Day trading definition
If I buy 10 stocks on Monday and sell the same on Tuesday (different trading day) would I be considered a day trader? No. It is only counting if you buy something and then sell that same something during the same trading session. And that counter only lasts for 5 days, things that happened outside of that time period get removed from the counter. If the counter reaches a number (three to five, depending on the broker), then you are labelled as a pattern day trader, and will have your trading capabilities severely restricted unless you have an account size greater than $25,000
you need minimum of 25k otherwise youll reach a limit. you have to wait 3 days for the sale to clear unless youre on margin. dont buy anything based on idiots on twitter or the internet. however, theres some good people to follow though that know what theyre doing.  dont listen to this guy saying that etrade or those platforms arent fast enough. they all offer level 2 prices so i dont know what hes talking about. successful day traders arent buying and selling a stock every single day. theres not always something to buy and sell...unless youre just gambling, and in that case just go to the casino and lose your money there. Opening - is the price at which the first trade gets executed at the start of the trading day (or trading period). High - is the highest price the stock is traded at during the day (or trading period). Low - is the lowest price the stock is traded at during the day (or trading period). Closing - is the price at which the last trade gets executed at the end of the trading day (or trading period). Volume - is the amount of shares that get traded during the trading day (or trading period). For example, if you bought 1000 shares during the day and another 9 people also bought 1000 shares each, then the trading volume for the day would be 10 x 1000 = 10,000. "Trading at the start of a session is by far higher than at any other time of the day. This is mostly due to markets incorporating news into the prices of stocks. In other words, there are a lot of factors that can affect a stock, 24 hours a day, but the market trades for only 6.5 hours a day. So, a lot of news accumulates during the time when people cannot trade on that news. Then when markets finally open, people are able to finally trade on that news, and there is a lot of ""price discovery"" going on between market participants. In the last minutes of trading, volumes increase as well. This can often be attributed to certain kinds of traders closing out their position before the end of the day. For example, if you don't want to take the risk a large price movement at the start of the next day affecting you, you would need to completely close your position." How long is a piece of string?  This will depend on many variables. How many trades will you make in a day? What income would you be expecting to make? What expectancy do you need to achieve? Which markets you will choose to trade?  Your first step should be to develop a Trading Plan, then develop your trading rules and your risk management. Then you should back test your strategy and then use a virtual account to practice losing on. Because one thing you will get is many losses. You have to learn to take a loss when the market moves against you. And you need to let your profits run and keep your losses small. A good book to start with is Trade Your Way to Financial Freedom by Van Tharp. It will teach you about Expectancy, Money Management, Risk Management and the Phycology of Trading. Two thing I can recommend are: 1) to look into position and trend trading and other types of short term trading instead of day trading. You would usually place your trades after market close together with your stops and avoid being in front of the screen all day trying to chase the market. You need to take your emotion out of your trading if you want to succeed; 2) don't trade penny stocks, trade commodities, FX or standard stocks, but keep away from penny stocks. Just because you can buy them for a penny does not mean they are cheap. I don't call myself a daytrader.  My ideal timeframe is from a few days to a couple weeks, sometimes even longer.  So swings will always be my priority, but I do daytrade futures/forex outside of regular hours and equities when I'm not doing a swing.  Platform is really only important when you realize what you need from it.  If you're doing plenty of tickets, commissions will play a larger role the more you trade.  Some brokers are more bare-bones, some have more technology/tools.  If you're just learning, you typically don't want to put on extra expenses, but as you start making money, you'll want to go with a broker that minimizes your costs while using a third party for whatever tools you need. While that sounds reasonable, it looks like most of the actual trading is done on the basis of changes rather than value.  At a guess, this is because computing the balance sheet anew with every change inhibits the speed with which transactions can be processed. The futures market trades 24 hours a day, 5.5 days a week. S&P 500 futures market continues trading, and this gives pricing exposure and influences the individual stocks when they resume trading in US session. "The T+3 ""rule"" relates only to accounting and not to trading.  It does not prevent you from day trading.  It simply means that the postings in you cash account will not appear until three business days after you have executed a trade.  