How to become a trader in the stock market? 1. Study the different types of trading strategies. 2. Determine whether you want to become a day trader or swing trader. 3. Choose a broker and fund an account. 4. Practice trading your strategy in a paper trading account until you are successful. 5. Slowly scale your way up trading with real money.
Chart by TradingView.
How to Become a Trader
Here are some steps to becoming a trader:
- Decide your style of trading: momentum trading, swing, long term
- Choose your trading broker based upon trading style
- Take a course to get started
- Candlestick patterns are most important trading indicator
- Learn how to draw trend lines
- Practice trading in a simulated platform
- Manage your risk when trading S
- cale your way up when trading with real money
- Consistency is the key to success long term
So, you just finished watching The Big Short, and the genius of Michael Burry inspires you. Heck, anyone who can short the entire financial sector, and make $700 million for investors has my attention.
Burry
The movie is inspiring; I’ll give it that. Burry was an institutional trader – think suit, tie, sitting at a desk on Wall Street. But what about the rest of us who decide we want to join the game.
Do we need to quit our jobs and move to NYC? Thankfully no, because we have another option. Have you heard of retail trading?
Well if not, you’re in luck because today, I’m going to outline the steps on how to become a trader from the comfort of your living room – no suit or even pants required!
Do you know how to become a trader? Chances are if you google that question, you’ll see a million different answers to that question.
It becomes overwhelming. As a result, you either give up or you get confused. The good news you can learn how to become a trader.
It does take hard work and dedication. That’s something people don’t want to point out right away. However, we believe in being honest about that.
Therefore, you’ll see that everywhere within our trading service. We don’t sugar coat it because we want you to know what you’re getting into when learning how to become a trader.
Steps for Success
Let’s take a took at the steps for success when learning how to become a trader. First things first, if you don’t have a clue where to start learning how to become a trader, consider the following:
- Education
- Broker
- Platform
- Tools
Choosing Your Education Provider
Winners learn from winners.
I don’t think I revealed anything mind-blowing here as it’s a proven fact winners learn from winners. That’s why I believe choosing the right education provider is hands down, the most essential step of learning how to become a trader.
I don’t care if you have the best laptop, software, broker and platform at your disposal, if amateurs surround you, you won’t succeed. I like to think of your education provider as a mastermind group.
One of the most powerful tools ever used by successful people is the mastermind group.
Andrew Carnegie had a mastermind group. So did Henry Ford. Ford would mastermind with brilliant thinkers like Thomas Edison, Harvey Firestone, and others at their private winter mansions in Coral Gables, Florida.
You might be asking, why join a mastermind group? Well, the most successful traders in the world know that taking your results to the next level requires greater mastery of oneself.
Most traders hit plateaus and ruts that are difficult (and sometimes impossible) to overcome alone with books and courses. In my personal opinion, being part of a mastermind group can be a real powerhouse to your trading. And that’s why being part of a community like Bullish Bears is so important.
Choosing Your Broker and Platform
Stock analysis and charting software typically are combined into what is called a trading platform. This program is then used to place orders for trading. In essence, this is essential to how to become a trader.
The platform contains charts that will help you visualize the price movement of a stock and gauge the overall sentiment of the market.
A trading platform that allows you to add lots of indicators to your chart to help you to decide when to place a trade and when to sit tight. If your broker doesn’t use a platform or software that has Hotkeys, you’re not going to get in and out of trades fast enough. You need quick execution with a fast order execution platform, which is why I highly recommend a good broker with a fast order execution platform like DAS TraderPro.
Below you will find a few of the popular brokers and platforms out there.
Execution Is Key
We all know in the world of racing; speed is the name of the game. But we also know you can’t run a high-performance race car on low octane fuel.
You could have the nicest car in the race, but it doesn’t matter if you’re putting the wrong fuel in it. And speed, what speed?
You don’t even have a hope in hell to get out of the gate. You might as well take a seat in the stands with your popcorn and watch the show.
Similar to racing, speed is the name of the game in day trading. Day traders need a fast, and flawless order execution platform and broker as their entry and exits are often only one or two seconds apart.
You need to have quick, fast and direct access to the market; otherwise, you’re in the stands watching everyone else get their orders filled. But to have that speed you need to have the right fuel to get you there.
And that fuel is your platform with direct access to the market. Something to learn as you begin to understand how to become a trader.
Tools
Let’s talk about the type of computer that you’ll be using. Yes even this is something to think about when learning how to become a trader. You have two choices, a desktop tower or a laptop.
Even though tower-based computers are easier to upgrade over time, laptops are much more mobile. What I like about a laptop is that with a good internet connection, I can trade from anywhere in the world.
When you start your search for a computer, like most things, choices are endless. But to make it simple for you, take into account the Central Processing Unit (CPU).
The central processing unit (CPU), is the brain of your computer and is responsible for interpreting and executing the commands from the software you are using.
The clock speed of a processor is measured in gigahertz (GHz), and it signifies the number of tasks it can process in a second.
Some processors have a single-core while others may have a dual-core, or quad-core. Each core represents an individual processing unit, so a dual-core CPU can handle twice the instructions every second than a single-core processor and a quad-core processor can process four times as much information.
Translation: go with a quad-core as it drastically improves performance. Our recommendation at Bullish Bears is the Intel Core i7.
