Choosing Day Trading As A Career.

[daygains]

The life of a full-time day
trader may seem exciting and glamorous. You could work at
home making millions in t-shirt and jeans, barefoot,
sitting at your desk next to a window with a view of a
tree-filled back yard. You are surrounded by your children
and pets, and there is a smile on your face asyou type an
order into your laptop. You pause, watching the screen, and
suddenly, your smile tums into a celebratory laugh. You
stand, do a satisfied stretch and with a quick, sure
movement, you snap your laptop dosed, grab yourlittle
daughter and swing her around. Fantasy. That’s what it
is.

The real truth about day trading is much less fanciful,
though definitely exciting and certainly capable of making
you wealthy if you have the skill, knowledge and
temperament. It is a 24 hour a day highly stressful job,
and many day traders wouldn’t dream of doing anything
else. It gets into your blood.



Professional Traders
When you think about trading full-time, you are either
planning to try for a job as a professional trader on a
Wall Street trading desk or, like your fantasy, a wealthy
person trading for your own account. Both are possible, and
both take effort and time to achieve. As an idea of what it
takes, consider the career path of Wall Street traders.
They start out as trading assistants filling out trade
tickets, keeping records and settling trade problems for
the pros — doing things that can’t get them in too much
trouble. After a year or more the assistant is allowed to
fill a few small orders and, if all goes well, is promoted
to a junior trader position on the odd-lot desk where the
small orders are transacted. Again, these jobs ca’ry almost
no chance of big losses Junior traders who exhibit
consistent profitability over a couple of years become
traders. They still work under the supervision of senior
traders and have limited discretionary trading authority,
but if they continue to show consistent trading profits,
they eventually are given more discretionary authority and
alter a few more years, become senior traders. If you want
to be a full-time trader, trading your own position, it
will take years to develop the experience and skill you
need to do it successfully as a way of making a living.


Learn
Trading takes a quick mind with a facility for numbers,
because it involves calculating probabilities as well as
negotiating for the best price.