Update Aug 2018

Really out of date blog.

Since I signed up here I was desperate to learn how to trade. I was not in a good mindset which is perfect for those people who want to make a quick buck. I've given my time, money and blood to learn how to trade and these days I'm doing ok, if not a little light on the wallet.

Learning to make a buck in the stock market, for those who're serious about making good, consistant profits - is tough! I've done US stocks, penny stocks, Aus stocks, crypto and currency trading and its all the same. Give 100% or you're going to burn out.

1. What type of trader do you want to be? Long term or short term? Use a multi-screen PC desktop or smartphone? Learn the slower trading  first. The smaller the timeframe, the trickier it is. Day and hourly trades can be just as profitable. Not sure what I mean, see step 2.

2. Fkn read. A lot. Have spare time? Want to go on Youtube, twitter or Facebook? See step 5.

3. Don't let anyone tell you you can't do it. 95% lose in the stockmarket? Good. Thats because they're lazy to learn properly. Take their money! Its been years and I'm still learning.

4. Stock courses are good but they need to be from real traders, not marketers. And can they teach!? Also see step 1. Do they help you here? This was a big issue for me. I like currency trading. Stock courses were not for me.

5. Give up stuff you love. TV, games, hobbies etc. Sacrifice is required. Give up girlfriends if needed. Seriously, trading is crazy and you need not only time but focus. Distractions cost you. I know this personally. When people need you for whatever reason it takes you away from your dreams. It hurts. Its depressing. Realise you need to push parts of your life away, at least for a good while. This is why my Profitly is so bare with updates!! People always needing me! If I was single, I'd be way ahead with trading by a long shot.

6. Get ready to be frustrated, lose money, feel hopeless, things are too hard, everything is going wrong - It will happen. A good teacher can support you, put you on track. Or, a friend that joins you for the ride. Try to have someone there to make you feel positive, much like a gym buddy who will get you to push that extra rep. Stock trading is mostly emotional and it can really get tough sometimes (a lot).

7. Don't give up. Take a break, clear your head but never give up.

 

Good Luck.

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Welcome to Marks blog. I'll be storing various info here so I don't have to repeat myself in the Chat section.

Due to my lack of experience please question the information I give you. I too am learning. Trading has many evil people and they will take advantage of your monies! Nom, nom, nom.

 

Who am I?

 G'day, my name is Mark and I live in Canberra, Australia and I'm 38yo. My personality is a mix of nice-guy with goth traits. Art, music and travel are my passions and I enjoy the single and independent lifestyle. My car and bike are pretty cool too!

 

I want to be a day trader

 

My focus is on USD (USA stocks).

I'll be buying and selling stock but also (hopefully) short-selling which is betting against the market.

Eventually I will learn Options as I find it interesting and a friend I know does it as their main strategy.

 

Are you an experience trader? No

 Updated 19 April 2015

I am very new to trading and had my first attempt a few weeks ago. I decided to use minimum amount of shares and just play around. Bought in and shorted a number of times and all were bad trades. A lot of it was testing the software and getting use to the "feel" of trading. Losses expected.

Now I am planning to do things right. Time will tell...

 Currently studying trading with a US course I'm a part of since Aug 2014. It costs a bomb and I will talk about it later when its finished.

I have paper traded using Interactive Brokers and did surprisingly well for about two months. I've seen the opportunities that can be made in just a few weeks trading USD stocks and highly recommend paper trading which I will talk about later.

 During the trading hours I used community chat boards to communicate with like-minded people. The advice, tips and various conversations during these times was a great experience but I plan to go more solo in the  future.

 

 

How can a noob help others? I have answers for bigger noobs then me!

 

I know more than those looking to start and I have also run into many problems on the path of learning to trade. I've stupidly thrown money at DVDs, a trading course and learned from those actions.

 

Trading has tons of negativity following it, scares new people and rightly so! The answers to those common questions are answered later.

 

Trading is even worse for people like me who aren’t American as the rules are different when trying to trade. Brokers say you can trade with them but you can’t. Forum users give advice that’s wrong. Experienced traders can’t answer the questions you need answered. I want to find those answers and help others that were in my situation.

 

 

 

Reviews

 

I have trading DVDs and the trading course I'm studying and I will pass on some reviews once I have more info. Both courses and DVDs are very expensive and can be not worth the cost (you can pay over $2000 for a single trader DVD but a lot will be $200 - $1000).

 

Can't wait for a review? Ask me a question.

 

Day Trading - Is It Worth It?

 Short answer is "yes". For me anyway.

