Best Way To Trade Stocks

Buying stocks is not rocket science per se, but you need to learn about it before making your investment. In addition, you will have to learn the lingo to understand it better. The whole process may seem confusing initially, but buying stocks can prove to be simple if you follow a particular guide around it. Learn more about the trading strategies to know the best way to trade stocks here.

What is Day Trading?

Day trading is making short-term trades in regular trading hours on a given day. It involves holding positions for less than a day to make profits in the financial markets. While some day traders are very active and make multiple trades every day, others enter and exit one position per day. Day trading can be pursued as a part-time hobby or a full-time career, it can also be lucrative, but the long-term success rate is low.

Know how much time to put into practice before starting the actual trading, the money you will need, and how to polish your skills with time.

Time Investment

Day trading will not make you rich quickly, and neither will it take years to get consistency. Instead, it will take approximately six months to a year to hone your skills and practice a strategy before you get comfortable with it and trust it enough to put in your capital.
You should, by default, start off by first practicing your strategy on a trading simulator, a demo account, for the first few months before putting your money at risk.

A simulator will help you hone your trading psychological skills like patience, discipline, and focus.

Day Trading Styles

Some traders are very active, catch small price movements with large position sizes, and are called scalpers. Scalpers often make dozens of trades in a day. Some day traders attempt to capture bigger price movements and let their gains continue, risking a price reversal. This type of trade lasts longer than a scalper’s trades but should have a clear close-out price.

Day traders often use price charts to execute traders or rely on Level II trading data, giving greater insights into the level of trading interest. One can also focus on specific news events or statistical tendencies they research.

Capital Needed

Stocks are capital intensive. You will need more than $25,000 at the very least to trade in the U.S. as a pattern day treader. You can use up to 4:1 leverage on day trades. As a result, you can trade in stocks with relatively high volume and volatility than other markets.

Hardware and Software needed.

Day trading needs a computer and reliable, high-speed internet access. You might need more monitors to keep track of multiple trading charts. You will have to keep your mobile phone handy if you lose your internet connection.
In addition, you will need a broker for market data and to carry out trades.

Education

Do not fall for products or strategies promising to make you rich overnight. Instead, spend your time, money, and efforts on your knowledge. Read books to figure out the best way to trade stocks.
Avoid investing in trade signals that charge you heftily. Invest in yourself, assess your mistakes, and keep learning.

What is Position Trading?

Position trading has the longest holding time. The profit is big, and so is the risk. Position traders are the ones who hold investments for the long term, months, or even years. They care less for short-term fluctuations unless they have the potential to impact the long-term outlook of their position or they are trend followers.

Most position traders do not engage in active trading and are surpassed by long-term buy-and-hold investors for the amount of time they hold their positions. They use a combination of technical analysis and fundamental analysis to make decisions and consider factors like market trends and historical patterns.

Good position traders know when to enter and exit and when to place a stop-loss order.

Position trading strategies

Position trading is quite similar to traditional investment. However, position traders cash in on long-term price movements and are interested in the markets with well-defined trends and narrow price ranges instead of the ones with the market’s higher volatility and wider trading ranges.

Positional share trading

Position traders largely trade company shares. Asset classes like stocks follow stable trends than volatile markets generally. The fundamental analysis of an underlying company represents a solid base from which traders can analyze the company’s actual value and select the best opportunities for them.

Pros of Position Trading

• Position trading is a long-term strategy that can lead to big gains.
• The stress is less here than in short-term strategies since one does not have to monitor positions every day.
• With position trading, you need to take out time only when analyzing the prospective stock.

Cons of Position Trading

• Capital intensive. You need to put in a considerable amount of money to keep the positions open for long since trades can last for several months, meaning the capital is locked.
• It requires large deposits. Sharp price fluctuations are hence more likely to lead to a total loss of the invested capital.
• If the position stays open for long, swap fees can grow to a huge amount.
• Mistakes made while position trading can be fatal. Going against a trend can lead to a loss of the money and time you invested.

What Is Swing Trading?

Swing trading tries to capture short to medium-term gains in stock for a few days to several weeks. It relies on technical analysis to look for trading opportunities and, at times, may use fundamental analysis, price trends, and patterns.

Swing trading is holding a position for long or short for more than one trading session but not longer than several weeks or a couple of months. The time frame is generalized since some trades may last longer than a couple of months, but they may still be considered swing trades.

Swing trades can occur in a trading session, but it is rare and brought out by extremely volatile conditions. The goal here is to capture a chunk of a potential price move. Some traders go for volatile stocks that are prone to fluctuations and go for date stocks. Whatever they seek, the process is to identify where an asset’s price is likely to move next, enter a position, and capture profit if that move materializes.

Successful swing traders only look to capture expected price moves and move on to the next opportunity. Swing trading is active trading popular among traders looking for intermediate-term opportunities with the help of technical analysis.

Pros and Cons of Swing Trading

Swing traders largely assess trades on a risk/reward basis. They determine where to enter after analyzing the chart of an asset, where to place a stop loss, and then anticipate where to get out with a profit.

