NYSE – Trading POC

Day Trading Skills – Quickly Buy And Sell Stock

Posted on May 11, 2019 by blogger

Despite the ominous warnings by the Securities and Exchange Commission cautioning investors against the controversial yet potentially lucrative business of day trading, people attempt to try and attain day trading skills, and a day trading stock tip is literally worth it’s weight in either gold, or dross! Below is some information on learning trading techniques, the risk you may incur, and techniques for becoming a successful trader.

Just what is day trading and how do individuals gain day trading skill? Day trading is the act of quickly buying and selling stock throughout the day in the hopes to profit from the marginal changes in the market for that specific day. Ideally, day trading strategies allow investors to garner profits from the fractional increases in the market.

Day traders observe a particular set of indicators when figuring out whether a stock is suitable for day trading. First, the stock must have high liquidity. This means that the stock in question has a large number of buyers and sellers. The liquidity allows day traders to rapidly buy and then sell stock. Liquidity is created by the volume of transactions on the market, the number of outstanding shares, the total number of shareholders and the number of market makers. Many stocks on the NYSE and NASDAQ have a high degree of liquidity.

A day trader also looks at volume individually, in addition to using it as criteria for liquidity. To qualify for day trading, a stock should trade at least 500,000 shares a day. Stocks with 500,000 trades a day or more enable the day trader to buy or sell a large amount of stock without greatly affecting the price of the stock. Volatility is another factor in evaluating a stock for day trading. The phrase refers to the actual or expected price movement of the stock. This movement is up or down over a period of time. Day traders look at the pattern and volatility of stocks over an individual day. Stocks that change price several times over one trading day are good candidates for day trading. A fluctuation of at least $2.00 per day is recommended.

Finally, a day trader looks at the price transparency of stock. This term refers to the ability to collect information on the order flow of a stock. Also called market depth, price transparency helps the day trader determine just how much money there is to be made on a certain stock. The NASDAQ II quote system offers data on all bids. Day traders who arrange to access the NASDAQ level II quote screens can assess the performance of a stock and determine its swing in price.

While these trading techniques are totally legal and totally ethical, they are highly risky. Day traders generally buy on borrowed money with the hope that they will realize higher profits through their acquisitions and sales. People who are called “pattern day traders” by the NASDAQ and NYSE must have at least $25,000 in their accounts and can only trade in margin accounts. Margin accounts are brokerage accounts in which the broker lends the investor cash to purchase securities. If the value of the stock drops dramatically, the investor is required to deposit more cash to cover the margin or sell the stock. The SEC warns against day trading and acting on a day trading stock tip, and has taken many steps to inform people of the corresponding risks.

The first few months, a huge majority of day traders have massive financial losses and only a few make it through to become profit-making day traders. For this reason, day traders should only invest cash that they can afford to lose. They should never invest money reserved for necessities like living expenses or education funds.

Bear in mind that day traders do not own stocks for longer than a few minutes at most. Stocks are never kept overnight because of extreme hazards of prices changing to the detriment of the trader. Day traders do not invest, rather, they hypothesize on the movement in price of a stock throughout the day.

There are numerous websites whose sole purpose is to make money from those who seek a day trading stock tip. These websites promise quick results and sell hot tips to their members for a fee. The sources are generally paid to make these recommendations and should be avoided. Seek the advice of a proven professional, and take plenty of time to discover trading strategies for longer term success. Remember, there is no quick money, and day trading skill is often paid for with debilitating stress and cataclysmic losses.

Day Traders Are Turning To Scalp Trading

Posted on March 28, 2018 by blogger

Scalp trading is a very fast method of trading where you buy and sell a stock within a time frame of seconds to minutes executing a lot of trades within a day. Even though you will be looking for profits of only 1 or 2 cents per transaction/trade, when you take into consideration the amount of trades you will be executing, your results can be substantial. In addition, you can still make a profit even when your trade breaks even. how come Because when you add liquidity to the market, the ECN will rebate back to you a portion of the trade. Exercising just this simple strategy could generate a nice daily return. In short, scalp traders work at exploiting the bid-ask spread. They purchase a stock at the bidding price then quickly sell the same position at the asking price. Since this method of quick investing does best with equities that are priced low that are slow moving, scalp traders generate revenue by making hundreds of trades. Scalp trading has no big one time profits, but at the same time there are lesser not being profitable thus it is a safer method of trading the stock market. But wait, not just anybody can scalp trade.