 

Study and watching video's is all well and good but when you have the software in front of you, trading is live and you have control - it’s a whole new world. It's very possible to add to your income in a large way. Yes, it can come with negatives but so does your average 9 to 5 job.

 

Positives to Day Trading

 

1. You can (one day) quit your day job.

 

2. More money = more opportunities. After a year of trading the average weekly profit is about $1800 for a pro day trader. As your bank balance go’s up bigger opportunities are possible. Biggest day trade I’ve heard of so far is over $200k US which was about 6 hours work in a day. Struth!!

 

3. More time. Day trading should only take up a few hours or days within a week. It's not sitting in front of your computer for 8 hours Mon – Fri (you probably do that already).

 

4. More freedom. With a laptop and wifi connection you can trade almost anywhere. Like to travel? Trade while you travel.

 

4. Help others.

 

 

 

Negatives to Day Trading

 

1. Starting out: Trading can have a huge learning curve and feel very daunting. It’s difficult to grasp just which information you should focus on right away. Courses will cost you thousands and if you chose the wrong one it can cost you more then just money.

 

2. Money: The more you start with the easier it can be. Yes, you will lose money (its part of learning) but follow some simple rules and it should be far less then you think.

 

3. Time: I'm not talking about just the time set aside to learn but the time to trade. For Aussies trading USD it starts at 1:30am. Can you organise your time well?

 

4. Greed: Once you understand the opportunity day trading offers, greed is a trap I think most people fall into. Thankfully there are rules in place to stop it. Trust me, you will get greedy.

 

 

 

Common Misconceptions

 

I tend to not tell people what I'm doing when it comes to money. Unfortunately I find most people react negatively to new money making ideas. For me, if a 1000 people try something to make money and only one of them becomes rich, I'll want to know what that one guy did. Not focus on the losers. Average people don't think that way. They think "I'll stay away from that". Maybe that one person just did some extra study or found some new information that helped them? Focus on the positive and on the facts.

 

1. "I know a guy who tried xxx and they lost everything".

 

With trading you don't put everything in. This is called gambling, not trading. Overall you trade under 20-40% of your total value of funds and if things go sour you sell quickly reducing your overall loss.

 

2. "He invested his money with xxx and they used his money for trading and lost everything".

 

I don't recommend giving your money to anyone for trading. Yes, there are those who can trade your money on the stock market for you but if you can't find the trade yourself why would you trust others to do it?

You need to realise you're considered poor in the trading world and anything under $100,000 is nothing to traders. You’re not important to them. You're poor and not wanted. Sorry, that's life.

 

3. "Google and Apple seem popular. Think I'll invest in those".

 

The higher the price of stock the more you need to invest. As of now Apple is currently $121 per share. If you buy 1000 shares that's $12,100+. Is that the amount you can afford? Is 20-40% of your current account worth that much? Even if it is stocks like that are for the rich.

 

4. "I know a guy who invested his retirement and made over a xxx million!!!"

 

Story’s like this have no valuable content at all except the person was most likely very lucky. Are they gambling or trading? Whatever they did it is not something I would do. They gambled and got lucky as far as I care. Its good to focus on the positive of a story but there must also be substance to the story. Example: A profit.ly account that shows no negative trades, just positives, is most likely someone hiding something.

 

 

How Does a Trader Go About Their Day?

 

Research – A trader mainly keeps an eye on any news that will effect a companies stock price. Such news is found in the usual places such as forums, tv, radio, news papers and the general internet.

 

This is the research phase of trading and is something you will need to start getting into. Your routines will need to change and giving up your day to day tasks will need to increase (playing video games, some sport, cut down on gym, tv, watching porn, less time with girlfriend, Facebook, reading books etc.  Ok maybe not porn).

 

If you can’t sacrifice part of your time to checking events then don’t bother with trading. It is possible to just do it every few days but these events are opportunities and they pop up at all times of the day and night.

 

Get into a pattern to follow and check for news. Have websites saved as favorites and just check them all at a particular time of day: Over lunch, on the bus and during dinner for example. Find something then write it down in your notepad. Set-up ways of checking news quickly during times that arn't that important. It's also a good excuse not to visit your mother-in-law *wink*

 

Preparation – A day trader will get ready one or two hours before trading starts and go over company’s they found interesting. Here is where you write down which company's look promising. You have checked their graphs and worked out which ones look good to watch. This is a very busy time for a trader.

 

Market Open – The start of the stock market-open and market-close are two of the most important times during a live trade. A lot can happen and a lot of people make and lose money at these times. For me, I found being there for the Open and sticking around for about 2 hours was enough time to know if things were going to be good or bad. If good I would be up for another 2-3 hours before I retired and went to bed.

