How do I 'day trade' stocks?

neo2210

neo2210

neo2210

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This is something that I've been thinking about doing for a while now.
Basically after all the hours of spent researching it and watching videos on youtube and learning the basics of market economics I'm still at a complete loss as to HOW I actually start trading. :confused:


I understand there's various software out there but what software do I use, what broker do I use?
Even after watching loads of tutorials they still never cover what you'd think would be the most basic tenant of it, how to actually start trading.


There was a big thread about trading here lately, so this seems like a good place to ask with some knowledgeable people.



If someone could give me some advice, the VERY BASICS of the software choices and brokers out there (I'm in the UK btw) that'd be just great.

Interested in trading small, just a hobby really, 1 or 2 thousand to start, small trades, low margin profits, just to learn what it's about.
Is that even possible?

For example if I were to put an order out on a software platform to sell say, 2 shares in British telecom, would they even be sold?
Or are people just bulk buying.


Sorry if this seems stupid but although I understand how the markets work basically I don't quite understand the nitty gritty of how day trading actually 'goes down'.
 
Open a brokerage account through Barclays. Then you can trade to your heart's content, but be aware of their fees when you do this. I believe it's called BARX - haven't ever used it but did consider opening an account many years ago.

Alternatively, you can trade Forex through the multitude of softwares out there. I used to use eToro for Forex speculation.
 
Forget day trading, after dealing fees you will be hard pushed to make any money.

You probably want a normal share dealing account, lots of brokers out there, I use Hargreaves Lansdown http://www.h-l.co.uk, they're OK but don't let you set stop losses etc for some reason.

You could also spread bet which doesn't involve dealing fees but can potentially be a lot riskier, i.e you could lose all your money if you don't start small :)
 
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With regards to the fees, It all depends on the amount the OP is willing to trade with. I wouldnt risk my own money doing it unluess i could afford to lose it.
 
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Thanks for the replies guys.

I looked into forex trading and it doesn't seem worth it, you really need a massive investment to get even a small return, and I don't want to get into speculation and margin spreading trading.


Just simple stock trading, buying when its low and selling when its high.

Yea each trade down seems to have a fixed price with people like barx, I looked into them but im not sure about the actual mechanics of it.

Has anyone used the barx platform or any other one of a Uk based broker that's worth looking into?
 
I use Barclays, but not for day trading. As has been said before, the fees are quite high, I think it was £11:50 per trade. So you've got to clear £23 profit to make anything, and there's always the risk of things dropping quite substantially.
I started off buying and selling here and there and came out quite even, then put all my money into one stock and am just looking to top that up on dips in SP.
 
Sign up for a trial spread-bet account with one of the providers, and get a feel for paper-trading - if you're really wanting to day-trade, you'll be watching the market quite intently, so ensure they have good charting facilities.

Also, avoid anywhere that doesn't offer setting a stop-loss.

IGIndex, Capital Spreads, Finspreads, CMC Markets... all offer a trial account, some of them have paper-trading and a couple will send you a 'beginners' pack when you start, offering lower price/point entries for a while.

I did this for about a year, although I was looking more at end-of-day swing trading - I stopped because I actually did best just by buying/selling shares within an ISA over the mid-term (aiming to turnover each share within 3 months).

Avoid any 'leveraging' to start with, as you could end up in serious financial trouble, and try and work out your 'system' before placing any trades.

YMMV.

Edit: For just buying/selling in shares, I dealt within my HSBC ISA using their InvestDirect 'product'. It's not a platform, but a set of 'average' webpages - I certainly wouldn't want to day-trade on it, but then I never had the time to watch it that closely. For setting order to execute in the morning, they were okay, and as it was trading inside an ISA, there was never any tax on the 'winnings' - the biggest problem was ensuring money was always 'on', as they don't allow loose change for too long.

The fees are high as mentioned, but if you're aiming for around 30% turnaround, you should cover that easily. The main thing is to be sure why you're going in, and be willing to hold it, ignoring emotions - if you constantly watch shares, they'll freak you out - nerves of steel required ;)
 
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I use prospreads to trade. They have minimal fees but only have certain indicies, fx rates and commodities - not individual equities.

