Is Day Trading For A Living Your Cup Of Tea

If you like working with other people’s money, then maybe day trading for a living is what you should be doing. This type of trading works daytime hours only, from the moment the stock market opens at 9am until it closes at 4pm in the afternoon, you can do a lot of trading in that amount of time. Or maybe you want to do day trading for livings with your own money, that way if you loose it, then you have no one to blame but yourself. However, it may be a good way to watch your money grow too. The following is the basic definition of what day trading is all about. Maybe it is your cup of tea, maybe not, only you can decide.

What is Day Trading?

Day trading for a living is when you take a position in the markets with a view of squaring that position before the end of that day. Day trading for a living mean a trader usually trades many times a day looking for fractions of a point to a few points per trade, however, by the end of the day he or she will close out all their positions. The goal of the day is to capitalize on price movement within one trading day. Unlike investors, the day trader will hold positions for only a few seconds or minutes, and never overnight.

What Is An Automated Trading System

In simplistic terms, an automated or mechanical trading system is a set of specific rules which when applied to the markets, signal entry and exit points automatically. The rules can consist of instructions with regard to the position of say moving averages, oscillators, or some other technical indicator, or maybe specific price patterns, or a markets proximity to certain key price levels, Etc. Most often several of the above are combines in order to create a full set of rules. As a simple example, if a 20 period moving average crosses over a 50 period moving average and the stochastic indicator is less than 20, then buy.

Once your list of rules are coded into a full system, you instruct your trading platform to trade the system on an automated basis. The system will from this point on, automatically place all of the buy / sell orders into the markets.

Automated trading systems take all of the guesswork, personal interpretation, gut feeling, instinct and emotions out of trading, thus eliminating many of the knee jerk reactions traders might find themselves making due to the fear and greed emotions that are part and parcel of non automated trading. Most Systems fall into one of three categories, either they are designed to trade with the trend, against the trend, or on a breakout.

Soccer Over Under trading strategy

Trading on Over/Under Goals markets in betting exchanges can be very profitable if you apply this strategy well. The most popular market is 2.5 Goals. For this type of trading to work well you need to find a match between two low scoring teams. Appropriate teams will be with strong defence and relatively weak offence. Nice scenario for a match would be that one of these teams scores a goal in first 15 minutes and second goal is scored at least 10 minutes later after the first goal or isn’t scored at all.

Bet placement can be divided in two parts:

1. Choose a match. Wait for a goal in first 15 minutes. When goal is scored odds for Under 2.5 goals will jump up. Back it. Don’t trade if a goal is scored after first 15 minutes. Odds will rise by smaller amount and in a long term this strategy will not be profitable. 2. Wait for 5-10 minutes. Price will go down and now Lay in the same market. Use lower sum than when you Backed first to get profit on both results (over and under).

Common Currency Pairs in Global Forex Trading – Currency Trading

Generally speaking, any two currency pairs can be traded back and forth. Even if common information is not kept about two specific currency pairs with respect to each other, that currency information can be obtained by comparing both of those currencies to the American dollar. The world economy still largely operates based on the US dollar, and for that reason, you can use that dollar as a middle man to trade any two currencies the world has to offer. That said, however, there are some currency pairs that are more commonly traded than their counterparts and these pairs are the focus of the discussion below.

American Dollar and European Dollar: This particular currency pair is also known as the EUR/USD or the USD/EUR depending on the particular point of view to trading that you bring to the table. It is also arguably the most traded currency in the world when the major conventional traders are removed from the picture which essentially means that most of the individual traders that enter the Forex market through online channels eventually settle on trading these two currencies back and forth. Over the long run, there has been a steady gain of the EUR on the USD and over the short run there is enough volatility in the market to allow you to make multiple trades on trends a day if that is what you want to do.

American Dollar and British Pound: This particular currency pair is also known as the USD/GBP or the GBP/USD currency pair. This used to be the most common currency pair traded in the world and might still be the most common one traded if you put the conventional large traders back into the picture. There tends to be far less short term volatility in this market which is perhaps why individual traders prefer the EUR/USD to this one.

How To Find The Trend Day Trading Futures

Day trading futures can be extremely challenging. There are several market maxims to trade by. One is the trend is your friend. When day trading futures you want to initiate positions that go with the trend. Imagine a boulder rolling down a hill you wouldnt want to stand in front of that because the momentum of that boulder has the potential to crush you. This is the same concept in day trading futures. If there is a clear trend for the day in one direction you want to take the path of least resistance and not fight the trend. So how do you identify the trend for the day so you can be on the right side? Here are two tools to help you do just that.

I Tick, You Tick, We All Tick

One of the tools I used to identify whether bulls or bears are in control of the market while day trading futures is using the NYSE Up/Down Tick Ratio or ticks for short. On most platforms the ticks can be found by using the following symbol $TICK. The $tick represents the number of stocks going up minus the number of stocks going down on the New York Stock Exchange. If the $tick reads +500, that means that there are 500 more stocks going up than there are going down on the NYSE. When day trading futures you want use the ticks keeping a few rules in mind. First you want to block out readings from a + or 600 they are just noise. Second, watch for + or 800 tick reading this is a sign of a trend. What you are looking for is the ticks to consistently hit + or 800. Third, you want to fade the first + or 1000 tick reading, but only the first one. If there are multiple + or 1000 tick readings that is a clear trend and you only want to initiate short or long positions in that tick direction when day trading futures.