Day trading

Day trading
Day trading refers to the practice of buying and selling financial instruments within the same trading day such that all positions are usually closed before the market close for the trading day. Traders that participate in day trading are called active traders or day traders.
Some of the more commonly day-traded financial instruments are stocks, stock options, currencies, and a host of futures contracts such as equity index futures, interest rate futures, and commodity futures.
Day trading used to be the preserve of financial firms and professional investors and speculators. Many day traders are bank or investment firm employees working as specialists in equity investment and fund management. However, with the advent of electronic trading and margin trading, day trading has become increasingly popular among casual, at-home traders.
Characteristics
Trade frequency
Although collectively called day trading, there are many styles within day trading. Scalping is an intra-day technique that usually has the bob holding a position for a few minutes. Shaving is a method which allows the trader to jump ahead by a tenth of a cent, and a full round trip (a buy and a sell order) is often completed in under one second. Instead of bidding $10.20 per share, the scalper will jump the bid at $10.201, thus becoming the best bid and therefore the first in line to be able to purchase the stock. When the best "Offer" is $10.21, the shaver will again jump first in line and sell a tenth of a cent cheaper at $10.209 for a profit of 0.008 of a dollar. The profits add up when using 10,000 share lots each time and the combined earnings from Rebates (read below) for creating liquidity. A day trader is actively searching for potential trading setups (that is, any stock or other financial instruments that, in the judgment of the day trader, is in a tension state, ready to accelerate in price in either direction, that when traded well has a potential for a substantial profit). The number of trades you can make per day are almost unlimited, as are the profits and losses.
Some day traders focus on very short-term trading within the trading day, in which a trade may last just a few minutes. Day traders may buy and sell many times in a trading day and may receive trading fee discounts from their broker for this trading volume.
Some day traders focus only on price momentum, others on technical patterns, and still others on an unlimited number of strategies they feel can be profitable.
Most day traders exit positions before the market closes to avoid unmanageable risks—negative price gaps (differences between the previous day's close and the next day's open bull price) at the open—overnight price movements against the position held. Other traders believe they should let the profits run, so it is acceptable to stay with a position after the market closes.[1]
Day traders sometimes borrow money to trade. This is called margin trading. Since margin interests are typically only charged on overnight balances, the trader pays no fees for the margin benefit, though still running the risk of a Margin call. The margin interest rate is usually based on the Broker's call.
Profit and risks
Because of the nature of financial leverage and the rapid returns that are possible, day trading can be either extremely profitable or extremely unprofitable, and high-risk profile traders can generate either huge percentage returns or huge percentage losses. Some day traders manage to earn millions per year solely by day trading.[2]
Because of the high profits (and losses) that day trading makes possible, these traders are sometimes portrayed as "bandits" or "gamblers" by other investors. Some individuals, however, make a consistent living from day trading.
Nevertheless day trading can be very risky, especially if any of the following is present while trading:
• trading a loser's game/system rather than a game that's at least winnable,
• trading with poor discipline (ignoring your own day trading strategy, tactics, rules),
• inadequate risk capital with the accompanying excess stress of having to "survive",
• incompetent money management (i.e. executing trades poorly).[3]
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Techniques
The following are several basic strategies by which day traders attempt to make profits. Besides these, some day traders also use contrarian (reverse) strategies (more commonly seen in algorithmic trading) to trade specifically against irrational behavior from day traders using these approaches.
Some of these approaches require shorting stocks instead of buying them normally: the trader borrows stock from his broker and sells the borrowed stock, hoping that the price will fall and he will be able to purchase the shares at a lower price. There are several technical problems with short sales --- the broker may not have shares to lend in a specific issue, some short sales can only be made if the stock price or bid has just risen (known as an "uptick"), and the broker can call for the return of its shares at any time. Some of these restrictions (in particular the uptick rule) don't apply to trades of stocks that are actually shares of an exchange-traded fund (ETF).
Trend followingTrend following, a strategy used in all trading time-frames, assumes that financial instruments which have been rising steadily will continue to rise, and vice versa with falling. The trend follower buys an instrument which has been rising, or short sells a falling one, Contrarian investingContrarian investing is a market timing strategy used in all trading time-frames. It assumes that financial instruments which have been rising steadily will reverse and start to fall, and vice versa with falling. The contrarian trader buys an instrument which has been falling, or short-sells a rising one, in the expectation that the trend will change.
