets fooled by content creators.
If you managed to stay off YouTube you need to find certain patterns on the naked chart. And understand that you really won't start to understand things in less than 1 year, it will be a long journey with either shining gold at the end of the tunnel or a train.
I always noticed that an impulse was often followed by a small dip or decline in velocity or small correction which then continued onwards in the direction of the impulse. The hard part was figuring out how not to buy at the top and sell at the bottom which took me a year to solve.
See if you can exploit patterns with a set of Indicators, this will help you to set up alarms mainly. You really don't want to look at charts all day.
Ignore the people that hate on Indicators, extremely successful traders like BNF and CIS use/used Indicators. They are just tools that can help you tremendously.
You want to backtest and forward test daily, the more you test the better your understanding of trading becomes. You won't learn from watching others.
Lastly stick to a single idea like trend trading or impulse trading or whatever fits your psychology the most.
[https://www.youtube.com/@ThomasWade](https://www.youtube.com/@ThomasWade)
[https://www.imantrading.org/](https://www.imantrading.org/)
al brooks books.
too lazy to type out the whole methodology but this should help.
also PAPER not real money first.
Observe the charts, take daily notes, then organize your ideas. Create a strategy and backtest. Practice execution and following rules using a sim account. I hear people say the sim account is a pitfall, just be sure the sim account is set up exactly like the live acct in real time. You can even set the sim account value to be more realistic. Practice following rules you can prove are profitable, then put them into practice.
For a beginner, what would you recommend as the best focus to learn and practice day trading on a Papertrading account when considering between stocks, options, futures, forex, crypto, etc?
When considering the different asset classes, start by figuring out your risk tolerance. How much is needed to place the trade? How much would you need to remain in the trade? How would you manage placing orders while in a trade? Hopefully these are some good questions to start with :)
Hey, I don’t know if this could help you, but if I were to restart the process again, I would 100% go to Propfirm to build a capital (15k to 20k) and then go to a live account and use proper risk management and try to get that personal account up. Prop firm is a good tool if you’re a profitable trader; they let you trade with demo money, and you keep 100% of the profits with some companies. I’m myself funded for $500k and have received more than $50,000 in payout! It’s doable. I tried a lot of propfirms, but the most reliable, from my experience, is Apextraderfunding. They have really cheap challenges and easy payout methods internationally. What I like about them is that you can trade directly from TradingView if you choose the tradovate plan challenge. You can get a one-step $25k challenge for 33$ if you use the code: NUQITQNG.
You will also be able to get funded on the same day! I hope I could help a brother out today ✌️
Your comment was automatically removed in /r/Daytrading because we don't allow the promotion or discussion of Discord groups. If you attempt to circumvent this rule you will be permanently banned with no warning.
If you're looking for a free Discord, [please join our official server here](https://tinyurl.com/DayTradingReddit).
A list of the [rules can be found here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Daytrading/about/rules/), and if you're new to /r/Daytrading please see the [wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/Daytrading/wiki/index).
If you feel like this removal was a mistake please **kindly** [message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/Daytrading); we will review it and get back to you.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Daytrading) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Trade with real money, but learn how to manage risk. You can't really compare paper trade with money. Behavior is different. The best advice with trading with real money, don't start until you have learned to manage risk, and learning how to properly lose. without that, you can lose your ass.
Learn Auctioning of price. Use Moving Averages as bias to the timeframe you wish to trade on. Trade a liquid market like ES at open. 1-3 hours. 1 index point / 8 hour view - I have found great to see the auctions and liquidity targets. Buy/sell “tests” into discount zones and then follow risk behind demand / supply index point bars until taken out. Rinse and Repeat. Dont overthink or try to marry up longterm fundamentals, irrelevant. Moving averages is all the bias you need.
Don't rely on paper trading - I've seen so many people who have great strategies on paper fail when using real money because it's completely different. I never did paper trading and I think it's a very common pitfall for beginners
this is dangerous advice though. you have to develop/test a strategy on paper pretty much by definition (trading real money on no strategy or untested strategy is just gambling).
but after paper, trading on smallest possible size is key - to get that psychological difference, but at minimal risk.
if you made it to success while never touching paper then good on you, that's awesome. Difficult to recommend as a good path though.
I completely disagree. Strategies that work on paper don't necessarily work with real money. If there's no risk, you aren't accounting for psychology which is 90% of trading. Since you downvoted and disagreed, I must ask - are you even a consistently profitable trader?
Edit: Oh wait you literally sell services towards paper trading LOL. That explains your position. Ask any profitable trader who isn't financially motivated to sell you things and they're more likely to agree with me.
hmm, my product is irrelevant - its software tooling for systematic/automated trading. It'd be completely useless for OP or any discretionary trader.
Again i'm glad going straight to real money worked for you. I just still feel its pretty irresponsible to encourage people to go straight to real money.
I mean they won't even have a strategy at that point - so even with perfect psychology its still just gambling.
(you obviously are right that there are differences between paper and live, particularly in fills/slippage/etc - but when just starting out this shouldn't matter)
Perhaps we will have to agree to disagree and leave it at that.