Pros

• Requires less time to trade than day trading.
• Maximizes short-term profit potential by capturing market swings in bulk.
• You can rely exclusively on technical analysis.

Cons

• Trade positions are prone to overnight and weekend market risk
• Unforeseen market reversals can lead to considerable losses
• Misses longer-term trends over short-term market moves

What is Scalping?

Scalping specializes in making money from small price changes and making a fast profit by reselling. Scalping day trading is a strategy involving prioritizing high volumes off of small profits.

It requires a trader to have a strict exit strategy as one large loss can impact many small gains the trader worked to make. A live feed, a direct-access broker, the stamina to place numerous trades, and other essential tools are necessary for the strategy to be successful.

All in all, scalping,

• Specializes in cashing in on small price changes and reselling.
• Requires strict exit strategy since one large loss can eliminate the numerous small gains one gained.
• Requires a higher ratio of winning trades against the losing ones while keeping profits almost equal or bigger than losses.

How Does Stock Scalping Work?

Scalping is assuming that most stocks will complete the first stage of a movement. But the movement beyond that is unclear. Following the initial stage, certain stocks do not advance while others do.

A discounter tries to make as many small profits as possible out of it. The strategy does not believe in letting the profits run or optimizing positive trading results by maximizing the size of winning trades. The aim here is to increase the number of winners and let go of the size of the wins.

Traders with a longer time frame often achieve positive results by winning half, or even less, of their trades, just that the wins are bigger than the losses. To be a successful stock scalper, you will need a much higher ratio of winning trades versus the losing ones while keeping the profits almost equal or a little bigger than losses.

Scalping is based on,

• Lowered exposure limits risk: A short exposure to the market lessens the probability of a risk.
• Smaller moves are easily obtained: Here, supply and demand have to be imbalanced to handle the bigger price changes.
• Frequent smaller moves: A scalper can exploit many small movements, even during quiet markets.

Scalping can be your primary or supplementary trading style.

How to Choose the Right Stock?

If you decide to start investing, then you will have to learn how to pick the right stock. You will have to check the cash on the company’s balance sheet and the debts it has, and also know what the analysts have to say about it, although not trust it entirely.
As a smart investor, you know what to do: Diversify your portfolio across multiple sectors.

These were the basics of choosing your stocks. But with the numerous stocks to choose from, how do you decide which one to buy? You cannot, for one, go through all the balance sheets to choose the companies with a favorable net debt position and improving net margins.

To be a smart stock-picker:

• Know what you want from your portfolio and stick with it.
• Pick the industry you are interested in and be updated with the news and trends that drive from it daily.
• Verify the company or companies that lead the industry and the numbers.
• Use your goals and knowledge to inform their decisions to buy or sell stocks.

Set Your Goals

To start off, you will need to determine the purpose of your portfolio. The main purpose is making money, yes, but as an investor, you might want to focus on generating an income supplement during retirement, preserving your wealth, or on capital appreciation. Every goal requires a different strategy, and the best way to start trading stocks is to figure out your goals.

Types of Investors

Income-oriented investors buy and hold stocks in companies that provide good dividends regularly. These companies are usually solid but low-growth.

Wealth preservation-oriented investors are averted to risk; they prefer investing in stable blue-chip corporations. They might pick consumer staples, the companies that do well regardless of how the market is doing. They do not go after IPOs.

Capital appreciation-oriented investors look for stocks of companies that are in their best early years of growth. They take big risks for the chance of gaining big.

Diversifying the Portfolio

As a conservative investor, you can devote a small portion of your portfolio to growth stocks. And as an aggressive investor, you can earmark a percentage for solid blue-chip stocks to counter losses.

Be vigilant

It is important you keep up with market news and opinions and read the financial news and keep up with industry blogs by writers whose views interest passive research. A news article or blog post can help you form an investment thesis.

The “Story” of picking a stock

The investor can decipher that with an increase in the demand for a product, some producers of the product will succeed. A basic analysis like this forms the “story” behind an investment, justifying purchasing a stock.

It’s important you be critical of your own assumptions and theories and only after you are comfortable and convinced of the general argument after performing qualitative research. Corporate press releases and investor presentation reports are where you can do your analysis.

Finding the Companies

You can decide on a company by,

• Finding the exchange-traded funds (ETFs), which track the performance of the industry that you find interesting, and check the stocks you are investing in.
• Using a screener to filter stocks based on a sector or industry. Screeners offer additional features like the ability to sort companies based on market cap, dividend yield, and such investment metrics.
• Searching the blogosphere, stock analysis articles, and financial news releases for news and commentary on companies in the investment arena.

There are other ways you can pick a company as well. Every strategy has clear advantages and disadvantages that you should consider. Seek out expert opinions to deepen your understanding of the industry fundamentals.

