Why Do People Day Trade Stocks????

[galya1999 10]

Funny you said that, I was listening to a Mirus\Ninja webinar today and one of the slides said women are MUCH more profitable then men at trading! An interesting topic for a new thread I think ...

 

MMS

 

Wonderful, I need to start trading then ...can you really start trading succesfully online without any floor trading experience? if yes then HOW

[BlueHorseshoe 10]

I watch a small gold stock here everyday where there is $1000s of dollars of free money with company issued options being sold below parity - except you cant short this stock as there is no one to borrow it from....so you cant take advantage of it.....talk about frustrating

 

If you're certain it's a good trade, you could always try shorting with CFDs or Spreadbetting. My guess is that, unless you're wanting to take a pretty significant position, you'll be able to short with a company like IG and they'll bucket the trade and not worry themselves about shorting the underlying. I'm not honestly convinced that they accurately track the liquidity of smallcap stocks anyway, so their spread may not properly reflect their own difficulty in shorting.

 

Hope that's helpful.

 

BlueHorseshoe

[Predictor 11]

I've been always exclusive futures traders but there are good reasons to trade stocks. Reasons given

 

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  There are thousands of stocks. Makes it more possible to find a market that suits style.
  

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  Stocks that show trend action and have underlying fundamental reason for trending are called "in play" and may be more predictable
  

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  Some traders believe there is an edge in spreading/hedging by trading multiple stocks long and short. Such hedging makes it possible to exclude certain types of risk. This is possible in futures but not typically used by retail traders.
  

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  Again as to the above, in futures you have to trade the bad with the good whereas a stock trader can pick the strongest or weakest stocks to trade.
  

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  Stocks are more granular. Its possible to hold many small positions in many individual issues. Futures requires holding one large position (but is an aggregate of many individual issues). This aspect makes it cheaper to experiment and try new things with stocks whereas that isn't as much a possibility in futures for small account holders (most traders).
  

 

As a long term futures trader, I for sure believe there could be more edge to be found in trading stocks.. I don't trade stocks for the reasons you cited but if I had a larger account then I'd probably trade ETF's/baskets more so.. maybe not individual stocks but sectors/etfs. In essence, stocks give one more room to find creative plays.

 

 

Simple question. Why do people daytrade stocks? Why do people not daytrade in the futures market when you don't have to follow the $25,000 rule for daytrading and can make more money if you understand the risk part? Even 1 contract of the ES (S&P 500 mini) can make you more than a stock can and you don't need $25k in the account.

 

I am just looking for logical reasons since I did the switch myself about 4 years ago and haven't looked back. I can trade strictly technical analysis and have a market open 24 hours a day instead of only 8am to 5pm.

 

Comments would be appreciated as I am always interested

[SIUYA 11]

If you're certain it's a good trade, you could always try shorting with CFDs or Spreadbetting. My guess is that, unless you're wanting to take a pretty significant position, you'll be able to short with a company like IG and they'll bucket the trade and not worry themselves about shorting the underlying. I'm not honestly convinced that they accurately track the liquidity of smallcap stocks anyway, so their spread may not properly reflect their own difficulty in shorting.

 

Hope that's helpful.

 

BlueHorseshoe

 

thanks....that is always an option...however in this case even they would not do it.

Small cap, spread too big, no liquidity, and it was a short term situation that once you highlight it to some of these groups they do it themselves!

It often happens when the company issued options get near expiry and there is no real liquidity in them, people just dump them.

Ideally if you did not have to wait for the exercise and back office delay you could risk it and naked short and not deliver......dangerous and many brokers dont allow it now.

good idea, hard to execute.

[andysteven 10]

Hi

Friend , it a very valid question that why people show much interest on day trading, i feel that technically speaking, if you buy and sell a stock the same day you can be considered a day trader. Equity traders make up hundreds of trades per day for tiny profits. They typically hold for a few seconds per trade. Shaving is one practice where they trade between the bid and the ask for fractions of a penny, and truly saying its like an addiction, every time even i also do, always crave for small amount to get accumulated through out the trading session, u can call a sort of amusement, and of course the trader gets more literates regarding that stocks support and resistance zone, and more the trader gets accustomed with that stock the more trade he can take upon that stock truly speaking after my during 2008, i used to do lot of trading on unitech because i knew its range 28 to 39 (at that time recession was going on), however when, i used to incur both profit as well a loss but simultaneously i used got got well through about the trading range of that stock.

 

Any ways happy trading