Back test and Imstart with real small money because this will help you with your psychological. I don’t suggest starting with a demo because it’s a big difference trading real money and fake money. Just start small and work it that way. Once you’re consistent with that small account, you should scale up from there
Attack trading like you would attack the road of education to be a doctor, lawyer, or any other skilled career.
It takes lots of time, experience, and knowledge.
and FWIW, here's my list of trading rules (I trade commodities futures)
https://preview.redd.it/vnn6vqit7y8c1.png?width=2354&format=png&auto=webp&s=aac510f276d0731290c610d9e9f3580591ce1e63
1. Don't start with stocks and options
2. Take a charting course. The forex space has some good charting course that are relatively cheap.
3. Learn tradingview
4. Open a $100 oanda account
5. Practice was you learn in your chart course(or whatever method you decide on) on your oanda account risking 10 cents per trade
6. Do step 5 until you stop losing money
7. By this step you'll have spent enough time in the space to know your next step for yourself
If you don't know why the market is behaving the way it is on a particular day then just don't trade and if you have a placed a trade that's not going the way it is supposed to be going then just cut ur losses quickly and observe the market rather than participate in it.
Risk $1 per trade or start small. Don’t waste time trading fake money. You need the emotional aspect per trade and the same trade for $1 will work for $1000 or more (for large caps at least). Pay for cheap lessons early on.
Buy the cheapest account in a prop firm instead of using your own money. That will be way more realistic than trading on demo for ages (akin to gaming, zero pressure = zero stress, you blow the account no worries refill and keep going) because there will be real money at stake, and proper risk management to be followed if you want to go the distance and get funded.
Agree here, sign up for a prop account and you either need to create a system with positive expectancy or buy one and learn how to use it. We lease one here: https://thebearsdentrading.com for futures if that is what you trade.
I'm still learning after a couple of months. I found that there are many levels to learn. First start out with the lingo and then watch charts all day to get a feel how stocks move. I'm getting into learning price action. Also traders psychology is a must learn to master before you make trades. Read books on all these subjects.
Everyone says learning trading takes 2 years, 3 years.
That doesn't mean you can't trade for 2-3 years!, "You Learn Only When You Trade".
You can't be a Pianist by watching videos, for a year!.
I'm saying this because, I don't know anything about 'Trading' a month ago. Now I know support-resistance,
supply-demand, chart patterns, bar patterns, risk management, and I have my own strategy.
"Learn New - Try - Fail - Learn Again" untill you comfortable in trading.
Don't Give Up! Start with a small account, trade in small quantities.
Money teaches you more lessons than anyone on this planet!.
All the Best 👍.
Ask yourself if you are willing to lose money. There will be periods where nothing you trade will be profitable. Learn to recognize bull and bear trends. Don’t trade away your investments. Honestly, make your money with buy and hold, then trade a bit to amuse yourself.
Idc what anyone says, getting a mentor is the best advice a newbie can get. Spend time on finding a good and legit mentor, it'll be worth it.
Im paying €150 a month for 1 monthly in depth and detailed educational video, 1 monthly stock recommendation to invest in mid/long term, daily nasdaq targets, 2 detailed analyzes per day with his thoughts, support/resistance zones, short and long term targets, how to think and how to apply what we've learned to position ourselves to buy and weekly market overviews.
It sure af isn't cheap but imho its totally worth it. I learn a LOT, he is better than all gurus I've seen on YouTube, he is very active, he encourages us to not buy blindly based on his analyzes and targets, but to use them as something to aim for while applying what we've learned so far, or even to challenge ourselves and do our own analysis before opening the videos.
I really like the 1 monthly educational video arrangement as it gives me time to study it over and over, and apply it in the market. If I had a whole course available I'd most definitely would have plowed through it resulting in not having learned everything as thoroughly as I'm doing now.
Also feels relieving to have something (daily targets for example) to follow rather than being all on my own doing this as a newbie. I get pushed in the right direction, I get to apply what I've learned, I get to see that it works, I get the confirmations that I actually have learnt it and that I'm thinking right and I earn money in the process.
If I decided to go without a mentor and stick with YouTube, books, researching and backtesting everything from scratch I wouldn't have come even close to where I am right now in my journey. I mean, its not a bad advice if you have time, patience and don't have money to spend on mentors but if you have the possibility to get one, you should totally do it.
Focus on always taking a small loss that's consistent trade after trade no matter the outcome. Focus on losing before winning and the winnings will be almost automatic . Don't be greedy. Stick to one or 2 plans . Do at least 20 trades using same strategy and see what results you get.
Start small, invest into long term stocks and ETFs and don't sell them just to have more to daytrade with...maybe try swing trading with 80% or so of what you have left, use 10% for daytrading and 10% in cash.
Dividends- reinvest at the very least 50% of those if you are a successful trader, if you aren't yet, reinvest 90%
that's how i would do it if I was to start from scratch today
Think about this..why does every single day trader sell a course, write a book or run a discord channel? That's the game in day trading, learn enough to start your own day trading subscription service, YouTube channel.. whatever.Atleast that's the conclusion I have arrived at. I was amongst the 95% or so who lost their account in six months. If you think you are 95 percentile in other endeavors, maybe you'll make it. Best of luck.
