Daytrading

Q: I have been day trading the S&P, and I would like to hear from anyone who thinks that day trading stocks is better, and why. I live in Sacramento Calif, and just found out that there is a day trading room here, and I am thinking about checking it out, and maybe switching to stocks... How it works here in the States, from the intro I got yesterday: You open an account, then go down everyday and they sit you infront of a monitor and you buy and sell until you're rich.

A: IMHO, if you are daytrading, stick to the S&P for a couple of reasons.

1. There is plenty of volatility (opportunity) trading the S&P daily.
2. By trading the S&P, you can concentrate on one instrument versus
concentrating on 20 or 30 stocks, which can be bewildering.


What I suggest is continue daytrading the S&P, and implement a
s

hort-term strategy for stocks. This way you have the best of both
worlds.


In my (admittedly limited) experience with daytrading, it's just like
regular trading except faster, for (generally) smaller percentages,
and you have to be better able to quickly recognize trends and make
trades. This means imho, that only very good traders who are
adequately capitalized will do well at it, and others will do much
worse. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone because of the high level of
risk, but that doesn't mean nobody can do well at it.