We strongly encourage our new traders to quickly get up to a level where they can actually make a decent living. Since the volatility and many stock prices are so low, there is actually less risk when trading 4,000 + (since you are more likely to get better fills and price improvement).
We had a meeting with our brand new bootcampers (4 weeks in), and they are in the 1500-2500 share range now and doing fine....we hope that by the end of November that they will be comfortable with 4,000 on the openings, and 3,000 - 6,000 during the day on their core stocks (their "children").
Trading in small lots greatly reduces your chance of success. You're likely to have your 500 -1000 shares filled just before a print up or down a dime or more (where the 5,000 share orders participate at the better price, or actually dictate the better block print price......you'll see this via the "New York Open Book" .... which is a necessity for decent trading these days.
(and in case you're thinking "more shares = more money for Bright Trading"...."forget about it".... we revamped our pricing to accomodate the larger share size....so the traders get a much better deal on shares over 1,000 per trade).
Don
