I must strongly suggest that you put in maybe 5k at max in an account.... maybe a little bit more and swing trade. This is the only thing you can do right now. I like eSignal. But you will pay will pay the price, but I believe it is worth it. But if you get tradestation, you won't have to worry about that, but tradestation is only for active traders, which you are not. So eSignal with Interactive Brokers seems like a good combo for you. Start with the bigger stocks, and then get a feel for stuff. Do your research, and again, not sure if you are aiming to do this fulltime, or just as a hobby type deal, but if you are aiming for full-time, then realize that you are going to need more capital to trade stocks.
Dump stocks and go Forex and 'trade' like you would play a Computer Game. No Stress No Fear No Greed No Revenge Only Fun and Profitability, or if you like tokens and levels up to immortality or if you like to financial independence. Enjoy your game.
From personal opinion....... stay away from forex, it felt like i was getting screwed by my broker way too much. I was not successful in Forex. Suckers market I'd say, but that is only my opinion. Not to say that you can't be profitable... but I'd wait before jumping in, and if you do happen to do so, get a mini-account with a respectable broker.
Been at this for 5 years. Lost money first 2..flat the 3rd and up nicely the last 2. Before you trade one share read Van K Tharp`s "trade your way to financial freedom". Software, style and your broker mean diddly if you don't have a viable strategy with positive expectancy and good money management. At this point in my trading I do believe I could trade using EOD quotes from the WSJ if I had to...and I owe it to Dr Tharp. For what its worth I think only well disciplined established traders should daytrade. For newbies the urge to overtrade and churn is very real sitting in front of your system all day. Good luck.
You are absolutely right. That is: If someone who is unable to ride even a donkey how can s/he expects to ride a tiger? Now, riding a tiger is much, much more fun than riding a donkey. Only problem is : if you are greedy you will be eaten alive! It certainly is wise to accept that if there are those who can't ride a tiger it doesn't mean that everybody has to ride a donkey! Good riding for everyone, whether riding a donkey or a tiger.
ETRADE does not take responsibility to money taken from your account even though it was not under your consent. I would stay away from etrade if it was hard earned money. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&postid=907956#post907956
jm makes some excellent points. I will add: -Use Interactive brokers. You get a rich-client with decent charting and GREAT options modeling. Low commissions. -DO NOT DAYTRADE. You are smart to start out swing trading. track 25-30 stocks and watch them day in and day out. learn how they move. -start with one instrument(stocks, options, futures) and get consistent with it before moving to something else. I made many mistakes early this year _not_ doing the above - cost me 6 figures. Learn from me. good luck.
SethArb wrote "if you wish you can daytrade stocks using single stock futures .. .but this might require a learning curve on your part ... plus the liquidity is nowhere near as good as in the underlying equities." I traded SSF in the past - I didnt have the 25k to day-trade let alone I liked the increased risk/reward so ... anyways ... Seth is right the spread is higher on SSF then on stocks let alone you are dealing with futures so I think the leverage could be as high as 5/1 (ie I think you need 20% down of the underlying to trade SSF). SSF might be a way to day-trade if you dont have 25k and you like stocks that have decent moves to them. But again you got a decent spread and higher leverage. http://onechicago.com/030000_products/oc_030101.html is the website that lists all the SSF you can trade; harder to make money with little moves but medium sized moves worked out well for me in the past. So who else trades SSF and likes them and why? or maybe why dont you like them