How To Start Out In Stock Trading
There are many full-time stock traders making a very good living. There are also many people making good money on a part-time basis with stock trading. Then there are also thousands of unsuccessful traders who don’t realize they have to educate themselves before venturing into trading.
The biggest secret of trading is that you are not actually trading against anybody else. It’s not like cricket or football where you have opponents trying to eliminate you. You are fall practical purposes alone in the market and your biggest enemy is yourself. If you are the type of person who can’t stand to lose anything, you will find that when trading you will hang on to losing trades much longer than you should. This will inevitably turn small losses into big ones. Similarly, if you are too scared, you will cash in on winning trades much too soon. The end result of all this? Numerous small profits countered by a couple of large losses.
To become a success as a trader you have to learn to ‘let profits ride’ and cut losses before they become too big. To do that you will have to learn self discipline and have a set of trading rules to which you stick at all times.
The best way to do this is to go into every trade with a set stop loss and a set take profit level. That means that no matter what happens, if the trade turns against you and you lose for example five percent of your money, you will get out. Similarly, you won’t exit a trade before you have made the profit as determined by the take profit level you decided upon before the trade.
The next important aspect you must attend to is that of education. You’ve got to educate yourself on the workings of the various technical and fundamental indicators. You must also learn how to use trading software and get familiar with financial management, so you won’t trade too often or risk all your money on one trade.
Then open a demo account and begin stock trading with the aid of the trading software using simulated money. Only when you feel sure that you can control your own emotions and that you know the fundamentals of the market should you venture into trading with real money.
For more on the stock market subscribe to the WallStreetWindow stock trading guide.
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