Keep Track of Corporate Presentations

If a company has successfully impressed you and is a solid investment, and you are familiar with the major players, you should turn your attention to investor presentations. They give a general overview of how firms make money and have forward-looking information on the expected direction of the company and the industry.
The process gives you more in-depth scrutiny of a specific company to know if it will outdo its competitors in the industry.

By the end of your research process, you will be left with one investment prospect or a list of then or more companies. Or you may decide the industry is not for you. And it is good since all your research stopped you from making a bad investment.

Set a stop loss level

A stop-loss order is one of the important factors to consider when deciding on buying a stock. A stop-loss order is placing an order to buy or sell a specific stock when the stock reaches a set price. A stop-loss limits an investor’s loss on a security position. The best way to trade stocks is to set a stop loss level to limit losses.

Stop-limit orders are the same as the stop-loss orders. But there is a limit on the price they will execute it at. Stop-limit order specifies two prices: the stop price, the one that will convert the order to a sell order, and the limit price. Rather than the order becoming a market order to sell, the sell order turns into a limit order that will execute at the limit price only.

Pros of Stop-Loss Order

A stop-loss order does not cost you anything. Your regular commission is charged once the stop-loss price has been reached and the stock has to be sold. You can think of stop-loss order as a free insurance policy.
When it comes to stop-loss orders, you don’t need to monitor the stock every day. This comes in handy when you can’t watch your stocks for an extended period.
Stop-loss orders help protect your decision-making from emotional influences. Some people fall in love with stocks and find them hard to sell.

Stick to your strategy and be confident with it. Carry through with your plan. Stop-loss orders can keep you on track and prevent your judgment with emotions.
They do not guarantee that you will make money in the market; you still have to make intelligent investment decisions.

When to Book Profit?

Profit booking or profit-taking is when individuals or companies liquidate their holdings to cash out the stock market profits that they created. Profit has to be a part of for-profit books. If liquidation is carried out to avoid losses, it is not profit booking. Share market profit booking and stop-loss are not the same, though.

An investor must not delay booking profits:

Company-specific News

Positive news about the company creates a positive sentiment about the company in the market.

Sector-specific News

Positive news for an entire sector can increase the price and followed by a peak, and then the selloff, resulting in a temporary slump.

Economic Indicators

Economic indicators also play a critical role when profit booking. GDP data can very well compel the investors to sell shares at the price levels in the market.

When to Close All Your Positions?

Upon establishing a futures position, the first decision you have to make is when to close your position. To close a position, you can take the opposite position in the same futures contract you are holding.

Generally, traders close positions when,

• Profit targets are met, and the trade is exited at a profit.
• Stop levels are met, and the trade is exited at a loss.
• Trade has to be exited to satisfy margin requirements.

How to Choose the Right Platform?

Apart from the fees, platform features and security are the basic and critical things to consider when choosing a platform.
To make profits, an investor needs to use a brokerage service that caters to your investing goals, educational needs, and learning style. No one can guarantee investment returns, but you can select an online brokerage that suits your needs the best to set yourself for success.

Identify your needs

Find out what is most important to you in a trading platform. The answer will differ depending on your investment goals and where you stand in the investment learning curve.
Know if you are an active or passive investor, the kind of trades you want to execute, the help you will require, and your investing goals.

Zero in on the field

Narrow down on your needs, while certain brokerage features are more important for some investors than others. There are some features, though, that every reputable online brokerage should have. Starting off with basic necessities will help you narrow down the field.

Assess the Fees

Know how much you will pay to use a brokerage. While for some, a small premium will do given the platform offers features that the cheaper alternatives of the platform do not have. You do not want to lose so much of your investment returns to accounting fees and trading commissions.

Test out the platform

Brokerages usually have a description of the tools and resources their trading platform offers, but it is best to test it out first.

The education it offers

Apart from its usefulness and its usability, the brokerage should also offer educational offerings.

Depositing and Withdrawing Funds

Know how easily you can move the money in and out of your brokerage account. Review the deposit, withdrawal, and fund settlement terms of the brokerage you are thinking of investing in.
Check if the brokerage offers the option of a debit or ATM card attached to your account.

Customer Service

Check out the Help section of the platform that you are considering. Ensure that you can get in touch with the service staff quickly and easily. Also, look at the tech support team and see if you can contact them easily. It is important you understand how to get help when you need it.

About Us

Blockchain Tradein is a renowned platform with expert wealth managers, serving 112 million users, 90 million active managements, 80 million being invested, and 15 monthly withdrawals. Everyone deserves to make successful investments. We provide constant support, and our dedicated guidance team is at your disposal 24/7.

Our dedicated wealth managers handle investments on your behalf and keep your portfolio updated with the market and keep you updated with the developments. We follow a dignified approach towards every portfolio where everything is carried out with transparency. We aim to provide you with secure and straightforward wealth management.

Why Choose Us?

Choosing BTI will unlock,

• Ultra-competitive spreads in the industry with low commissions.
• The best possible execution: tier one liquidity that gives higher fill rates, decreased premature stop-outs, and essential price improvements.
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• Expert aid for beginners.
• Round-the-clock expert service.