Stock Trading – Practice?
I’m interested into getting into day trading but I want to create a fake account with some play money just to test out strategies or to see how well I can do.
Can anyone recommend software to do this, or an site that will allow me to do this (like scott trade or e-trade)
Comments
You don’t really need to do all that. I’m a day trader and everything I do physically, you could do mentally. Just sign up for an account somewhere like scottrade, then pretend you are making the trades. For example, get up at 9:30am and pretend you buy a stock. Write down on paper how many shares of that stock you bought, then write down at what price you bought it at. When you are ready to sell the stock, pretend you sell it, write down how much you sold and at what price. There ya go, thats how to practice. If you want to learn about stop limits and things like that, just write them down. For example, you could put in a sell order for your stock to sell once it hits a certain price. So pretend you put that order in for a certain price. Then later in the day, check the prices the stock hit, and if it hit that certain price, then you can pretend it actually sold at that price. Just pretend, its the same thing as fake money.
I mean theres really not much to being a day trader. Just buy and sell. That and sell orders are really all you need to know. The systems are not that complicated. When I buy a stock in scottrade, I just put how many shares I want, and at what price. Its not complicated, just type in the number of the shares, and click on the "buy" button. The same goes for when you sell it, or put a sell order in. So it should be easy to make the conversion from mental trading to physical trading. The only difference is you are clicking on a few buttons and typing things in, instead of writing them down.
You don’t really need to do all that. I’m a day trader and everything I do physically, you could do mentally. Just sign up for an account somewhere like scottrade, then pretend you are making the trades. For example, get up at 9:30am and pretend you buy a stock. Write down on paper how many shares of that stock you bought, then write down at what price you bought it at. When you are ready to sell the stock, pretend you sell it, write down how much you sold and at what price. There ya go, thats how to practice. If you want to learn about stop limits and things like that, just write them down. For example, you could put in a sell order for your stock to sell once it hits a certain price. So pretend you put that order in for a certain price. Then later in the day, check the prices the stock hit, and if it hit that certain price, then you can pretend it actually sold at that price. Just pretend, its the same thing as fake money.
I mean theres really not much to being a day trader. Just buy and sell. That and sell orders are really all you need to know. The systems are not that complicated. When I buy a stock in scottrade, I just put how many shares I want, and at what price. Its not complicated, just type in the number of the shares, and click on the "buy" button. The same goes for when you sell it, or put a sell order in. So it should be easy to make the conversion from mental trading to physical trading. The only difference is you are clicking on a few buttons and typing things in, instead of writing them down.
23 minutes ago
you don’t need any software, just open a virtual trading account in any broker that provides this service.
AIG was be a best stock to invest if you plan to invest for a long term, because AIG is too big to fail and beside AIG no longer need government bailout money. if you invest in AIG are now you returning profit is 10-30 times in 3-5 years.
July 28th, 2010 at 12:07 pm
Get experience with a virtual trader.
Before you ever commit real money you need to have a degree of confidence that you can at least place the orders without making a mistake that will cost you money. Thus you have need for a virtual trader.
I have been very satisfied with the virtual trader powered by optionsXpress which is fundamentally why I have chosen them as my online broker. I was able to open an account with them without funding it for up to a year before they required me to actually put money into my account. I was tempted to use another broker but they only gave me a month of time before I had to fund my account.
You can also go directly to http://www.cboe.com (Chicago Board of Options Excange) and access the same virtual trader as it is powered by optionsXpress; or there are other ‘paper traders’ that do similar things though I have no experience with them. By the way, don’t let the word ‘options’ scare you off. The virtual trader works as well for stocks.
You are wise to want to test your strategies virtually first, and yes, there is a difference between writing things down on paper or in your head and using an online broker. I find that the virtual trader I recommended gives you that broker expereince that paper and pencil just cannot give you.
Happy investing!