One of my latest interests today is day trading. A couple months ago, a good friend of mine who is a professional stock broker and trader recommended I look into day trading as a part-time “job”. I’m quoting the word job because the way I see it, it’s not your usual 9 to 5 setting. Day trading is something you can do on your free time, or alongside your usual everyday job (or career). You will, of course, require access to a computer with an internet connection.
One of the things that I tout on this site is passive income, so most of you are now saying “well, this isn’t exactly passive…” This is true, as you will have to be somewhat active when you execute your trades. Unlike buying stocks and “going long”, buying & selling stocks can take anywhere from minutes to hours within the same day. This method is called intra-day trading and is what I am currently doing.
If you have some extra money lying around in the bank and you rather have complete control over it, day trading is the way to go in my opinion. Rather than dump your money in a mutual fund that may or may not grow, trading will definitely give you some nice income.
On the topic of risk: yes, there is some risk involved, but it’s actually quite minimal if you know what you are doing. Day trading isn’t rocket science, but it does require some analysis on charts. The practice to analyze chart data is called “technical analysis” and it is something that everyone can do and master with a bit of practice. To further minimize risk, you can put “stops” on your trades: when a stock falls below your minimum, your trading system can automatically sell your equities and leave you with little losses.
In the upcoming weeks, I will be detailing my techniques and methods I have learned over the past few months that are working quite well for me. I will also go further into detail on how to start and what to do when it comes to day trading, along with the questions that most people ask when they first start. When I first started, I was completely lost, but my friend helped me get started on the right foot.