It will take a bit longer to blow your account swing trading. Day trading, for a newby, is like gambling, except there is a 90% chance you will lose. You may have a lucky streak in the beginning (10% of the time),but you will lose your shirt sooner or later. You can study and read all you want, but the market doesn't owe you anything. Unless you learn what you need to learn (trading psychology, money management etc.) it is highly suggested you look elsewhere for a career, unless of course you're stubborn and have some cash to burn.
Swing trading is holding your position overnight over several days, or weeks. Swing trading doesn't require a fancy software platform with fast execution. For all I know, you can do very well with just Yahoo! Finance charts. But in day trading, you can't really succeed if you don't pay something like $99/month for a direct-access software platform with live level 2.
yupp, sounds like a moron but not as bad as that one who does not use common sense and thinks he can make it in trading
Day trading = closing out all your positions before the market closes that day. If you hold overnight, it's not day trading. Swing trading is usually considered a few days to a few weeks holding time, as opposed to long term "investing" or whatever.
There is more to Day Trading, and Swing Trading than just time frame alone. Here is why... 1. Day trading cost a lot more to start..25,000 for trading stocks (retail), and for futures, depending on the broker, up to 10,000, but I think 2,000 is the norm for a basic margin account. Swing trading stocks...you can open an account for as little as 500 at brokers like Scottrade, and it might be even lower at some places. So not only do you need 25k in liquid cash, but this doesn't take into account the need for 3rd party charting software like ninja or esignal that can run 100+ dollars a month, scanning software like trade-ideas at an extra 65.00 a crack, High speed internet connection, real-time news (if you trade news) at like 50+ a month. This doesn't calculate your mothly commission expenses either which can easly be 100's of dollars a month. It's a high risk game, and the rewards arn't that great for 90% of the players. The vendors, brokers, and the 5% of pro traders make most the money in this business. Period. 2. Day trading (scalping). If you're looking for nickles, and dimes, scalping is your game, but you need to be fast, and you're going up against the algos (computer programs) . Learning to read the level 2 screen, and time/sales screen are important, but in high vol stocks, its near impossible, and algos can increase slippage. 3. Learn to automate . As a day trader, learning to automate your trading, especailly in the future, as more and more trading is computerised will be important. "Slow and steady wins the race" aint true any more. Like most people, we lack the programming skill, or the bank roll to have someone develop a automated system Once again, you're behind the 8ball. 4. Dealing with flat markets. This has been a problem lately, where we see nice movement in the morning, then the rest of the day the markets dead flat, or even reversed... I trade pull-backs, so for me it was frustrating..there was no strength end-of-day to carry a stock higher or lower. Swing Traders can wait out these times of low volatility. kon