Day traders

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Don't do it, you are competing against supercomputers that make thousands of trades a second.

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This

I've known guys that do it but they do it more for a hobby and play with money they can afford to lose. I knew a guy that sold his company and decided he'd making a living doing it, I think he's working for a living now

Above is not technically a day trader. A PDT is as follows:

Pattern day trader is a term defined by FINRA to describe a stock market trader who executes 4 (or more) day trades in 5 business days in a margin account, provided the number of day trades are more than six percent of the customer's total trading activity for that same five-day period.

You're going to get crushed. I can trade various dark pools. You can't. The dark pools I trade are routed on IB. It is a fraction of exchanges out there. The ones on IB, anyone with an IB account can use. The pros have literally hundred of more exchanges for the same security, use algorithms, can see both sides b/a, even the hidden ones, and can see who is behind the trade. We get to see market makers. On some IB marketplaces you can see who is behind the trade. Kind of.

What I can see on IB is a lot more than you can see on TD or E Trade etc., etc. And I can't see 1/100th of what the pros can see.

Unless you understand technicals of pennies, something along the lines of the medical mj hey day, you have zero chance unless you get lucky.

I suspect what you really mean is maybe trading a stock's channel.

If you do the above, the actual definition of PDT, your brokerage will immediately subject you to higher margin requirements. I'm not talking about portfolio margin as opposed to single stock margin the vast majority of people can get.

I used to daytrade commodities a long time ago. Not anymore.

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Thank you for your concern.

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thinkorswim platform

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GOAT

I'll put it this way, its bark is bigger than the bite. It looks scary but it's really not. Watch some youtube videos of people using it. If you're serious about it open an account with TD, don't fund it, and download the platform. You can paper trade with real time data.

You don't have to pay for data feeds unless you want to get into some really detailed stuff like IG does.

One last thing. You can import scripts for charting and a vast majoirty of them are free and very good.

I use it for the most part and I like it. Just watch a few webcasts and you'll be fine.

In 6 months I'll finish two years of futures trading training and go live. Using a Sim Broker, I execute 2-6 real time trades most every morning before work.

I will continue doing this before work and see were it goes. I've learned a lot and learn more every day.

I couldn't imagine just jumping in without a lot of study and guidance.