Making Money by Day Trading

[mastertrader]

hey guys,

this is my first post and i wanted to make it good. a lot of threads in here are devoted to "how to make money" and str8up provided a lot of good advice on real estate.

another avenue of making money is by day trading penny stocks.

I got into this after seeing some guy at another forum post his scottrade account screenshot showing he made $400 bucks in three hours. i would post the link, but i don't know if that's allowed.

i did some research and digged these stats up.

02/16/2006 - SEVI 225%
02/16/2006 - RSMI 93%
02/15/2006 - JKRI 116%
02/15/2006 - CTUM 113%
02/15/2006 - LAMP 149%
02/14/2006 - PTSH 366%
02/14/2006 - CSUA 111%
02/14/2006 - IELM 116%
02/13/2006 - CKEI 184%
02/13/2006 - PAPO 136%

10 playes, over 100% in the PAST 3 DAYS!!

Even if you just picked one of those plays, you could've doubled your money easily. There's money to be made here in day trading penny stocks.

So just wondering if any of you guys out there do this and can provide advice. I'm SO going to do this.

 

[reyalp]

You also stand a good chance of flushing your money down the toilet.

$400 in 3 hours isn't too great, man, especially if you've got to sit behind a computer for 4 hours solid.

 

[Xericx]

Risky stuff...I had friends do really well in this, but they've been in the stock market since they were in Jr. High.

 

[mastertrader]

oh what the hell, here's the link for those of you who are curious

http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=702340

 

[mastertrader]

Originally posted by Xericx
Risky stuff...I had friends do really well in this, but they've been in the stock market since they were in Jr. High.

cool, so it is possible as long as you spend the time.

 

[Bible_Belt]

I was a proprietary trader for Worldco and Broadway back in the day. Penny stocks are for suckers. The spread is brutal and liquidity sucks. Trading is an art. If you are talented in the art of trading, there is no reason to put up with the disadvantages of penny stocks. When you trade MSFT or IBM and you hit "sell," you know that you will get traded. With these penny stocks, you might not be able to get out when you want out. If you can only scrape together a few thousand dollars, you should get an account to trade e-mini futures. There is liquidity and regulation. Look at interactivebrokers.com in comparing brokers. Also, the most active trading forum site is elitetrader.com Siliconinvestor.com is decent as well.

 

[mastertrader]

Originally posted by Bible_Belt
I was a proprietary trader for Worldco and Broadway back in the day. Penny stocks are for suckers. The spread is brutal and liquidity sucks. Trading is an art. If you are talented in the art of trading, there is no reason to put up with the disadvantages of penny stocks. When you trade MSFT or IBM and you hit "sell," you know that you will get traded. With these penny stocks, you might not be able to get out when you want out. If you can only scrape together a few thousand dollars, you should get an account to trade e-mini futures. There is liquidity and regulation. Look at interactivebrokers.com in comparing brokers. Also, the most active trading forum site is elitetrader.com Siliconinvestor.com is decent as well.

i thought liquidity isn't an issue when there's a ton of volume and traders. all of those plays i posted had HUGE volume, so liquidity wouldn't have been an issue right?

 

[cinephile]

Trading is great. You can make a lot of $$$ doing it. I, unfortunately, learned the hard way that it is really important the instrument you choose to trade. Stuff like Forex and Penny stocks are full of scams. It is better to stick to more recognized products and exchanges. While you can get screwed there too, at least it is more likely because of your own mistake and not from someone trying to rip you off.

 

[STR8UP]

Daytrading is f-in BRUTAL.

It takes a special kind of person to handle being up $1,000, then LOSING $10,000 three minutes later.

Regardless of what some people say, I know you CAN make money doing this if you have the skills and the cojones, but I wouldn't recommend it for most. You really have to have a good perspective of money and a high tolerance for stress to be successful.

 

[Bible_Belt]

The glory days of day trading are behind us. It used to be much easier to make money, when there was so much dumb money in the market.

Every penny stock afficianado that I ever met kind of resembled Gil off the Simpsons: http://content.answers.com/main/content/wp/en/thumb/4/4a/180px-Gil.jpg

Go where the pros go. There are nasdaq and nyse stocks that move 20-30% in a day. You don't get the full move when you trade, btw, usually just a piece of the movement. No one buys bottoms and sells tops with consistency. But, you have to have $25K to day trade these stocks, due to the new pattern day trader rule. You can still swing trade a small account, but the best action on the cheap these days is e-mini futures. Here is a cme file about them: http://www.cme.com/files/emini.pdf

Until you have experienced the nightmare of not being able to get out when you want to sell, it is hard to appreciate the value of liquidity. The majority of even exchange-listed stocks are not suitable for day trading, because their volume is too low. Everyone loses money when they start trading. The people who make it learn to lose money *slowly* and not get wiped out early. I have usually traded other peoples' money. Small losses are part of the game, but big losses get traders fired. Risk management is everything. When you deal with penny stocks, it is only a matter of time before you get a giant loss on a trade, because no one will buy from you while it is plummeting. One bad day like this can wipe out a month's worth of work. This is part of why traders always seek liquidity. The market is risky enough already without added exposure to liquidity risk.

 

[al77]

Originally posted by Bible_Belt
You can still swing trade a small account, but the best action on the cheap these days is e-mini futures. Here is a cme file about them: http://www.cme.com/files/emini.pdf

But it is harder to trade than stocks: you have very limited choices in terms of e-mini futures. But there are about 9000 or more stocks you can trade...you can find good pattern. With futures this is very limited.
Or were you suggesting to day trade the futures?