This Newbie needs good advise on

E

eric75

entering the markets. I am a senior in college with a background in computer engr. and mathematics and I am very new to this, but I am very willing to learn a lot and become succesful as a trader and investor. I have started by opening up an account with Scottrade, but I want an unbiased opinion about starting with a broker like Scottrade. I am thinking of buying software (such as VectorVest) that can help me to search for good stocks to buy/trade, so I need advise on this as well. Lastly, I am also looking for sincere advise on how to make trades, what kind of markets I should start off with, what I should look-out for in the markets or focus on, how soon I should open a margin account, or start trading options, recommended books or websites to read. I will appreciate all your feedback.
 
You might want to consider opening an IB (Interactive Brokers)account. commissions are much cheaper than Scott Trade. Pick a single method and let the education begin.

Good Luck
 
Quote from fan27:

You might want to consider opening an IB (Interactive Brokers)account. commissions are much cheaper than Scott Trade. Pick a single method and let the education begin.

Good Luck
More...

Good advice. Good luck fan27.

nononsense
 
I have never heard of IB, but I will do my research and hopefully it works in the US. Please if there's anyone with more valuable advise, I will also appreciate it. Fan27, any opinion on software like VectorVest? also daytrading vs swingtrading? thanking you all in advance.
 
Quote from eric75:

entering the markets. I am a senior in college with a background in computer engr. and mathematics and I am very new to this, but I am very willing to learn a lot and become succesful as a trader and investor. I have started by opening up an account with Scottrade, but I want an unbiased opinion about starting with a broker like Scottrade. I am thinking of buying software (such as VectorVest) that can help me to search for good stocks to buy/trade, so I need advise on this as well. Lastly, I am also looking for sincere advise on how to make trades, what kind of markets I should start off with, what I should look-out for in the markets or focus on, how soon I should open a margin account, or start trading options, recommended books or websites to read. I will appreciate all your feedback.
More...

if i were starting out i would open an ib account and trade 100 share lots in low priced stocks that have nice trading ranges on a daily chart. watch them for a while to get a feel for the ranges and try to catch the waves.
look at stuff like sunw jdsu cpn nt lu siri cien brcd tqnt rfmd. these are good learning stocks.
forget about buying software. there is plenty of free stuff on the web. you can use medved quote tracker for free.
forget about options. odds are aginst you there. once you get some idea how things work you can try new things. your number one goal at first should be to last long enough to learn how the game works.
 
VectorVest is, but it does a good job at scanning for companies that have superior fundamentials. Their scanning engine is also good at finding market sector rotations. Also, their market timing techniques are good.

One thing that I really like about VectorVest is the backtesting capability and the flexibility in changing various scanning parameters.

I use their program and data to find the top stocks in the top market sectors, and then apply technical analysis and swing trading techniques to the top tier stocks.

As you can tell, I am a short term trader rather than a long term investor. For the buy and hold type of investor, backtesting has shown good results over the long haul for the top 20 to 50 stocks in their scans.

Charles
 
just another newb. im new to the game, and even newer to the board. i have been reading through some of everyones posts, llooking for suggestions and such. i have a couple questions, without starting a new thread. i've looked at a couple of online trading companies(is there a better name for these?) and i see the usual signup/membership fee. then most have additional services you can pay for, and different markets you can subscribe to for info and such..my question is do you usually find yourself needing these services or are they just flare? And, what is a minimum and reasonable dollar# you can get away with investing for a starting daytrader?
thanks
-james
 
Do realize that, because of the SEC PDT rules, if you want to daytrade equities (stocks) as an individual, you must maintain an account balance of at least $25K (assuming you want to make more than 3 day-trades in a rolling 5-day period (or whatever the rule is)).

Commodity and index futures, and single-stock futures have no such requirement.
 
dont know about vectorvest, but i would recommend you to try WL-

http://www.wealth-lab.com/cgi-bin/WealthLab.DLL/getpage?page=WLD3.htm

they have trial, you will be able to download free EOD data from yahoo. you can open account in IB or MB

http://www.interactivebrokers.com/index.html

http://www.mbtrading.com

comissions on stocks are same.
Quotetracker for intraday data and charts-

http://www.quotetracker.com/index.asp

you can connect it to scottrade or IB/MB platforms.
can pick some ideas from here-

http://www.incrediblecharts.com/technical/pnf_chart_patterns.htm

or here

http://stockcharts.com/

or from here-

http://www.marketscreen.com/report/index.asp?chp=trend

i would first observe markets,probably stick with nasdaq stocks(since you can trade any size there-let say 10 shares-just to get feeling unstead papertrading)
and try longer timeframes(you will have more time then to think about what you just did wrong again)))))))
yeah, and of course dont forget about PDT rules(been mentioned here already),but in MB-it doesn't looks like big problem.
can't recommend any book,those that i read is useless(at least for me)
good luck!
 
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