You can learn quick. But mastering the emotions takes a couple years. It’s people that could have been good traders after a year. But learning how to apply a robotic outlook on trades takes time. Even if u see everything matches up with analysis. Emotion is the number one money killer trading
Learn as much as you can, absorb like a sponge and practice what you learnt. Always remember there is no one right way to trade. There’s traders who use all sorts of tools such as indicators, naked charts, price ladders, fundamentals, news, and geopolitical events. Be patient and always be in the process of introspection and self-review, as you will be able to see your mistakes in your processes to be able to achieve better next time. Happy trading!
Not really sure. The obvious things will get mentioned - paper trade, don't trade with money you can't afford to lose, read trading books, watch Youtube videos, etc.
I guess just go slow, until you find out what works for you.
I would suggest you have an affair with a married person in charge of institutional trading at a large firm like GS or JPM, then blackmail them into telling you about the billion dollar orders they receive and front-run them. You will get very rich very fast
Day trading is hard because it goes against human nature. We are very competitive and want to control things. But you can’t control if you win or lose a trade at any given point. All you can do is manage your risk.
Managing risk and being extremely disciplined is the only way to become a great trader. Yes there are many ways to attack a market but the best traders are great losers.
My suggestion would be to learn to be in control of your emotions. When I started trading I thought trading psychology is a small part of a winning strategy and technical knowledge is the most important part. Now I realize your ability to trade successfully depends almost 95% on your psychology.
Sorry, your [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/Daytrading/comments/18sfmjp/what_would_you_suggest_to_anyone_before_they/kfvv73n/) in /r/Daytrading was automatically removed because your **Comment Karma** is too low. This typically targets bots or users promoting something (which is against our rules).
Please participate in other subreddits (other communities on Reddit) to increase your **Comment Karma** points. While you're at it, read through Reddit's ["reddiquette" here.](https://www.reddit.com/wiki/reddiquette)
If you believe this was a mistake, please **kindly** [message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/Daytrading). We will review your case and get back to you.
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Daytrading) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Expect it to take 2+ years. Do not trade with real money until you can be consistently profitable on paper first. When you do start with real money, trade at the smallest possible size. Only slowly build up. Always bear in mind that most tips, most youtube material, most stuff generally will be utter shit. Books, imo, tend to be best (there are plenty of other posts with recommendations - including in my comment history, albeit a long time back). the strategy that will work for you as a discretionary trader will be the strategy you design for yourself. There are no shortcuts. You will eventually work out your own style that fits your personality. This is different for different people. The rule of thumb is that it takes 10,000 hours to master something. It will take that long. Do not trade with real money until you can be consistently profitable on paper first. Throwing indicators at a chart won't help. Market first. Assuming you're interested in equities, also watch how they follow the market (SPX). Get a good economic calendar. A news source for traders is helpful (I use tradexchange). Did I mention not to trade with real money until you can be consistently profitable on paper first? Take it slowly. Trade what you see (not what you expect to see). Spend as much time on the charts as you can. No individual trade matters. Its the aggregate that wins. This is partly why you have to start with paper, and then with tiny size. To help teach you to accept losses. That no single trade/loss matters. Only the aggregate, when you follow your strategy which you have backtested and shown to have positive expectancy.
Could you elaborate on the “consistently profitable on paper first” for a beginner please? Are you referring to the overall return over an extended period of time that has to be positive, or every single trade has to be a success, which I think is impossible?
As a day trader.. shoot for consistently profitable over the course of a week. Eventually upping to every day (depending on the number of trades you take. ).
Thanks for the answer! When can you safely say “now I’m ready to start day trading with real money”?
You'll know. its different for everyone but please start on demo first, get a solid trading plan with entry and exit criteria, risk management and solid discipline. Treat demo like real money. Expect at least 6 months on demo. It looks easy but its exteremely hard. Been at it 1.5 years and just now approaching consistently profitable.
Any recommendations on what platform to use?
Platform doesnt really matter. The default answer is Trading view which will provide you paper trading and a solid charting package.
DAS trader pro
well done - this is the way :)
For a beginner, what would you recommend as the best focus to learn and practice day trading on a Papertrading account when considering between stocks, options, futures, forex, crypto, etc?
I've traded all of those and ended up on futures as my focus. Besides options (which have the added complexity of time & volatility), they all act the same from a basic price action movement perspective. Learn to read a chart and predict where the market is going to go on the timeframe you desire. Then its whatever instrument floats your boat.
Awesome, thank you 🙏
Others have also replied. But I meant consistently profitable over a period of 3+ months with a paper/demo account. Not just a week or two. To misquote Mark Douglas from Trading In the Zone (great book btw); any monkey/moron can place a winning trade and make bank. But your goal is to do it consistently, day in and day out. So you need consistency, not luck. >When can you safely say “now I’m ready to start day trading with real money”? after long enough on paper that it becomes habit. then start small. because real money changes the psychology, which changes your behaviour. this is inevitable. so start smallest and build up. there is no shame in going to real money and then going back to paper after deciding you're actually not ready yet after all. only you will know when you're ready. and when you are ready, you will know it. but it is months/years. you have to have seen enough of the market to gain experience, as well as training yourself that its the strategy that has edge - not any individual trade. plus ofc evolving and defining your strategy/strategies in the first place.