There are tools that are necessary and you must have discounted commission rates. It requires deeply discounted scalp trading commissions and direct access to NYSE floor routes. Both of which you would have a hard time finding at your E*trade or Scottrade broker. So how can you do this? There are proprietary trading firms that accept you as an experienced trader. And if you are not, there are some proprietary trading firms that will school you.

Looking for the right proprietary trading firm is about finding a company that will let you to trade their money and provide attractive trading fees. Most prop trading firms will allow you join their firm with deposits as low as $5,000. For that, they will let you trade with $100,000 or more depending on your experience. It’s not unheard of for a proprietary trading firm to take a $10,000 deposit and provide you with the ability to trade with $300,000 but you must know that Prop firms are paid a percentage of your profits. The profit sharing scale can range from you getting 50 to 95% but that will depend on your experience. The more profitable you are, the less they will ask for.

The most important decision when finding a prop trading firm for your scalp trading method will be transaction cost and order routing advantages offered. Inquire as to what floor routes they offer and if they can assign personal access to a floor specialist. Any good proprietary trading firms will do this if you are consistent in trading good volume. Next, see what their commission rates are. You will want to find a firm that will charge .0005 to .0007 per share. On a 2,000 share trade, that would be 1.00 to 1.70 dollars in and out; much better than your $8.95 per trade rate at Scottrade. Be sure to also confirm that they pass the rebates back to you because as you will learn, the rebate is just as important to your scalp trading.

There are many courses available that teach the art of scalp trading. Get educated so you can improve your chances for success. In addition, if you are looking for a place to trade, the proprietary trading firm below offers the above rates, direct access to the floor and scalp trading seminars. Happy trading.

How To Find The Trend Day Trading Futures

Posted on November 20, 2017 by blogger

Day trading futures can be extremely challenging. There are several market maxims to trade by. One is the trend is your friend. When day trading futures you want to initiate positions that go with the trend. Imagine a boulder rolling down a hill you wouldnt want to stand in front of that because the momentum of that boulder has the potential to crush you. This is the same concept in day trading futures. If there is a clear trend for the day in one direction you want to take the path of least resistance and not fight the trend. So how do you identify the trend for the day so you can be on the right side? Here are two tools to help you do just that.

I Tick, You Tick, We All Tick

One of the tools I used to identify whether bulls or bears are in control of the market while day trading futures is using the NYSE Up/Down Tick Ratio or ticks for short. On most platforms the ticks can be found by using the following symbol $TICK. The $tick represents the number of stocks going up minus the number of stocks going down on the New York Stock Exchange. If the $tick reads +500, that means that there are 500 more stocks going up than there are going down on the NYSE. When day trading futures you want use the ticks keeping a few rules in mind. First you want to block out readings from a + or 600 they are just noise. Second, watch for + or 800 tick reading this is a sign of a trend. What you are looking for is the ticks to consistently hit + or 800. Third, you want to fade the first + or 1000 tick reading, but only the first one. If there are multiple + or 1000 tick readings that is a clear trend and you only want to initiate short or long positions in that tick direction when day trading futures.

Volume Spread Analysis
The second tool I use to identify the intraday trend while day trading futures is the comparing the up volume to the down volume also known as the volume spread. When a stock trades up by a penny or more than its last close the volume on that trade is counted as up volume. When a stock trades lower by a penny or more than its last close the volume is counted as down volume. When you combine those two numbers you have the volume spread. You can look at the volume spread on any time chart and I prefer the 5 minute. This is a valuable day trading futures tool especially for trading the close because you can quickly see whether bulls or bears have been in control of the market throughout the day. The symbol for the volume spread in Tradestation is $VOLSPD and in the ThinkorSwim platform it is $UVOL-$DVOL.

Although day trading futures is challenging it can be made easier by only taking trades following the intraday trend. The tools provided in this article can be used as starting point to your trading career.