Day Trading.
These two words alone incite a multiple of emotions, reactions and beliefs
right away.

As with anything we do in life, limiting beliefs (falsities) or misconceptions

can put a person off from the very thing they want to do before they even
start.

The Day Trading Industry has done one of the best jobs of making itself
look like an elite, hard-core, aggressive club that only a chosen few can
withstand the heat and rise to the top.

And don’t forget the ‘experts’ throwing big words and complicated
terminology at us left and right. Not to mention how all of them have
different opinions that will not only steer you the wrong way, but will
confuse you completely.

As much as this type of commercialism works for most of the trading

academies, business talk shows, and ‘professionals’ allowing themselves
to feel important and exclusive that they can survive such an extreme, hard
core life; the reality - and they know it too - is completely different.

But no one wants to let the secret out.

After I entered the day trading world as one of the less-than-.01%-

population (females) I am here to expose the industry for what it is.

The surprising truth of it, day trading doesn’t have to be hard, nor stressful,
but instead can and DOES bring you peace and harmony.

In this Day Trading guide I am here to BUST 7 Misconceptions of Day

Trading (and a bonus in the end). Once you understand them, and make
them your new truth, ease of profits is practically guaranteed.

And the best part, you will see day trading for what it truly is - a profession
that can bring you joy, spirituality, financial freedom and push you to be
your best self ever.
7 Misconceptions of Day Trading

1. High risk and Must-Have-a-Minimum of $25,000 to Start -

Say what, I can begin with less than $2,000 and make profits?

2. Math Wiz - Did you know math has NOTHING to do with it?

3. Stress and Chaos - What if I told you trading can bring you
peace and can become a spiritual practice - if you truly let it?

4. Screens - I don’t need to have a Times Square buzzing

atmosphere as my trading desk?

5. Indicators and Software - you mean I only need these few?

6. Research and news - It can’t take this quickly? I thought I had

to be up at the crack of dawn studying charts till I see blue.

7. Non-Stop Action, In-and-Out of Trades all day long - I can

sit and be calm? I don’t have to take them all?

8. Bonus

Disclosure - This book is about busting day trading myths. My focus

will be strictly on day trading in the Futures Market. The information
may be different for stocks, options and bonds.
 1 - Too Risky Plus Who Has $25,000 to Gamble
With?
Ever since I can remember I’ve gravitated towards day trading. When I
was in my early 20’s, living in NYC, I enrolled in as many adult ed classes
on how to day trade. During those classes I had a chance to talk to many
other wanna-be traders.

End result - my brain was so polluted with a bunch of fears and

misconceptions (of other newbies) that it took me almost 15 years to heed
my calling and cut through the bullshit and get serious.

The two biggest myths and lies (misconceptions) you get are:

1. High Risk and Gambling

These must be the most popular of all. They are easy to fall back on
especially when one doesn’t have any idea what day trading, as a
profession, is all about.

The problem with day trading isn’t that it’s risky or a gamble, but that
anybody with a bit of cash-in-hand can enter the market and pretend they
too are day traders. Then these failed “traders”, with zero education and
misleading views walk around telling the rest of the world how risky day
trading is and how you can lose your entire life savings.

Of course what they are doing is risky!

It’s like me saying I want to be a doctor and head straight to the operating
room with a scalpel and start operating on a patient. Chances of them
dying is super high. So if anyone was allowed to do that in the medical
industry most of the population would be dead and we’d have no
confidence in the ones that are true professionals.

Day trading is the same as becoming a doctor, only with a lot less years of
study. But you have to study.

Aside from the rumors of high risk, gamblers profession of day trading, the
rumors of instant millionaires can buzz through the air making people
believe it’s a quick way to earn money, as well.
Yet when you do your research you will see the ones that are making 6 or
7 figures via day trading have been avid students to their trade and most
likely have put in many years to get to this level.

When it comes to day trading, one thing that is for sure, there is very little
guesswork once you have truly learned and applied the strategies - taking
out a lot of the risk involved.

And as far as gambling, it’s as much of a gamble for real day traders who
have put in the time to truly learn their craft, as it is for doctors (I’ll stay with
the medic analogy) who enter the operation room. Doctors still make
mistakes, we hear about it all the time. But how many lives are saved and
helped? Think of trading the same way. Doctors are updating their
knowledge all the time to perform better, same for traders.