When you execute a trade and the order has been filled, you have all of the information you need to know the cash amounts that will hit your account three business days later. In a cash account, cash postings that arise from trading are treated as unsettled (for three days), but this does not mean that these funds are available for further trading.  If you have $25,000 in your account on day 1, this does not mean that you will be able to trade more than $25,000 because your cash account has not yet been debited.  Most cash accounts will include an item detailing ""Cash available for trading"".  This will net out any unsettled business transacted. For example, if you have a cash account balance of $25,000 on day one, and on the same day you purchase $10,000 worth of shares, then pending settlement in your cash account you will only have $15,000 ""Cash available for trading"". Similarly, if you have a cash balance of $25,000 on day one, and on the same day you ""day trade"", purchasing $15,000 and selling $10,000 worth of shares, then you will have the net of $20,000 ""Cash available for trading"" ($20,000 = $25,000 - $15,000 + $10,000). If by ""prop account"" you mean an account where you give discretion to a broker to trade on your behalf, then I think the issues of accounting will be the least of your worries.  You will need to be worried about not being fleeced out of your hard earned savings by someone far more interested in lining their own pockets than making money for you." You are asking 'what if', do you have some anticipated answers? Having volume smaller than open interest is the norm. As far as I can tell, having only one trading day and no previous open interest only affects someone trying to sell a contract they are holding.  Meaning that if you only have one day to sell your contract then you need to offer it 'at market' or at the bid price (or even lower than the bid price). If you cannot sell your contract then you have to let it expire worthless or you have to exercise it. Those are your three options: let it expire, sell it (perhaps at a loss), and exercise it.  Edit: be careful about holding an in-the-money option. Many brokers will automatically exercise an in-the-money contract if you hold it till expiration date. "A ""stock price"" is nothing but the price at which some shares of that stock were sold on an exchange from someone willing to sell those shares at that price (or more) to someone willing to buy them at that price (or less). Pretty much every question about how stock prices work is answered by the paragraph above, which an astonishingly large number of people don't seem to be aware of. So there is no explicit ""tracking"" mechanism at all. Just people buying and selling, and if the current going price on two exchanges differ, then that is an opportunity for someone to make money by buying on one exchange and selling on the other - until the prices are close enough that the fees and overhead make that activity unprofitable. This is called ""arbitrage"" and a common activity of investment banks or (more recently) hedge funds and specialized trading firms spun off by said banks due to regulation." In day trading, you're trying to predict the immediate fluctuations of an essentially random system.  In long-term investing, you're trying to assess the strength of a company over a period of time. You also have frequent opportunities to assess your position and either add to it or get out. "FINRA Description of Day Trading rules The rules adopt a new term ""pattern day trader,"" which includes any   margin customer that day trades (buys then sells or sells short then   buys the same security on the same day) four or more times in five   business days, provided the number of day trades are more than six   percent of the customer's total trading activity for that same   five-day period. So, there's several ways to avoid being labeled a pattern day trader:" High frequency trades are intra day. The would buy a stock for 100 and sell for 100.10 multiple times. So If you start with 100 in your broker account, you buy something [it takes 2-3 days to settle], you sell for 100.10 [it takes 2-3 days to settle]. You again buy something for 100. It is the net value of both buys and sells that you need to look at. Trading on Margin Accounts. Most brokers offer Margin Accounts. The exact leverage ratios varies. What this means is that if you start with 10 [or 15 or 25] in your broker you can buy stock of 100. Of course legally you wont own the stock unless you pay the broker balance, etc. "....causes loses [sic] to others. Someone sells you a stock.  The seller receives cash.  You receive a stock certificate.  This doesn't imply a loss by either party especially if the seller sold the stock for more than his purchase price. A day trading robot can make money off of the price changes of a stock only if there are buyers and sellers of the stock at certain prices.  There are always two parties in any stock transaction: a buyer and a seller.  The day trading robot can make money off of an investment for 20 years and you could still make money if the investment goes up over the 20 years.  The day trading robot doesn't ""rob"" you of any profit." We have custom software written in mostly C# for the long term strategies. Day trading is done on multiple platforms. Currently using ToS scripts for some futures and equities strategies to great success, and sierra charts for a few futures exclusively. I just moved into a position to work with day trading so I'm still learning more about the systems he uses