Luanne,
RT took me a week or two to feel relatively comfortable with, but I am nowhere near as fast as some of the people who contribute to this thread. It's easier for me to click buy and sell buttons than to set up speed keys, but the reality is that I'll have to start doing that in the near future. One thing at a time.
NYSE executions generally do take longer since they're going to a real person who then pairs up the order. 20 trades per month is not a lot, but if you're daytrading I don't know of any browser based broker that would suffice. If you don't need split second executions you might, with a lot of care, try Webstreet Trading's java based trading applet. It is like RT in that you point and click to execute but you don't decide how an order is routed. This makes it a lot easier but, like now, you probably won't get fills until the price moves a level beyond your price. I still have a Webstreet account but rarely use it. They are prone to infuriating mistakes that don't get taken care of. Still, it might be worth considering.
The biggest mistake I made was trading 1000 shares at a time of DELL my first day. Actually, that's two mistakes. I no longer trade DELL and I just recently began trading in 1000 share lots. 200 shares was a good starting point since you don't lose too much at once. In fact, for the first few weeks I lost more money to commissions than I did to bad trades. Once that happens, moving up to 500 share lots is not a bad idea. I'm not terribly confident yet, but I don't have any big losses either. If you take it slow I'm sure you'll do well.
Have you read "The Electronic Day Trader"? It explains the ins and outs of trading fairly well. That should help you to visualize what happens when you put in an order.
Paul Kaz |
