Forum Archive Index - April 2000

[jesse <johne777@hotmail.com>]

'The claim that "daytraders" whoever they might be cannot compete with
the professionals is nonsense'.

Agree Tony, but, .......you need the same tools as the pro trader.
Apart from good hardware and high speed access like dsl, most of the
traders I chat with in US use a specilaist day broker and subscribe to
data feed from a recognised exchange like CBOT (Chicago Board of
Trade).  If you use a web based broker like E*Trade or Schwab,  you are
at a disadvantage before you start. They do not provide, nor claim to
provide, a day trading software platform..... even with E*Trade's (US)
'pulse' software there is a time lag in the data feed, so your not
necessarily always seeing live data.  I'm not talking about lag in
seeing confirmations, it's a lag in execution data.
Every pro trader I have spoken to says it is nearly impossible to day
trade sucessfully without Level 2 data feed. (level up from market
depth). Theres plenty more, live futures, volatility index, access to
shorting most stocks,options, margin, pre market and after hours market
trading.
You probably know this Tony, put here mainly to help with Cliffs
statement:
   'can I  act as a day trader in a southern hemisphere stock market,
ie; New Zealand
  or Australia, or am I condemmed to sleepless nights looking at the
Nasdaq?'

You can try Cliff, but, imho, apart from above reasons, its much more
difficult to daytrade here without the huge volumes and volatility that
drives Nasdaq momentum and provides liquidity daytraders need.

ps. when you say daytrading, I take it you mean buy/sell within seconds,
maybe dozens of times a day, usually holding cash at market open and
close. The term get used loosely, if you mean buy today, sell tomorrow,
thats not daytrading, and you dont necessarily need above tools to do
so.
good luck
j


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