 

Wrap Up – A good trader will keep a record of every trade. What they did well, not so well, how much they put down on a trade and what company it was. Why they did what they did on the trade and what they should have done and why. Keeping a record helps you learn! Excel is a good program to use for this.

 

 

 

Study…

 

Take Notes: Create a system for taking and keeping notes be it pen and paper or in Word or Excel. Notepad works just fine too. You will need to go over your notes at some point to refresh your memory. For me, having written down the things I’ve learned in my own words helps me remember everything a lot better. It’s also a quick way to skim through the info quickly.

 

No, I'm not going to teach you (hey, I'm still learning too!!!) how to trade but there is plenty of free stuff online and I’ll answer questions best I can. You just need to know what to search! A good start is just to Google "How to Trade" or "What is trading" and lots of websites will pop up. Eventually I'll add some reviews of dvd's and courses.

EDIT 19 Aril 2015: 
The How to Make Millions DVD on profit.ly is actually not too bad for those starting out. It has 12 DVD's all going for about 2-3 hours each. You will learn stuff for sure and get an insite to day trading. Its a lot to take it in but I think its the best way to investigate a market you're new too.

 

Don't rely on just YouTube as there is a lot of useless junk on there. There are many websites that can help you learn the basics but yes feel free to try it.

 

Yes, there is a ton of info to read. A lot of stuff you most likely won't even need to learn but read it anyway. Just make sure it’s under the "How to Trade" type of website and not something advanced like 50 pages on Fundamentals (not yet anyway). It should have short paragraphs on each topic so you can have a basic understanding of how things work.

 

 

 

 

Terms - Once you have a basic understanding of trading and various terms like ticker, ask, bid, margin, limit order, fundamentals and an idea of different ways to trade it’s best to move onto more specific areas.

Terms:
buy\sell, options, short selling, bull and bear market, patterns, support, high and low, volume, market open and close, slippage etc

 

http://www.investopedia.com/university/intro-to-order-types/

 

Trade types – For me it’s buying and selling shares (going long) and short selling. A friend of mine likes Options. All of these are different ways of buying shares to hopefully make a profit. It’s very important you know what type of trading you wish to make as this effects your study priorities. Short selling is risky but allows you to bet against the market (buy high, sell low).

 

Trader strategy – I want to be a day trader. The goal is to keep an eye on events and companies and if things are working in my favor I will get up early to trade. Trading is live and constant which means I will buy shares and stay at the computer until I sell. This could range between seconds to hours before selling.

 

You may wish to trade another way:
Options tend to be far longer term way to trade as you wait for the market to hit a particular price range before you sell (weeks or months). You can buy shares at a fraction of the cost which is why some people use it. I’m not proficient in Options so look it up if it sounds like your thing. Whatever the style of trading you wish to follow you will need to focus in that direction which helps knowing what to study.

 

http://m.investor.gov/news-alerts/trading-basics-understanding-different-ways-buy-sell-stock

 

http://www.investopedia.com/articles/active-trading/11/four-types-of-active-traders.asp

 

Research – Already mentioned above but once you start getting an idea of where you’re going and how you’re going to do it start researching and if possible ‘fake trading’. It’s an invaluable experience and it will get you to not only into real-trading but make profit sooner (I hope, I’m yet to trade!!). It’s common sense really and it lessens the fear-factor.

 

 

Investopedia is a fantastic source of information. It’s your "trading with Google". I recommend clicking on stuff and reading stuff. Stuff-is-good.

 http://www.investopedia.com

 

 

 

How much time do you want to spend trading?

 

This is a bit of a trick question. Even if you attempt to trade daily it doesn't mean you will make a positive trade. There may not be any opportunities to be found!! You may even go months without finding a good trade. Other times you may make insane profits multiple times a day. Talking on forums can help you understand how the market is effecting everyone and what they're doing about it.

 

The Stock Market doesn't care if you make money or not. It is what it is. It's like a living creature that has a mind of its own. You can't force profits from it so don't try. Look for the opportunities in their own time.

 

From what I've learned so far trading is mainly researching who to put money on, not sitting in front of the broker software. In other words you should spend more time looking for opportunities to make money over staring on the computer waiting for that ticker to go up.

 

 

 

Brokers

 

Please note: Some of my facts might not be 100% so double check yourself.

 

Brokers handle your transactions during trading. It's an automatic process with the software you will use. Unfortunately the many brokers offered don't allow many types of trading due to you being an international user (non-American).

The Bad...

