very bad news for you, this is not the time for newbie day traders to enter the market especially scalpers. Volume has pretty much been dead for the whole year, liquidity is at an all time low. Every day seems to be a holiday trading session this year, don't do it, hold back until favorable conditions exist for your success
I have to disagree. This year has been very supportive of daytrading. Both long and shorts generally revert nicely to the mean, and most anything with volume over 500K/day is trading penny spreads. The VIX is still at a level decent enough to support some intraday moves, without getting so crazy that it will shake out new traders. This is nearly an ideal environment to be trading stocks. Anybody with half a brain could have made nice profits since march just watching for weakness and throwing a dart.
Nobody wants to hear it but it's the TRUTH! There is a damn good reason why many fail in this business. Paper trading for a few months means only that you have found an edge in the market. Finding an edge is pretty simple and quite often done. The real question is can you control your emotions when you have real money on the line? Most cannot and that is why most fail miserably in trading. Psychology is the most overlooked aspect of trading yet it is the most important to succeed. The only way your going to find out if you can make it in this business is if you start trading a small account with real money. If your day job does not allow this then maybe day trading is not for you. Find a good broker and start taking on longer term positions. When traded correctly a daily chart can provide just as much profits as a 30 min chart! I hope you slow down a bit and decide to keep your job in the meantime while you prove to yourself that you can profit in the markets. There are far too many things against you to put the odds in your favor.
That is a vast untruth. Edges are almost impossible to find and most paper traders trip over something they MISTAKE for an edge. An edge is over 10 times harder than controlling emotions or anything else. Almost every new trader is doing little more than going to Vegas and letting it ride on the Roulette Wheel. They may get lucky for a little while, but the more you play, the more the House Edge grinds you down.
Hmmmmm..... How come i could give a proven winning system to a new trader put it on the table and explain everything to him/her walk away and i will bet a $100 bill on it every time they will still lose?? I stand my ground an edge means nothing!
While what you say is true, finding or creating that proven winning system is the hardest part of trading. I am still a noob but that part is at least clear as day to me.
Once you find it, you will understand that it is not. There are many winning systems out there. The problem is that most new traders only try them out until they get a few losers, they then throw that method/system in the trash upset that it was not the "Holy Grail" and move on to the next never spending enough time and research to master one trading style. Most of the traders out there that have a winning system/method have spent thousands of hours mastering it and making it their own.
it is easy to see you have little clue about trading. Your claim contradicts the overwhelming opinion here on ET. tell you what. it is so easy, make an edge, and then put it out on one of the following trade auditing sites ---> Timertrac.com, covestor.com, Collective2.com, theta research, striker securities, attain capital, futures truth or one of the other auditing sites and show us how easy an edge is to make. Or, start a thread here on ET, "the edge is the easy part" under the trading category, and see what kind of responses you get.
THE FIRST PART OF THE PROBLEM IS THAT YOU DON'T HAVE ENOUGH TRADING CAPITAL TO GO FULL TIME. IF YOU CAN'T MAKE A LIVING ON WHAT YOU ARE EARNING NOW, YOU NEED TO STICK WITH THE MONEY MAKER UNTIL YOU CAN BUILD UP ENOUGH CQAPITAL TO WORK WITH. YOU NEED TO BE ABLE TO TAKE MASSIVE LOSSES UNTIL YOU MAKE A PROFIT. IT IS NOT SO MUCH ABOUT HOW MUCH MONEY YOU CAN MAKE AS IT IS HOW CONSISTENT YOUR MONEY MAKING IS!1