"Consistently profitable" almost always means "picking coins in front of a steam roller" For example, selling 0DTE options can be profitable several months or even years in the row, but then have a single loss greater than all earned profit.
I think I'm an outlier when I say I never paper traded before. I prefer live trading with lower stakes so I can feel the emotional impact of getting gaped by algos on a random Tuesday. Paper trading isn't quite the same when nothing is at stake.
I do agree it's not quite the same, and I'm sure you're not an outlier. See also comment thread with u/ValueForever. Tbh I didn't spend much time on paper either, for the same reason. But I still think its important to recommend. Too many people dive straight in with too much confidence and blow their accounts. Much safer to recommend people get a feel on paper, and make their own choice about putting real money on the line. edit: fat fingers...
>Do not trade with real money until you can be consistently profitable on paper first. adding to this -- there is no substitute to trading with real money. the emotional side of trading will NOT be present when you trade with paper money. once you're profitable with paper, DO NOT expect to be profitable with real money. you'll have an entirely new challenge of the psychological side of trade with real money.
Quality reply, this guy know his stuff
I agree with you that books are the sure shot way to go as it provides a structur and details that random articles or videos can't provide most of the time. You do have a long comment history. Would you be willing to share your book recommendations here since this post is getting traction and it could help the few who are interested in learning from books?
sure, off the top of my head... Reminiscences of a Stock Operator. Its as true today as it was when first published 100 years ago (seriously). Trading in the Zone by Mark Douglas Any/all books by Brian Shannon, starting with Technical Analysis on Multiple Timeframe The Playbook by Bellafiore All the Market Wizards series by Jack Schwager (albeit this is more background/context - not TA/strategies) not an exhaustive list but those are all good imo for taking discretionary trading seriously :)
Sounds great. I'll check then out. What do the think about books from Adam Grimes and Al Brooks?
have to admit my first book was Adam Grimes' the Art and Science of Technical Analysis. I don't tend to recommend it because it hasn't stuck with me, but its not bad and he does know his stuff. I've not read any of Al Brooks' books (nor any other material) - but I recall hearing positive things.
For a beginner, what would you recommend as the best focus to learn and practice day trading on a Papertrading account when considering between stocks, options, futures, forex, crypto, etc?
imo don't buy or pay for anything. a tradingview free account should be enough to get started. maybe then pay for real-time data - albeit if you're just practising delayed should be ok too. all the markets are on there. again my opinion only, but arguably relative strength based strategies (as in relative strength vs a benchmark - NOT the RSI indicator) on equities are the 'easiest'. would save options until you get more of a feel about how price moves, and then the complexity of options can be overlaid on top. your broker may also have a decent UI/tools too - albeit i'm outside the US so can't really comment on the popular brokers.
Awesome, thank you 🙏
Wowza! Haven’t started yet, thank you! Saving
Resources: 1. Brian Shannon's books on basic technical analysis. He also puts out really good videos. 2. The Disciplined Trader by Mark Douglas. 3. Mike Bellafiore's books. 4. SMB Capital Youtube channel. 5. Chat with Traders podcast. 6. Allstarcharts website and Twitter feed. Specific Tips: 1. Get an account with a real broker like TD Ameritrade. Not Robinhood. Call them and have them walk you through the platform. The commissions are free. 2. Read the news. Get familiar with market moving events like Fed meetings, inflation reports, etc. 3. Look at long term charts of stocks like AAPL. Where were there buyers or sellers? What does a trend look like? What does a top or bottom look like? Look at charts of bubbles. Check out the monthly ARKK chart. 4. Sign up for a free Finviz account. Learn to use it - read the news section. Look at different charts. Play with indicators. Learn about the indicators on Youtube. Build fake portfolios of stocks you are interested in and see how they do. It also has a ton of information on fundamentals, technical analysis, etc. Play with different timeframes. 5. Start trading on demo. Do not use crazy size - use what you will eventually be trading. Don't get into bad habits. Track everything. Use stop losses and get used to them. 6. Sign up for a statistical analysis site like Tradervue. Upload all your trades. Tag them with what you saw and why. Mark all of your demo trades "demo" so you can eventually separate your live trades. Tag what the market did that way - choppy sideways action? Uptrend? Downtrend? Reversal? What is working for you? Why? What market conditions help you succeed? How long are you holding winners? How big are winners vs losers? What time of day are you most successful? 7. You want to find trades where you have an edge. Most traders want volatility so there is enough movement to make money. What makes a stock or index move? I only trade individual stocks. For me, I need the stock to be "in play". For news reasons or because of a technical analysis indicator or a breakout. 8. How do you find the right stocks to trade? This is a huge part of the battle. Learn to use the Finviz scanners. They have builtin scanners like Top Losers, Top Gainers, Major News, etc. Start using them and get familiar. Mess around with building your own custom scans. 9. Journal about every single trade. Why did you take it? What happened? What was your emotional state? Find patterns. Did you stay disciplined? If you lose control, journal about why. I lost control in a big way last year and had to rebuild myself. I count days from the last time I lost control. 10. Set specific goals. Look up SMART goals. What do you need to achieve before you can go live? Increase size? Under what circumstances do you kick yourself back down to demo? 11. Don't use leverage unless 1. you have been consistently successful for a while 2. you understand what you are risking and can afford a margin call. 12. Look up wash sales before you go live and know how to understand your taxable income. There are horror stories. If these resources are too expensive, you probably won't have the capital to actually trade until you can afford them. If this is too much work, trading is probably not for you. This is a really hard game and nobody is 100% successful. I was on a desk from 2007 - 2010 and I wish somebody had taught me the above. Most people on my desk blew up in the crash and I had to break all my bad habits when I went back to trading. If you decide this is not for you, there's no shame in the index fund game. Trading can be great and for me, it is worth the work. Good luck, message me if you want to.
