I would suggest you read a couple of the books and then try to execute the strategies they talk about. Then you could form your own conclusions about how useful they are
http://www.stocktrading.com/ go for their 1 year program... $5K for training and $10K Capital... keep in mind you have to register... the biggest challenge will be to unlearn all the crap you were "taught"... If I was allowed to do equities, that is what I would do myself... either that or this guys.... http://www.smbcapital.com/
OP..... I am new to daytrading equities as well. 1. I think you need to drill down to what you can and cannot control. 2. HFT... is an arms race @ best and shady @ worst... either way, they control the que and the ticks. 3. You can use "Daily" bars ONLY to give you an edge intraday. OHLC data are more realistic tradeable price points. 4. Create a universe of stocks $30-$70 that are very liquid. $100+ stocks have less predictable spreads to test your skid and fill rate. Point is if you cannot be profitable in this space then "Stock of the day" should be avoided. 5. Clear your head! you need to be creative in what you test. 6. Develop several 5+ strategies that are not too correlated and trade "small". trend, momentum and reversion. 7. Define your weakness..Are you too greedy? (my weakness) so take profits more often. "Ride your winners" is very true but for me I tend to ride too long! So reading this in a book would actually be detrimental to me. 8. Can you make $500 in day on avg? on $100k bp, thats .05% per day thats $125k yr. ..if you have 10:1 bp it's 5% ! 9. I agree the markets are more efficient or controlled by Ben Bernanke, but are they more efficient @ 9:30:00 or 12:00:00? 10. Trade less! trade smaller! The pros on this site or anywhere might have $5mm+ buying power intraday? (me guessing). i see little value in trading my tiny account like they do. 11. Once you get some consistency then start to ramp up share size (you'll be confident) and playing with "house money". Sorry to be lengthy but this helps me as well, good luck sir!
This is the truth and it is going to get much much worse before it gets better I predict. Props will not save you, I have heard stories of woe from them as well.
whenever I see posts of....hft's have ruined it for us....we are prey...this is the most difficult trading environment ever..it was much easier to make money years ago...I'm struggling.........my response is....speak for yourself stfu & adapt or die
+1 what worked yesterday wont work today and what work long ago might work again today... change is constant.. that is about the only truth in life...