Day Trading Basics
Bulls, bears, Japanese candlesticks and screaming suits on television. Some say trading is impossible, while others are trading from a laptop at the beach and supposedly bringing in millions. At first, the world of trading and investing can seem daunting. There’s an endless amount of information at your fingertips and no one to tell you what’s important and what’s mostly garbage. Before you can begin down the path of profitable trading, you must first learn the basics.
Don’t know where to start? Learn the terminology first:
Before you can even think about making money in the markets, you must learn to speak the language of trading. That’s why the first thing I recommend new traders do is take a look at common trading terminology, so that they can understand what it means to be bullish, or how the hell you can sell something you don’t even own. It will be very hard to grasp basic trading concepts and strategies without first learning what the words actually mean.
Choose the Right broker for you
Coming from a professional gaming background, my tools were my controller and headset. When I first started playing games online, it was perfectly fine for me to use the generic wireless controller and headset that came in the box. But as my skill level improved, and I began to compete in frequent tournament competition, I needed to improve the tools I used to give myself the best chance of success. This meant upgrading to a controller with paddles on the back for faster reaction time, and headsets that blew out my eardrums so I could hear every single in-game footstep.
I think of brokers and trading in a similar regard. When you’re first starting out, it’s fine to go with a big box broker who offers zero commissions and gives you a free stock for signing up. After all, you’re just getting your feet wet and wouldn’t know how to use better tools, even if you had access to them. However, once you move past those early beginner stages and want to level up your trading, you’ll want to align with a broker who specializes in helping traders with your skillset succeed. This might mean moving to a direct access broker for faster execution speed, or access to hard to borrow stocks for short sellers.
“Before you can even think about making money in the markets, you must learn to speak the language of trading.”
Decide on a time frame
Day trading, Swing Trading, Position Trading, Scalping, and Investing. All of these strategies involve buying or selling stocks in order to generate a profit, the only difference is how long you actually plan to hold your position. Choosing the right time frame for your trading is all about knowing yourself and your skills outside of the market. Do you do well in fast paced, high stress environments where you need to make the right decision in the right moment without hesitation? Day trading might be for you. Are you more relaxed and only want to check in on the market once per day to place some orders? You may fare better as a position trader. At the end of the day, there’s countless trading strategies that can generate short and long term profits in the market, but the key is positioning yourself into a strategy that suits your own personality and risk profile.
Mentorship is the fastest way to reduce your learning curve.
Trial and error is the tried and true method to learn just about any skillset imaginable. When you figure out a thousand ways that don’t work, you will eventually learn what does. The problem is, when learning to trade, trial and error means you are losing money and motivation along the way. This is why 95% of people who try to actively trade end up burning out, because they simply don’t have the amount of money or willpower necessary to tackle the brutal learning curve in their formative years. Finding a trader or group of traders who have MADE those mistakes already, and learned to fix them, will not only save you money but most importantly TIME. Trading is simply an obstacle course, and the faster you can hurdle one obstacle, the faster you can move on to the next and the next and the next.
Get real education from real traders.
At GreenWallSt, our mission is to provide a community of like-minded and battle tested traders, who can share ideas and lessons they’ve learned along the way, in order to drastically reduce the learning curve of trading and give people the absolute best shot at success. Join today and receive immediate access to hours of trading video courses, 1-on-1 mentorship, daily watchlists, trade reviews, a Premium Community Discord and much much more.