Really cheap and untaxed because the trades are classed as spread betting and come under gambling profits, but effectively the same as buying the stock, especially if day trading when you can more or less ignore dividend payouts etc
 
They're not talking about trading, they're talking about share dealing. People who pay a fixed "£11.95" to buy stocks are NOT trading.

Trading costs spread and/or commission.

Take a look at TradeStation, excellent platform and competitive fees. Another key difference is trading requires capital, the US requirement to day trade is a capital of $25,000.

I use it for commodity trades and Alpari Pro UK for Forex (it's a direct bank link, not a bucket shop).
 
Bleek said:
They're not talking about trading, they're talking about share dealing. People who pay a fixed "£11.95" to buy stocks are NOT trading.
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We are trading - just not 'Direct to market'. I accept that 'real' daytrading needs Direct Market Access and is a slightly different beast, but the costs etc., are far more serious in that regard. It's no different to going via a broker.

I'd certainly agree with Alpari for Forex though - they're a good intro to MetaTrader as well, if so inclined.
 
I'd avoid Metatrader like the plague, personally.

Are you able to short? If not, you're not trading in the true sense.

I use an STP because it's my job and so have injected the capital to trade direct.

I'm not a fan of technical or fundamental analysis, I'm a parasitical contrarian trader. If people are looking to 'invest' in stocks and not actual trade then Money Week is an excellent weekly publication, typically contrarian and counter trend, some of their calls are very good. Better than any indicator crap you can put on your chart.
 
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You can short in Spreadbetting of course, but not in share trading. I don't see how it matters from the name point of view though - you're still buying and selling to make a profit.

Interesting title "parasitical contrarian" ;)

I had Investors Chronicle for a year (got it at a bargain price) and whilst it's not bad, it was blatantly obvious that all of their inside 'tips' were either just behind the times, or at least shared by many, as the market price had often shifted accordingly before the latest edition dropped through the door.

I didn't renew. I may have to take a look at Money Week though, now that you've mentioned it.
 
Trading is a profession, investing is not, there is a distinction but for the sake of this thread you're right it doesn't really matter.

Out of all the publications I've read, Money Week seems to be on the ball and mostly right, some good tips and an interesting read. Even though I don't touch stocks, I find it keeps me abreast of the wider view, my trading is a very short - anything from 30 seconds to an hour at most.

I'm more parasitical than I am contratrian, I spent years studying technicals and came to my own conclusion that they don't work, I developed a method based on how exchanges (the market) work, how orders flow and how price exhaustion occurs. I'm not just a scalper, I leech on the back of volume like a parasite and let it carry me. That description sounds like some kind of alien-porn™! :)
 
Has anyone done well out of spread betting? I keep seeing loads of adverts for it and I'm intrigued, looks like you can set a cap to ditch whatever you're betting on if it falls below a certain number of points to stop you loosing too much.
 
I'm not a massive fan of spread-betting, to me the price movement and accuracy seems a bit skew and fiddled, I wouldn't trust them personally and would expect that kind of setup to stop-hunt quite regularly.

I used to 'monitor' IG's prices against my direct bank feed and although it didn't regularly happen, there were discrepancies, enough to take you out or clip your stop when in reality 'true' price didn't quite get there. It just feels like a less controlled environment, less regulated?

Just IMO of course. Others may do well spread-betting.
 
Sirrel Squirrel said:
Has anyone done well out of spread betting? I keep seeing loads of adverts for it and I'm intrigued, looks like you can set a cap to ditch whatever you're betting on if it falls below a certain number of points to stop you loosing too much.
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IG Index have a load of tutorials that will help you understand all that.

The biggest problem (attraction?) with spreadbetting is the ability to leverage. Case in point, if you look at LLOY, only a 10% margin is required. Magnifying gains/losses by a factor of 10 can get incredibly messy, or hugely profitable in an incredibly short period of time, especially if you lack disipline/good luck/both.

Keep yourself grounded too. If you get heavily into it four figure swings are a daily occurance, and the familiarity desensitises you. If you're not careful things could quite easily get out of hand.
 
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