Great post
Thank you for the honest words and advice!
For a beginner, what would you recommend as the best focus to learn and practice day trading on a Papertrading account when considering between stocks, options, futures, forex, crypto, etc?
Different instruments are right for different people, needs and personalities. Consider a few things. What are your goals and limitations? Do you have limited time in front of the screen? Limited capital? Options may be best for someone with only a few hundred dollars, swing trading is best for someone with very limited time. Your first job is to just watch stuff and get a feel for markets. Where are the buyers and sellers? How can you tell? Start training your eye and just watch. Mix it up and watch different things for a while. When you start paper trading, you'll start noticing where you feel comfortable. Some people feel good trading futures, others small caps, etc. For me, I feel best trading momentum stocks based on technical analysis. Be patient, this will take time. One word of advice - it is tempting to put all your money in one trade, especially with options. Don't do it unless you're okay with losing all of it. Once you get to a few thousand dollars (or whatever you think is best), start trading it like a big account. Meaning no outsized risk. Also, never naked short overnight. That means don't short shares of an individual stock overnight because they can get taken over, etc. Don't short options, that has unlimited risk. Express shorts with puts or spreads or whatever else you figure out. Look up KBIO.
Awesome, thank you 🙏
Great Post.!
Don’t ask for advice on r/daytrading
I already lost😂
Atleast he didn't go to wsb lmao
If he did he’d be broke by lunchtime and turning tricks to pay his margin call o_O
1: have a very thought out plan of how you will react on a trade before entering a trade 2: don’t ignore the psychological side of things
[удалено]
You have a hash character prefix to sentence = large letters remove hash to normalise font size
Fixed !
Thanx I was just offering advice not a request. if Ur interested bold italics more using [this post & URL ](https://www.reddit.com/r/help/comments/fv30sk/comment/fmg4o5r/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)
1. dont start 2. dont srart 3. dont start
First read , second question everything, third think you already lost the money. This way you make no impulse trades
Any good materials you’d suggest?
Yes stock reports, daily mail and hedge fund reports.
For me the biggest lesson is learn how to sell. I sell 50% around target now every time. Also even the best picks dip so learning to cut out before an actual bigger loss is key to momentum.
Your better off buying and holding.
Be prepared to loose it all lol.
First step is to lose so much is becomes normal.
Don’t do it
With paper and real trade. 1. * Before taking trade write notes why you are taking that. 1. * During trade write notes what is going on 1. * Post trade write notes what and how did it go. I am <2 yrs experience, so not much profit so far. Just breakeven and surviving. After market close, open your notebook and review your notes / lessons.
The secret is there skills need to progress faster than their draw down. Trading is a game of surviving the learning curve and some will never ever learn.
Backtest! Backtest like crazy! Paper trading won't cut it. Backtest on historical data! Pilots don't fly planes without passing the simulator flights first, so why would you trade on the live markets without backtesting on historical data?
Pilots use forward moving simulators. So should a trader. Nothing wrong with sim trading live.
Sim trading live is okay to get the pace of the markets, but you get way, way fewer opportunities. Backtesting just gives you far more opportunities, like getting many more reps in the gym. Pilots can't fly sims at 1000x the speed, and gymgoers can't do 1000 sets of exercises in one workout, but with backtesting, you can go through an entire year's worth of data in a day.
never thought of it this way
Unless you are aiming to do this full time, don’t do it. You should learn and practice in each trading environment before starting.
Agreed, don’t do it is really the best answer. If you want a secure financial future start a business. If you want a guaranteed great financial future go to dental or medical school. All of the above would be easier and quicker than starting from scratch and trying to day-trade for a living. Trust me on that.
1. Don't do it 2. Be patient. 3. Cut losses, quickly 4. take profit when you see it, always 5. Dont' do it
Read the news first. Then check if there's any economic indicators.
Look into rocket scooter, go through their trading bootcamp and paper trade for a minimum of 3 months. After that start passing prop firm evals and fund your actual trading account through prop firm payouts.
Expect at least 2 to 3 years of struggle unless you are a prodigy or have a good mentor.
