If you want to make money day trading, the best thing you can do is study the most successful day traders, and emulate them!
First of all, let’s look at the different types of traders out there, so the differences are clear:
- Position traders buy stocks for the long haul (months or years).
- Swing traders switch up their portfolio every few days or weeks.
- High-frequency traders could sell an asset seconds after purchasing it.
- Day traders typically take it slow and typically take the night off.
With no over night positions and an hourly buy-sell outlook, day traders sustain themselves by following a business pattern that, if managed properly, can easily sustain a healthy work-life balance.
But, after the markets close, the trader’s assets are at minimal risk.
Still, the day trader’s job description includes the thrill of professional independence and uncapped income with the risk of losing it all in a market downturn without proper know-how.
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With that, let’s get a few tips from some succesfull day traders!
Table of Contents
Tips from Successful Day Traders
Stephen Johnson: The Developing Part-Time Day Trader
A couple of years ago, after breaking up with his girlfriend, Stephen Johnson was looking for something productive to throw his time into.
Browsing the internet one night, he came across Tim Sykes, the millionaire penny stock trader and teacher. Stephen was skeptical at first. He wondered if it was truly possible to make real money trading penny stocks from home, or was it just hype?
Luckily for Stephen, he researched Tim Sykes and the penny stock trading opportunity and concluded that it was exactly what he’d been looking for.
Stephen went on to develop his skills in the Tim Sykes challenge, gradually stair-stepping his way to success.
What’s most interesting about Stephen is that through his YouTube channel, he’s documented every trade over the past two years. If you want to watch the reality of how a newbie goes from knowing nothing to becoming a profitable trader, his channel is a must-watch.
At StocksToTrade, we’re very proud of the fact that Stephen has chosen to use our Pro platform to assist him in his trading journey.
Dylan Collins: The Prop Firm Day Trader
Coming from a competitive basketball background, Dylan Collins has always been a winner.
In college, his competitive drive showed itself when he found online poker.
Through developing his work ethic and analytical skills, Dylan was able to quickly start making $1,000 a week or more as a college student — enough to greatly enjoy college life, which even included taking his girlfriend to Paris for the weekend.
After graduating college, he took the skills he’d developed in poker and applied them to perhaps the most perfect career for him: day trading.
In 2010, Dylan was lucky enough to find an entry-level role at a stock trading firm. After a few months of learning the business, he had his first profitable month and then went on to find huge success as a day trader.
While it was a bumpy road and there were many setbacks, Dylan was able to build his trading size and capital to allow him to have consistent five-figure profit months, and even have the occasional six-figure profit day when the markets were especially lucrative.**
Much of his success could be attributed to his trading firm giving him access to premium data feeds and software, but does this mean if you want to succeed in day trading you need to join a prop firm?
Thankfully, the answer is absolutely not. With modern technology and software such as StocksToTrade, traders today can find very possibly find similar success to Dylan without ever stepping a foot outside their home.
Damien Hoffman
When the markets crashed in 2008, Damien Hoffman’s day trading skills allowed him to make a significant amount of money, all from his home office.
“In 2008, an extraordinary number of new day traders shorted the market for a period of time,” he said to Market Watch in 2012. “If we have another Lehman Brothers event or Europe crashes, then you can make money day trading as the market goes down. There are definitely times when day trading can be extremely lucrative.”
Of course, it’s a numbers game, so you need to know how to find profitable trades again and again.
For a day trader, finding and following the absolute hottest stocks out of the thousands traded each day occupies almost every minute from before market open to after the market closes.
Many day traders work from home (learn more about which laptops and trading monitors they use), which means becoming a day trader can be a great career choice for those who’d like make a great living without leaving the house.
What Else?
Other traders may find great snippets of information gold reading tweets from other traders or chatter on popular message boards.
Day trading has come a long way in recent years and online is truly where it’s at. Any information you need to trade is right here, every day, all day.
Any successful trader will have a work ethic about monitoring this online information: it may be boring at times, but a big story could be very profitable.
Be ready to do the work!
We’ve developed the StocksToTrade Pro platform over the past couple of years to be the all-in-one penny stock trader’s dream toolset.
No longer do you need to visit 10–15 websites to keep up with all the most in-play stocks. With StocksToTrade you’ll have charting, news feeds, quotes, watch lists and more, all within an easy-to-use piece of software.
If you’re ever lost and wondering about which daily stocks to follow, rest assured knowing that our head trainer, Tim Bohen, live-streams his trading screens for the open and close each day.
By viewing Tim’s screens, you’ll see exactly what a veteran trader looks at, so you can feel more confident about building your trading plan for the day.
You’ll also receive access to our trader chat and weekly strategy webinars, so you’ll never be alone and confused in your stock trading journey.
If you’re serious about becoming a top-notch day trader, sign up to StocksToTrade today!