Range trading
Range trading, or range-bound trading, is a trading style in which stocks are watched that have either been rising off a support price or falling off a resistance price. That is, every time the stock hits a high, it falls back to the low, and vice versa. Such a stock is said to be "trading in a range", which is the opposite of trending.[5] The range trader therefore buys the stock at or near the low price, and sells (and possibly short sells) at the high. A related approach to range trading is looking for moves outside of an established range, called a breakout (price moves up) or a breakdown (price moves down), and assume that once the range has been broken prices will continue in that direction for some time.
Scalping
Scalping was originally referred to as spread trading. Scalping is a trading style where small price gaps created by the bid-ask spread are exploited. It normally involves establishing and liquidating a position quickly, usually within minutes or even seconds.
Scalping highly liquid instruments for off the floor day traders involves taking quick profits while minimizing risk (loss exposure). It applies technical analysis concepts such as over/under-bought, support and resistance zones as well as trendline, trading channel to enter the market at key points and take quick profits from small moves. The basic idea of scalping is to exploit the inefficiency of the market when volatility increases and the trading range expands.
Rebate trading
Rebate trading is an equity trading style that uses ECN rebates as a primary source of profit and revenue. Most ECNs charge commissions to customers who want to have their orders filled immediately at the best prices available, but the ECNs pay commissions to buyers or sellers who "add liquidity" by placing limit orders that create "market-making" in a security. Rebate traders seek to make money from these rebates and will usually maximize their returns by trading low priced, high volume stocks. This enables them to trade more shares and contribute more liquidity with a set amount of capital, while limiting the risk that they will not be able to exit a position in the stock. Rebate trading was pioneered at Datek Online and Domestic Securities. Omar Amanat founded Tradescape and the rebate trading group at Tradescape helped to contribute to a $280 million buyout from online trading giant E*Trade.
News playing
News playing is primarily the realm of the day trader. The basic strategy is to buy a stock which has just announced good news, or short sell on bad news. Such events provide enormous volatility in a stock and therefore the greatest chance for quick profits (or losses). Determining whether news is "good" or "bad" must be determined by the price action of the stock, because the market reaction may not match the tone of the news itself. The most common cause for this is when rumors or estimates of the event (like those issued by market and industry analysts) were already circulated before the official release, and prices have already moved in anticipation---the news is already priced in the stock.
Price action
Keeping things simple can also be an effective methodology when it comes to trading. There are groups of traders known as "Price Action Traders" who are a form of technical traders that rely on technical analysis but do not rely on conventional indicators to point them in the direction of a trade or not. These traders rely on a combination of price movement, chart patterns, volume, and other raw market data to gauge whether or not they should take a trade. This is seen as a "simplistic" and "minimalist" approach to trading but is not by any means easier than any other trading methodology. It requires a sound background in understanding how markets work and the core principles within a market, but the good thing about this type of methodology is it will work in virtually any market that exists (Stocks, Forex, Futures, Gold, Oil, etc.).
Artificial intelligence
An estimated one third of stock trades in 2005 in United States were generated by automatic algorithms. The increased use of algorithms and quantitative techniques have led to more
Spread
The numerical difference between the bid and ask prices is referred to as the bid-ask spread. Most worldwide markets operate on a bid-ask-based system.
The ask prices are immediate execution (market) prices for quick buyers (ask takers) while bid prices are for quick sellers (bid takers). If a trade is executed at quoted prices, closing the trade immediately without queuing would not cause a loss because the bid price is always less than the ask price at any point in time.
The bid-ask spread is two sides of the same coin. The spread can be viewed as trading bonuses or costs according to different parties and different strategies. On one hand, traders who do NOT wish to queue their order, instead paying the market price, pay the spreads (costs). On the other hand, traders who wish to queue and wait for execution receive the spreads (bonuses). Some day trading strategies attempt to capture the spread as additional, or even the only, profits for successful trades.
Market data
Market data is necessary for day traders, rather than using the delayed (by anything from 10 to 60 minutes, per exchange rules[7]) market data that is available for free. A real-time data feed requires paying fees to the respective stock exchanges, usually combined with the broker's charges; these fees are usually very low compared to the other costs of trading. The fees may be waived for promotional purposes or for customers meeting a minimum monthly volume of trades. Even a moderately active day trader can expect to meet these requirements, making the basic data feed essentially "free."
In addition to the raw market data, some traders purchase more advanced data feeds that include historical data and features such as scanning large numbers of stocks in the live market for unusual activity. Complicated analysis and charting software are other popular additions. These types of systems can cost from tens to hundreds of dollars per month to access.
Regulations and restrictions
Day trading is considered a risky trading style, and regulations require brokerage firms to ask whether the clients understand the risks of day trading and whether they have prior trading experience before entering the market.