2. You MUST have at least $25,000 to open up a day trading

account

This untruth has kept me from starting to trade for years and years and
years. The very thought of having $25,000 in one account, not including if I
want to take courses, overwhelmed me.

It made me think this was a rich-man’s game and I how can I ever enter to
play.

But, as I said earlier, when your desire overrides the stories you get from
uninformed people, you get a chance to cut through the bull and actually
enter the playing field. Once you’re on the inside, not looking down from
the bleachers the information is much different.

To open up a Futures Broker’s account you need $500 to start. All Futures
accounts are purely intraday. If even 10% of all Futures traders hold their
positions overnight or longer I’d say its super rare.

Ok, I won’t lie and imprint a new false belief that with $500 you can start
your trading career, but that is all that is needed to open an account. As for
how much you really need to start, I’d say $2000 is a good round figure,
and only after you have spent plenty of time practicing with paper money
and have a solid trading plan.
 2 - Math Wiz Need Not Apply
Random human asking me - “You’re a day trader?”
Me responding - “Yes, I am.”
Random human nodding head - “I can’t do that. I don’t know math.”
Me - “What does math have anything to do with it?”
RH - “I’m not good with numbers.”
Me - “Me neither, I can barely add 5 + 8.”
RH - “Huh?”
Me - “The only numbers I need is to figure out how much money I won or
lost and I can use a calculator for that. Otherwise, I don’t think I see any
numbers while trading other than what the price is, and that’s truly
irrelevant.”
RH - “I don’t understand, I thought you need to be good at math to be a
good trader.”
Me - “You thought wrong!”

There is a weird idea floating around that one needs to be good with
numbers and up on their maths to become a strong day trader. I’m
completely unsure where and how this urban legend began, but I’d like to
put an end to it right now.

No matter how many hours a week I spend in front of my charts, and

sometimes we are talking more than 50 hours, I have yet to use a single
math concept other than counting up how many points I have won or lost.

So to end this misconception once and for all:

No math skills are required!

 3 - Stress and Chaos
Whenever we watch any Wallstreet related movie, TV show or
commercial we constantly see men screaming, yelling, freaking out,
plowing over each other for the best buy/sell opportunity. Or blatant
insider-buying or other form of corruptions landing you in prison or
broke.

This image is so ingrained in our minds that anything other than total
stress mayhem, dirty or early heart attacks simply feel wrong to think
about.

What if I told you that trading can be a meditative practice?

A practice of peace and letting go? A positive activity involving no

backstabbing or stealing.

I know it sounds so out of this world and out of reach you’re probably
thinking I’m completely insane.

Maybe I am?

However, wouldn’t you rather be calm and enjoying yourself, than

biting your nails until they bleed and having ulcers as a direct result of
the unnecessary stress you think you should be experiencing.

Let’s break this down and take it further.

Let’s pretend you have a really big exam coming up. The Bar Exam is
upon you. The normal route before the exam is studying for months
on end. Practicing with old exams, or fake ones. Enrolling a tutor to
help you advance, or putting yourself in a course.

How would you feel the day of the exam? You’ll be nervous, for sure.
If you weren’t you’d be dead. However, chances are you’d feel
confident. You know deep down inside you have done all you can
possibly do to take this exam. Even though your jittery, by the time
the exam is placed in front of you, you are in the zone. All anxiety and
concern flows away and you are left with your best self and actually
find that you enjoy the process.
Now, let’s go to the opposite extreme. The Bar Exam is coming. You
figure you’ll skim through a book, maybe talk to someone who has
taken the exam and they told you it’s not too hard (because they did
all the above preparation), and then you finally decide the weekend
before to study rather than go out partying.

Two things can happen from here:

1. The weekend you decide to ‘study’ you realize what you’ve

gotten yourself into.

Or

2. Come into the exam cocky thinking you can beat the system
without studying only to open up the exam book and
immediately feel vomit creeping up on you because you are
fully screwed.

Lack of preparation, overconfidence and cockiness equals HARD

CORE STRESS.

Normally (non professional) day traders or people completely

misinformed who listen to naysayers and take advice from someone’s
grandma always go through serious stress, because deep down
inside they know they didn’t do their homework. They don’t have a
good trading strategy to fall back on and zero risk management to
cover their asses.

And the footage we see from the New York Stock Exchange of the
floor brokers in the pit screaming and yelling, it’s just how it is. It’s
kind of like telling the auctioneer to stop yelling ten miles a minute
instead or talking in a calm voice. It’s simply a role they have to play,
one that has nothing to do with us.