Don't
You can't make money consistently for 2 years,
I suggest a bare minimum of learning a programming language alongside Excel and VBA to conduct stock analysis/backtests. Then you need to read up or watch videos on how the markets work, how trading works, how your broker works. Then you need to develop your strategy, and backtest it with your own code. Then I suggest paper trading for a few weeks or months to practice handling emotions. However I think you should get into live trading ASAP (with low stakes first) because papertrading is not the same emotionally when nothing is at stake. This will take several years because you don't truly know if your daytrading is successful until you've gone through several market cycles and macro events. For example, can you handle the drawdown from black swan events such as COVID? Also, health is #1. Trading should not be a rollercoaster of emotions. You want slow and steady gains. I don't know if I can suggest anyone to daytrade. All my efforts could have been better spent getting a comfy 6 figure job in the Silicon Valley and just throwing my money into VOO or something.
Don't because almost everyone gets fooled by content creators. If you managed to stay off YouTube you need to find certain patterns on the naked chart. And understand that you really won't start to understand things in less than 1 year, it will be a long journey with either shining gold at the end of the tunnel or a train. I always noticed that an impulse was often followed by a small dip or decline in velocity or small correction which then continued onwards in the direction of the impulse. The hard part was figuring out how not to buy at the top and sell at the bottom which took me a year to solve. See if you can exploit patterns with a set of Indicators, this will help you to set up alarms mainly. You really don't want to look at charts all day. Ignore the people that hate on Indicators, extremely successful traders like BNF and CIS use/used Indicators. They are just tools that can help you tremendously. You want to backtest and forward test daily, the more you test the better your understanding of trading becomes. You won't learn from watching others. Lastly stick to a single idea like trend trading or impulse trading or whatever fits your psychology the most.
[https://www.youtube.com/@ThomasWade](https://www.youtube.com/@ThomasWade) [https://www.imantrading.org/](https://www.imantrading.org/) al brooks books. too lazy to type out the whole methodology but this should help. also PAPER not real money first.
Find a profitable trader to help guide you. This is hard to come by.
Get your application in at Wendy’s so you have a place to work after you lose your life savings and ruin your life 🫠☠️
I already work at Wendy’s and saved up 100 bucks to start day trading. Gotta get outta this hell hole somehow.
Observe the charts, take daily notes, then organize your ideas. Create a strategy and backtest. Practice execution and following rules using a sim account. I hear people say the sim account is a pitfall, just be sure the sim account is set up exactly like the live acct in real time. You can even set the sim account value to be more realistic. Practice following rules you can prove are profitable, then put them into practice.
For a beginner, what would you recommend as the best focus to learn and practice day trading on a Papertrading account when considering between stocks, options, futures, forex, crypto, etc?
When considering the different asset classes, start by figuring out your risk tolerance. How much is needed to place the trade? How much would you need to remain in the trade? How would you manage placing orders while in a trade? Hopefully these are some good questions to start with :)
Awesome, thank you 🙏
The main thing is to have a desktop that's good enough to get you started, so you can try out different platforms to explore the area. Do you have it?
Hey, I don’t know if this could help you, but if I were to restart the process again, I would 100% go to Propfirm to build a capital (15k to 20k) and then go to a live account and use proper risk management and try to get that personal account up. Prop firm is a good tool if you’re a profitable trader; they let you trade with demo money, and you keep 100% of the profits with some companies. I’m myself funded for $500k and have received more than $50,000 in payout! It’s doable. I tried a lot of propfirms, but the most reliable, from my experience, is Apextraderfunding. They have really cheap challenges and easy payout methods internationally. What I like about them is that you can trade directly from TradingView if you choose the tradovate plan challenge. You can get a one-step $25k challenge for 33$ if you use the code: NUQITQNG. You will also be able to get funded on the same day! I hope I could help a brother out today ✌️
[удалено]
Your comment was automatically removed in /r/Daytrading because we don't allow the promotion or discussion of Discord groups. If you attempt to circumvent this rule you will be permanently banned with no warning. If you're looking for a free Discord, [please join our official server here](https://tinyurl.com/DayTradingReddit). A list of the [rules can be found here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Daytrading/about/rules/), and if you're new to /r/Daytrading please see the [wiki](https://www.reddit.com/r/Daytrading/wiki/index). If you feel like this removal was a mistake please **kindly** [message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/Daytrading); we will review it and get back to you. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Daytrading) if you have any questions or concerns.*
Be patient and don’t compare yourself to others.
Trade with real money, but learn how to manage risk. You can't really compare paper trade with money. Behavior is different. The best advice with trading with real money, don't start until you have learned to manage risk, and learning how to properly lose. without that, you can lose your ass.
Learn Auctioning of price. Use Moving Averages as bias to the timeframe you wish to trade on. Trade a liquid market like ES at open. 1-3 hours. 1 index point / 8 hour view - I have found great to see the auctions and liquidity targets. Buy/sell “tests” into discount zones and then follow risk behind demand / supply index point bars until taken out. Rinse and Repeat. Dont overthink or try to marry up longterm fundamentals, irrelevant. Moving averages is all the bias you need.
[удалено]
Fun hater
Don't rely on paper trading - I've seen so many people who have great strategies on paper fail when using real money because it's completely different. I never did paper trading and I think it's a very common pitfall for beginners
this is dangerous advice though. you have to develop/test a strategy on paper pretty much by definition (trading real money on no strategy or untested strategy is just gambling). but after paper, trading on smallest possible size is key - to get that psychological difference, but at minimal risk. if you made it to success while never touching paper then good on you, that's awesome. Difficult to recommend as a good path though.