I joined Interactive Brokers due to word-of-mouth. Australians and Americans all advised to jump on board for the type of trading I was after. After fake trading for a month or so I went to bid on stock and was told "no you can't trade".  After emails and phone calls it turns out IB don't allow international users to trade USD.  They cost me hundreds of dollars and had I called them first and asked some questions it wouldn't have happened. The funny thing is everyone was wrong about IB.

1. Find the facts yourself. 

2. Question everything.

 

Below is the current info I have on brokers. Note that my tactics require a Margin Account so I can short-sell stock. This has been the 'thorn in my side' in finding a broker. Many will tell me I can trade USD but don't tell me I'd need 100k or 1mil to do so. There ican be a catch so always investigate further!

 

OptionsXpress - update 19 April 2015

 

Trading USD – Yes $14.95 for 1-1000 shares. $0.015 per share over 1001+

Shorting – Yes. 50% of short value (maintenance 40%) $5 per share below $10 per share.

NOTE: Im not sure about some of the above costs but having used the software I've been chaged $10-$15 per order. Some brokers charge around $5.

 

As you can see OptionsXpress allow trading USD and shorting but no shorting under $5. Regardless this is currently my broker of choice for now.
For the margin account you need a min of $2000 with OptionsXpress. That's pretty low but it can't go below that. That pretty much means you need a chunk more for the actual trading. I'd recommend above 8k.

They do have the PDT rule. You need $25k plus to be a day trader with all US brokers.

 

Commsec

 

Trading USD - Yes. $64 per trade or 0.75%.

Shorting? No.

 

Commsec is too expensive for new people starting out. It also doesn't allow short-selling.

 

Westpac

 

Trading USD – Yes. $50 per trade or 0.65%.

 

Shorting? No.

 

NabTrade

 

Trading USD – No.

 

Interactive Brokers

 

Trading USD – No.

Note their trade software is regarded as a 'pain in the butt' to use. I liked it but has no flashy graphics and feels very old-school. I liked being able to open new windows and move them to new monitors.

 

Suretrader and Speedtrader -update 19 April 2015

 Trading USD – Not really.

My previous opinion about them was incorrect and Aussies seem to use them fairly easy in regards to account size and charges. I would only use them if your account is very limited in size and you want to work around the PDT rule (which in itself is a great reason).

These guys are the cheap fast food of the broker world.

 

 

How to handle trading USD in a +10 timezone.

 

Trading starts at 1:30am. This means I need to be up by at least 12:30pm (1+ hours earlier) to get ready. I work full time and sometimes I work on call which makes things very difficult.

 

I found the best thing is to just have a plan. My plan involves the following:

 

1. Research daily. Keep details of a company I'm interested in my special 'black book'.

   Check their ticker name, chart history and possibly plan ahead on how I would bid on their stock.

2. If I find just one company that looks promising I will plan to trade that night. However if I am unable to go to bed by at least 6:30pm I forgo my plan and keep researching for the following day onwards.

3. I like to wake up at least 1.5 hours before the trade depending on how much preparation I need before hand. No less then 30min (Some people prep for 4 hours). Open broker software (sign in), find the company, add it to a Watchlist and reseach whats going on in real time with various websites that track news (news websites, forums, chat with others, company history, financial documents).

4. Once trade starts I will hopefully have a plan and follow it. If things go well I might be up for many hours. If not I could be in bed within one hour of the trade starting. Sometimes it won't go well but others will advice what a good stock to watch is and that will be the magic stock to play with. It's not the best idea to do so but if you play it safe it can be a good option as well.

5. Once done and I have gone back to bed it is unlikely I will trade the following day unless something really, really good has popped up. You need your sleep so you can be focused. Anything that can ruin your concentration will effect your trading. Be healthy, get your sleep and focused.

6. After a fresh day of more researching and a good nights sleep you can start from step 1 again.

 

 

 

How much should I trade with?

 

Personally I recommend at least $10,000 AUS for trading. This will give you the min needed for a margin account (if you need it) and money to play with. Treat this money as expendable although you shouldn't use it up if you do things correctly. In fact, you should make money if you follow the methods I do and many others have proven works (and I'm looking forward to trying those methods). Start slow, take tiny losses to learn and work your way up.

 

Extra Info....

--- update 19 April 2015

 

Some brokers require $10,000 to $25,000 min for day trading. Any less and you can only put down 3 bids a week. So if you buy, sell and then buy – that's 3 bids. This seems to be an American broker rule. Australia doesn't seem to have it. I'm guessing its because American brokers hate poor people (or the fact the country is in a little bit of a crisis).

 

$25,000 is common and the brokers that have great prices and options for tradi