Oh, I won’t even go into corruption.

Corruption happens everywhere, in every industry, at every level. If I

was to talk about corruption I can show you examples of it
everywhere. Why even go there?
We are trading in the comforts of our own homes, with our own
money. Who’s hurting whom?

Maybe for Hollywood movies and Wallstreet big shots going the
corruption route is part of their game. It’s definitely not part of ours.

So anything that even remotely floats through your mind about how
evil, greedy or corrupt this field is, think of any other industry and
realize it happens everywhere. There is no reason it should happen in
your home unless that is where you want to go.

And as for stress. If you’re prepared, if you did all your homework and
put in the hours and have a solid plan, then once you’re in your trade
- let go and relax. Remember, you did your job.
4 - Screens - Do You Really Need to Light Up Your
Desk?
This is a big misconception and image we hold onto dearly.

Whenever you see a ‘successful’ trader interviewed they are usually sitting
at a desk with at least 10 screens behind their huge swivel black chair and
all sorts of blinking lights and buzzing sounds going on.

This scene can either excite you and you can think that that trader sure
looks important and busy and with all that action he must be making a
killing.

Or, it can totally freak you out completely. And your idea of being able to
trade location independently is crushed and shattered into thousands of
pieces. And who can keep up with all that is going on?

You can be successful with one chart, if you really want to go nutty, two
charts is a charm.

For my home trading desk I love to have two charts open. However, being
a travel junkie, my laptop and good internet connection is all I need.

And it’s all you need too!

 5 - What’s all that Buzzing Going - Indicators and
Software
Let’s go back to the trader at his all-important, overpopulated desk
with more blinking lights than Time Square during Christmas.

If you look closely all his screens have charts full of indicators
bustling and pulsing colorful movements.

What you’re seeing are different softwares and indicators to help the
trader make better decisions. Which is an incredibly necessary thing
for all traders.

The thing is, you can get away with two to three indicators, if not less.
And they don’t have to be a distraction.

Important to know, the minute anyone tells you to buy software other
than the platform you need to trade from - run for your life! No one
should ever - EVER - sell you software. Because blinking lights and
computer programs to help you get in and out of trades don’t work.

Software has become a huge market for day trading schools and
programs. Most of them will not only sell you the course you have to
take, but tell you without the software you can never trade well.

Some schools tell you that you can join their six month program and
the software comes with it the tuition. However, what most of them
don’t tell you is that once you are done with the program, so is your
access to the software. If you want to continue with the software you
can either buy it for $5,000 or more, or continue paying a monthly fee
to stay with their program.

1. If you are relying on a program to give you the green lights to

enter your trades you are looking at huge failure before you’ve
even started. Computers cannot monitor what is happening in
the markets precisely, only a real human can.
2. If you have anything more than three indicators, and they are
customized with the school you are with, you need to question
what the extra fee will be to have it once you are done with
 them or if you get to keep them when you’re done with the
program for free. The goal of a good teacher/mentor is to make
sure you learn to fly on your own. If they want to control you
through their software and indicators, I would really question
their credibility.

Day trading industry can be a tempting place for empty promises of

earn-quick schemes, and the #1 way to recognize this is with
companies selling you software or operating from a software that they
created to use on a trading platform.

Important distinction - to trade you will need a trading platform.

This is completely separate from any trading school you join.
And you will need to join an academy because like any other
profession you need to learn. You can’t learn to fly a plane
without the proper tutelage.
 6 - Research and News
This is a touchy subject and most likely one of the most controversial
aspects of trading, mainly in stocks.

I won't waste too much of your time on it though.

Bottom Line - it's not worth reading the news! You will find so many
different opinions it will literally make your head spin.

There is a popular saying, "Buy on the rumor, sell on the news." Many
people get paid way too much money to spread these rumors, start new
ones and then pretend it's news. (All adding to their pockets while the
rumors set ablaze.)

If you think Hollywood is a bunch of gossipy circles, the investment,

financial world will make you want to vomit. The amount of 'Experts' in this
field is ridiculous and all of them have completely different ideas, opinions
and thoughts on the global economy, the stock market, on individual
stocks and companies and anything else you throw their way.

The rumors, the hypes, the 'expert' opinions always, ALWAYS make the
markets go whacky - short term.

So here's what is recommended. Ignore it! (For the most part.)

