Personal Finance & Money Stack Exchange
Personal Finance & Money Stack Exchange

Questions tagged [day-trading]

To be used for questions related to trades squared off the same day and do not involved deliveries. Typically used in the context of Stocks trading, can be used for Options or other trades. Related tags are trading, trading-volume, online-trading.

186 questions
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Why is day trading considered riskier than long-term trading?

I have read all of these disclaimers about day trading emphasizing how experienced and cautious you have to be. But I don't see how it's any different than buying a stock at a low price and holding on to it for some months. The principle is the same…
frankie
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Is trying to learn day trading a complete waste of time?

I understand there is a lot of people, maybe even most, who believe day trading is far too risky or the person trying day trading won't be skilled enough. I have gotten interested into investing lately, so I've invested my small amount of money I…
MCMastery
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Explain maker taker fees

Some exchanges have fees structured like: https://www.kraken.com/help/fees. The docs say "fees are calculated as a percentage of the trade's quote currency volume". There are two columns in the chart; I'm not sure what places me in one column or the…
user41221
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Wash Sales and Day Trading

Let's say a Day Trader buys and sells a stock on the same day and makes a loss of $1,000. Then she buys and sells the same stock the next day and makes a profit of $500. On the third day she files her taxes. As I understand the Wash Sales rule, she…
thanks_in_advance
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What's the point of the wash rule?

I don't understand the 30-day wash-rule. Someone please set me straight. So let's say I purchase 100 shares of Hot Stock X, for $100 apiece. So $10,000. Let's say that the stock goes down 50% on a really bad day in the market. Let's say furthermore…
CodeOwl
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My account's been labeled as "day trader" and I got a big margin call. What should I do? What trades can I place in the blocked period?

HI I recently received a day trading margin call of $14,852.63 requirement. I do not have that much money. What should I do? Should I close my trades and take all cash out? The system labeled me as day trader. I have only $6900 in my money. They…
user2494
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Is my algo trading illegal?

I have algo trading program (written by myself) and when it detects that price are going down it's going to sell shares (if I have one) wait a couple of sec/min and buy the shares on lower price. Last time I saw on Wikipedia that my strategies in…
Andrew Sasha
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Why don't traders place limit orders at all prices to be first in line when the price moves?

In markets with price-time priority, why don't traders enter limit orders at all prices, so that they could be first in line when the price moves? For example, if the current best bid is $10 and the best offer is $11, why don't traders enter limit…
Flux
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How is it possible that these deep ITM stock options on DISH went from 52,000 volume, 550 open bids, 550 open asks to being completely dead overnight?

I bought 16 years of historical hourly stock options data for my personal investment study to test how particular strategies may have played out over a long period of time. I'm looking at the data for a DISH 1/21/2012 5/2.5c credit spread (yes I…
J.Todd
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What is the point of using a limit order?

I'm pretty new to trading, more specifically day-trading, and on my paper trading account, I am given the option to trade at the market's current value vs. putting in a limit order. I could understand using a limit order if you don't have time to…
CaOv235
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Is it bad practice to invest in stocks that fluctuate by single points throughout the day?

It seems like a no-brainer to me: Find a cheap stock with a good name (Dell, FB, Sony) that fluctuates by a few dollars per day (between -$2 and +$2), and is consistent in the fluctuation throughout the past few months. Buy 100 shares (or as much…
TheOne
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Ways to avoid being labeled a pattern day trader

Other than the obvious answer of "don't day trade" what ways can I avoid being labeled a pattern day trader. I've read the rules for when the label is triggered but I'm wondering about some real experiences and interpretation of the rule because…
Justin Ohms
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Where do short-term traders look for the earliest stock related news?

While I'm no short term trader (or even a day trader), I imagine it is of high importance to these people that they hear about significant stock related news as early as possible. This would allow them to respond before competing traders do. But…
Tom
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Forex vs day trading for beginner investor

In essence, for a person that has not had any real experience with either (except for playing around in simulators like investopedia): which one would an individual have the most potential to realize capital gains with the least amount of stress…
rantsh
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Is it unreasonable to double your investment year over year?

I'm making monthly contributions to my self-directed investment account and I'm looking to be aggressive with my investments because I want more than 10-15% returns each year. One of the positions I just purchased and have been building shares in is…
Pac2015
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