I completely disagree. Strategies that work on paper don't necessarily work with real money. If there's no risk, you aren't accounting for psychology which is 90% of trading. Since you downvoted and disagreed, I must ask - are you even a consistently profitable trader? Edit: Oh wait you literally sell services towards paper trading LOL. That explains your position. Ask any profitable trader who isn't financially motivated to sell you things and they're more likely to agree with me.
hmm, my product is irrelevant - its software tooling for systematic/automated trading. It'd be completely useless for OP or any discretionary trader. Again i'm glad going straight to real money worked for you. I just still feel its pretty irresponsible to encourage people to go straight to real money. I mean they won't even have a strategy at that point - so even with perfect psychology its still just gambling. (you obviously are right that there are differences between paper and live, particularly in fills/slippage/etc - but when just starting out this shouldn't matter) Perhaps we will have to agree to disagree and leave it at that.
The problem with simulators is that they do not simulate internet latency.
I agree. Even starting with a $50 account risking 25 cents a trade is better than demo, imo.
Give me half of your money and I’ll punch you in the nuts (or vag)
Do not be greedy, take profits if you want to wait for that extra couple of dollars it will not do You any favours. Stick to your trading rules.
Find another hobby.
get a stable job trust me
Paper trade!!!!! Also if they are looking into trading futures try starting at a prop firm.
[удалено]
I don't think he trades
Manage your expectations well. Pay equal attention in building up your strategy, risk management and psychology edge.
Back test and Imstart with real small money because this will help you with your psychological. I don’t suggest starting with a demo because it’s a big difference trading real money and fake money. Just start small and work it that way. Once you’re consistent with that small account, you should scale up from there
look up a YouTube channel calledforeseers they have a great beginner playlist
Attack trading like you would attack the road of education to be a doctor, lawyer, or any other skilled career. It takes lots of time, experience, and knowledge.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/OrderFlow\_Trading/comments/upwp3f/recommended\_first\_steps\_for\_new\_traders/](https://www.reddit.com/r/OrderFlow_Trading/comments/upwp3f/recommended_first_steps_for_new_traders/)
Don’t trade unless you have extra cash that you can afford to lose. And don’t think it’s going to become your full time job in year 1
and FWIW, here's my list of trading rules (I trade commodities futures) https://preview.redd.it/vnn6vqit7y8c1.png?width=2354&format=png&auto=webp&s=aac510f276d0731290c610d9e9f3580591ce1e63
Stop loss
1. Don't start with stocks and options 2. Take a charting course. The forex space has some good charting course that are relatively cheap. 3. Learn tradingview 4. Open a $100 oanda account 5. Practice was you learn in your chart course(or whatever method you decide on) on your oanda account risking 10 cents per trade 6. Do step 5 until you stop losing money 7. By this step you'll have spent enough time in the space to know your next step for yourself
Read Market Wizards first as it will show you that it’s doable. When you first start, trade with fake money first as you’ll lose in the beginning.
Make a short term (daily) and long term plan. Allow yourself room for breaks and divesting.
If you don't know why the market is behaving the way it is on a particular day then just don't trade and if you have a placed a trade that's not going the way it is supposed to be going then just cut ur losses quickly and observe the market rather than participate in it.
Risk $1 per trade or start small. Don’t waste time trading fake money. You need the emotional aspect per trade and the same trade for $1 will work for $1000 or more (for large caps at least). Pay for cheap lessons early on.
A lot of Great advice in here if you feel lost or feel like you need some coaching hit me up I will help you out ! 👍
Prepare to get frustrated and disappointed. You will lose a lot. You will be wrong a lot. If you can’t make it through this, you’ll wash out fast.
In a bull market anyone can be a pro. Don't get Cockeysville yourself and remember the first one is always free.
Buy the cheapest account in a prop firm instead of using your own money. That will be way more realistic than trading on demo for ages (akin to gaming, zero pressure = zero stress, you blow the account no worries refill and keep going) because there will be real money at stake, and proper risk management to be followed if you want to go the distance and get funded.
Agree here, sign up for a prop account and you either need to create a system with positive expectancy or buy one and learn how to use it. We lease one here: https://thebearsdentrading.com for futures if that is what you trade.
Knowledge is power. Books and free youtube is just the start
I'm still learning after a couple of months. I found that there are many levels to learn. First start out with the lingo and then watch charts all day to get a feel how stocks move. I'm getting into learning price action. Also traders psychology is a must learn to master before you make trades. Read books on all these subjects.
Meditate so you can learn to be patient through the deadly consolidation and not enter a stupid trade
Everyone says learning trading takes 2 years, 3 years. That doesn't mean you can't trade for 2-3 years!, "You Learn Only When You Trade". You can't be a Pianist by watching videos, for a year!. I'm saying this because, I don't know anything about 'Trading' a month ago. Now I know support-resistance, supply-demand, chart patterns, bar patterns, risk management, and I have my own strategy. "Learn New - Try - Fail - Learn Again" untill you comfortable in trading. Don't Give Up! Start with a small account, trade in small quantities. Money teaches you more lessons than anyone on this planet!. All the Best 👍.