The best way to avoid these issues while day trading is simply get out of all
your positions when big news are about to come out. Obviously when the
Chair of the Federal Reserve is about to give a speech, you don't want to
touch anything until you see what the market is going to do.

There are two sites that allow you to see the news for the day. The red and
orange items are the higher impact ones and can seriously move the
market during that time frame.

From what I learned about news is simple. The high impact news usually
comes out:

9:45 am EST, 10 am EST and 10:30 am EST

Rarely will you ever see news later, except for FOMC (Federal Open
Market Committee) Minutes which are usually on Wednesdays and they
are after lunch. You don’t want to be anywhere near the markets then. If
anything is going to set off a crazy, erratic reaction it’s the FOMC!

What I normally do is I stay out of the markets altogether if there is news in

the morning I enter it usually 10 - 15 minutes after the news has come out.
Normally there is a lot of indecision making the markets go a bit haywire
or, the exact opposite, the traders want to see what the news will bring and
keep the market totally stagnant not moving at all.

These are the two main sites that tell you when news is coming out.

Forex Factory

Nasdaq Economic Calendar

 7 - Non-Stop Trading - Is There Such a Thing as
Over Trading?
When I first started trading my image of a day trader went something like
this:

Sits amidst a sea of monitors going in and out of trades all day long. There
is no moment of tranquility and the action is high packed and never ending.

I know, what kind of person thinks this is fun and actually wants to do it?
Weird ones (like me J.

But thankfully, after way too many hard lessons learned, I realized what a
true trader really does.

The trader that us wanna-bees aspire to become aren’t the crazy, manic,
stressed out humans yelling at their screens, losing thousands of dollars
simply on commissions yet still bringing home plenty to feed their families.

They are the ones that love life and enjoy their lifestyle.

How is the reality so different from what is portrayed?

Images have been tested, and apparently what we normally view is one
that sells most to the adrenaline, aggressive, ego that makes you feel you
can keep up and how cool is it to do so.

However, once you talk to professional traders, who have made this their
livelihood, they have all learned, and mastered, the one thing that needs to
be understood from the start: trading is like hunting. You don’t shoot at
every single insect or rodent you see. You wait for the big game to arrive
and you enjoy the kill. (No I am NOT condoning hunting. I actually detest it.
It simply makes a good analogy and one you immediately can visualize
and understand.)

Today if I take two or three trades it’s a big day for me. And it’s most likely
a good day for the big time, big shot traders too.
 Bonus Misconception - Trading is Not Investing
Day trading is NOT investing (I have to repeat this). One of the
biggest confusions and misconceptions is that trading is like investing
your money and watching it grow over time.

Day trading is exactly that - you close all your positions in the same
day.

Investing is where you see your money grow (hopefully) for months
even years.

Day trading you don’t care if the banks are raising their interest rates
or if a country’s economy is collapsing. All you care about is that
particular time frame you are watching one trade which can be
anywhere between one minute to twenty minutes (rarely more).

When investing you care what the overall economic situation is. You
care if the banks are raising, lowering or eliminating interest rates.
You care if a certain stock you’re in is doing something new and
innovative. This all represents good future earnings.

So next time you say you’re a day trader and the response is, “I want
to learn about investing, and how to make my money grow.” Tell
them, “If you learn, please teach me!”
 Conclusion
If I knew even half of these myths were untrue before I started trading I
can’t even tell you the amount of hours I spent focusing on the wrong
things I could have saved myself. And the should’ve’s I did in my behavior
and executions of my trades because that’s what I believed to be the way
to do it which would have saved me so much wasted energy and emotion.

Not to mention the money!

The reality is, trading doesn’t have to be as complicated as it seems. As a

matter of fact, when you talk with traders who do this for a living they
normally say, “Trading is quite simple, not easy, but definitely simple.”

It doesn’t have to be high octane, high stress or corrupt. You can enjoy the
process from the comfort of your own home. Zero dirtiness or corruption,
instead an immense satisfaction with the person you have become that
can trade well.

And, remember this, real traders cringe at the words gambling and high-
risk. When you know what you’re doing, learned and honed your craft
there is no gamble and very little risk involved.

Aggressive, daring people certainly can have high profits, however, they
are also risking a lot more. I’ve learned that you can be ultra conservative,
taking only a couple of trades per day with small profits that equal big
yearly gains.

After all, we are here to have fun and make some money, why not do it
from a loving and relaxed point of view.