Thursday, August 27, 2009

How Day Trading Software Can Lead to Rapidly Improved Profitability

By Peter Skotnicky

To make money in day trading, you need to have both a good education in how stock market trading works, and the right tools to help you get the most out of market trends and the like. Day trading software, once the province of high end trading houses, is now affordable enough that home based investors can use it. This has changed the land scape of stock trading in ways that haven't been seen since internet trading houses like e-Trade.

What day trading software does is provide you with both an automatic order placer, something that will issue buy and sell orders according to parameters you've given it, and an information aggregator and analytical tool. Automated buy and sell orders have been part of brokerage accounts for quite some time; what's changed is that the tools have become more refined.

Where automated buy and sell orders used to be just set on price targets, they can now be run to hit a range of variables - this allows a great deal more sophistication in the trading model used by day trading software. When combined with deep analytic tools that research data from multiple sources, it's turned day trading software from the equivalent of a notebook organizer to having a somewhat overeager research assistant who can make some trades under very limited boundary conditions.

More and more of these trading tools are becoming aware of trading techniques like short selling and using leverage properly, but at this stage of the game, if you try and let a trading tool act as your financial advisor. Think of these tools in much the same way that you'd regard a chainsaw or other power tool: It can make you much more efficient, but you need to take appropriate safety precautions, and you don't let them run unattended.

It's the way that the analytic side of the equation has improved that has opened the frontier here. While stock markets are too complex and too chaotic to ever be completely knowable and predictable, there are tools out there that can tell you if the stock market fits patterns and flows consistent with trading behavior within its database. This is software that can make stock picks for you, but to make money, you need to understand why its recommendations are being made to act upon them with anything resembling sensibility.

No matter how well packaged the analytic tools are, it's still you, as the human trader in the decision making loop, that has to decide how you're going to invest your money. Ultimately, what these tools do is free your time up from the day to day tedium of the job that is day trading, and let you focus on the big picture, strategic level decisions that are the key to making money.

And that's the rub - you cannot use these tools as a substitute for treating day trading as a job; these aren't going to be a "invest money in your pajamas and make millions while you surf the web" deal.

Like any other job, if you don't pay attention to what you're doing, things can go wrong, no matter how much automation exists to support you.
Old school investing was only the beginning; with stock picking software available, investors are dominating the market without an ounce of sweat.

Thursday, August 13, 2009

The Best Day Trading Software - 3 Reasons Why Trading Software Can Improve Success

By Peter Skotnicky

Why are you so interested in finding the best day trading software? Some investors are looking into this new phenomenon for the wrong reasons; some are misguided which leads to failure in their trading efforts. If you ever consider using a day trading software to manage your investments, you should consider the reasons of why it improves success.

Are you going to allow the software to make all of your picks or just a few? Do you want to create a new trading strategy based on your last quarter of success? Are you ready to make money while you sleep? The best day trading software available can only do so much, but it's nice to know why it can do it with your help.

A lot of first-time investors are looking into software because they do not want to fail. As an experienced investor, what key points to do what to achieve in your investing career? Many people are uncertain about their next steps because they're worried about what's going on now. A stock trading software can make money by picking stocks apart in order to find their profitability.

You are only responsible for doing secondary research by looking into the company leadership for pointers on their success. If this sounds easier than your current strategies, maybe you should consider these factors while searching for the best day trading software.

1. Profitable Picks

Are you investing in order to make money? A great day trading software will pinpoint profitable picks by analyzing their current up trends. You will get detailed information regarding their trades, price per share, and the current rate available. All of this is available as soon as you wake up in the morning to view the new picks shown on your day trading software. Are you interested in tapping into these resources to make a difference in your portfolio? Consider the technicalities you can avoid while sticking to the benefits of a profitable pick.

2. Technical Analysis

Novice investors are unfamiliar with certain terms and the basics of technical graphs showing a stock's activity. If you choose to use a day trading software, imagine wiping the issues from the scene by integrating your own strategies for the software's analysis. You do not have to sweat over details that are unrelated to the stock's progress, you won't lose money, and you can count on the information given from your software. All of this is measurable in the software's proven track record; it's important to choose a software that can back up its hype while earning you money in the stock market.

3. Proven Track Record

Make sure you check the day trading software background before you spend your money. Some have a lot of hype with no flame which means you can lose money. No one is interested in investing in software that lacks the proper credentials for investors; be wary of special guarantees or suggestions contrary to the software's possibilities. Look into the history of the programmers, check forums for information, and then make a decision.

A couple of hours or days of research can do wonders for your portfolio because you will find one perfect for your trading needs.

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

How to Make Money With Day Trading Software - Is it Possible?

By Peter Skotnicky

Day trading software has made a huge change in how day trading works as a profession. While there have always been tools that make you money in stock trading, from ticker tape with constantly updated stock prices to telegrams and faxes with hot tips, what's happened since the dawn of the internet is that these techniques have reached more people (and the market has gotten considerably more complex as more financial instruments are devised by mathematicians.)

Day trading software is basically an automated information aggregator. The more sophisticated packages, like the Day trading program, pull in information from several market segments and run it into analysis tools, then compare it to algorithms, where billions of successful trades from highly trained professionals have been programmed in.

These include logical statements for why certain trades happened with certain market triggers, and aggregates of multiple trades to figure out which ones have, in retrospect, the clearest read on the market as a whole.

Since stock trading runs on volatility plays, the ability of the software to match market data to algorithms gives you a theoretical speed advantage; computers can compare data sets much more rapidly and efficiently than humans can. What's changed is that the computing power to do this has migrated from the server rooms of investment banks and into the desktop computers of average consumers who are just getting started into day trading.

And that's where the risk lies. While it's possible to make money doing stock trading, and it's possible for someone to make a lot of money doing it, it still requires judgment. While this software makes for a good analytical tool, and it will even make recommended picks for buy and sell orders, it's still using the canned judgment of whatever it was programmed with.

Markets are fundamentally chaotic, and there are going to be market parameters that go out of the boundary conditions programmed into this software. If you don't recognize what the software is doing, this can be incredibly risky.

We aren't saying don't buy the day trading software. Quite the contrary - it's an excellent analysis tool and a good enough automated trading program, and within the boundaries of what it 'knows' and can 'learn' from trading patterns, it's an excellent tool for you to expand your trading repertoire.

That being said, it's just a tool. It's not a sure fire winning formula - it will make some bad trades (and you or it will need to figure out why it made those trades). You still have to treat day trading as your job, and can't look at this program as something that will make you money while you're out on the golf course.

So, consider it, but make sure you understand the fundamentals of day trading before you put the day trading software to use. Treat it like you'd treat a chainsaw - it's a useful tool, and you can get a lot done with it, but it's also going to need awareness and judgment to use soundly.
Old school investing was only the beginning; with stock picking software available, investors are dominating the market without an ounce of sweat.

You can do the same by choosing a great software that can help you. Tackle the issues surround day trading by letting a professional software find the next big penny stocks for you.