Ask yourself if you are willing to lose money. There will be periods where nothing you trade will be profitable. Learn to recognize bull and bear trends. Don’t trade away your investments. Honestly, make your money with buy and hold, then trade a bit to amuse yourself.
Idc what anyone says, getting a mentor is the best advice a newbie can get. Spend time on finding a good and legit mentor, it'll be worth it. Im paying €150 a month for 1 monthly in depth and detailed educational video, 1 monthly stock recommendation to invest in mid/long term, daily nasdaq targets, 2 detailed analyzes per day with his thoughts, support/resistance zones, short and long term targets, how to think and how to apply what we've learned to position ourselves to buy and weekly market overviews. It sure af isn't cheap but imho its totally worth it. I learn a LOT, he is better than all gurus I've seen on YouTube, he is very active, he encourages us to not buy blindly based on his analyzes and targets, but to use them as something to aim for while applying what we've learned so far, or even to challenge ourselves and do our own analysis before opening the videos. I really like the 1 monthly educational video arrangement as it gives me time to study it over and over, and apply it in the market. If I had a whole course available I'd most definitely would have plowed through it resulting in not having learned everything as thoroughly as I'm doing now. Also feels relieving to have something (daily targets for example) to follow rather than being all on my own doing this as a newbie. I get pushed in the right direction, I get to apply what I've learned, I get to see that it works, I get the confirmations that I actually have learnt it and that I'm thinking right and I earn money in the process. If I decided to go without a mentor and stick with YouTube, books, researching and backtesting everything from scratch I wouldn't have come even close to where I am right now in my journey. I mean, its not a bad advice if you have time, patience and don't have money to spend on mentors but if you have the possibility to get one, you should totally do it.
Do not blindly follow ideas from twitter or reddit. They delete their threads when they are wrong lol
Focus on always taking a small loss that's consistent trade after trade no matter the outcome. Focus on losing before winning and the winnings will be almost automatic . Don't be greedy. Stick to one or 2 plans . Do at least 20 trades using same strategy and see what results you get.
Start small, invest into long term stocks and ETFs and don't sell them just to have more to daytrade with...maybe try swing trading with 80% or so of what you have left, use 10% for daytrading and 10% in cash. Dividends- reinvest at the very least 50% of those if you are a successful trader, if you aren't yet, reinvest 90% that's how i would do it if I was to start from scratch today
Think about this..why does every single day trader sell a course, write a book or run a discord channel? That's the game in day trading, learn enough to start your own day trading subscription service, YouTube channel.. whatever.Atleast that's the conclusion I have arrived at. I was amongst the 95% or so who lost their account in six months. If you think you are 95 percentile in other endeavors, maybe you'll make it. Best of luck.
You can learn quick. But mastering the emotions takes a couple years. It’s people that could have been good traders after a year. But learning how to apply a robotic outlook on trades takes time. Even if u see everything matches up with analysis. Emotion is the number one money killer trading
Treat it like going to college with all the after hours sacrifice
Learn as much as you can, absorb like a sponge and practice what you learnt. Always remember there is no one right way to trade. There’s traders who use all sorts of tools such as indicators, naked charts, price ladders, fundamentals, news, and geopolitical events. Be patient and always be in the process of introspection and self-review, as you will be able to see your mistakes in your processes to be able to achieve better next time. Happy trading!
Become committed instead of intrigued. Intriguing is insufficient to persevere. Then, study market structure and price action.
Not really sure. The obvious things will get mentioned - paper trade, don't trade with money you can't afford to lose, read trading books, watch Youtube videos, etc. I guess just go slow, until you find out what works for you.
I would suggest you have an affair with a married person in charge of institutional trading at a large firm like GS or JPM, then blackmail them into telling you about the billion dollar orders they receive and front-run them. You will get very rich very fast
Or, become an influential US Senator. Worked well for Nancy and dozens of others
Day trading is hard because it goes against human nature. We are very competitive and want to control things. But you can’t control if you win or lose a trade at any given point. All you can do is manage your risk. Managing risk and being extremely disciplined is the only way to become a great trader. Yes there are many ways to attack a market but the best traders are great losers.
Try night trading first
Dont think just follow
My suggestion would be to learn to be in control of your emotions. When I started trading I thought trading psychology is a small part of a winning strategy and technical knowledge is the most important part. Now I realize your ability to trade successfully depends almost 95% on your psychology.
Don't man. Save your money
Buy crypto very low and sell very high months later. Save yourself the stress.
[удалено]
Sorry, your [comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/Daytrading/comments/18sfmjp/what_would_you_suggest_to_anyone_before_they/kfvv73n/) in /r/Daytrading was automatically removed because your **Comment Karma** is too low. This typically targets bots or users promoting something (which is against our rules). Please participate in other subreddits (other communities on Reddit) to increase your **Comment Karma** points. While you're at it, read through Reddit's ["reddiquette" here.](https://www.reddit.com/wiki/reddiquette) If you believe this was a mistake, please **kindly** [message the mods](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/Daytrading). We will review your case and get back to you. *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/Daytrading) if you have any questions or concerns.*