Newbie Question

skohcl said:

I plan on playing with only about $15k-$40k I'm just not sure what to do to start watching and paper trading Level II before I actually start the day trading thing. (Been told I should sit out a week or two and just watch the Level II screens before placing actual trades)

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skohcl said:

Hey guys, I've just started trading over the last few months, and have been using E-Trade as my broker.

Recently thought of giving day-trading a go, and wanted to get a Level-II feed software suite to do my business. I was going to just get the "Power E-Trade Pro" upgrade for "Active Traders" it's like 30 bucks a month and is available on Mac and Windows (I have a Mac but I can pretty much flawlessly emulate any Windows Program; Autocad, Matlab, whatever).

So I was wondering if I should just give ole' e-trade my money or go with another major on-line brokerage like schawb or ameritrade or... should I do a little more homework/research and go for one of these Metadata or TradeStation Apps?

I plan on playing with only about $15k-$40k I'm just not sure what to do to start watching and paper trading Level II before I actually start the day trading thing. (Been told I should sit out a week or two and just watch the Level II screens before placing actual trades)

Thanks for the great site!

Nick

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timsk said:

Hi Nick,
Welcome to T2W.
I agree with shadowninja, don't use real money until you've got your strategy down pat and can make money consistently on paper and/or with a simulated trading account. As for brokers etc, Interactive brokers is one of the biggest and has low commissions. However, most day traders use a separate data feed for charting and level II purposes (eSignal in my case) -TradeStation is the other very popular choice. If you're planning to day trade U.S. stocks, you'll need a minimum of U.S. $25,000 in your account to comply with SEC regulations.
Tim.

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