Building Market Intuition

There are a lot of Beginner Stock Trading tips out there that may help or may not, but in the end, the best thing you can do to become a better trader is to simply immerse yourself in it.
This may not be the tip you were hoping to get, but it is the one you need. Many people want a get-rich-quick scheme but to become a successful trader, you have to get that out of your head and really be willing to put in the time and hard work required.

You Must Build Intuition

 If you ask successful traders how they know a stock was about to move a certain way, they may give you certain hard metrics like price movement or volume, but many will agree that most of it boils down to "having a feel for the market". What does this mean? Well, it certainly doesn't have to do with how "smart" someone is or what their IQ is. It simply is the intuition built over time from watching the markets over and over again. Just like listening to a song over and over again; the first time, its all new to you. The next few times you get a general feel for it. After a hundred times, your singing along, hitting every lyric flawlessly without even trying. At this point, you've built Intuition. Knowledge that has moved past your conscious mind into your subconscious mind, that performs instinctually.

Now, market patterns don't exactly repeat, but they rhyme. When you create an intuition for the markets, they may help you plan and execute trades, but they won't always work. Because of this, it takes more time than other tasks to create an intuition because there are so many variations of outcomes. No pattern will happen twice identically, but you will start to see when a pattern is likely to occur.

How To Build Market Intuition

One of the best pieces of advice I've heard for building market intuition is from a very successful trader named Tim Bohen. He suggests beginner traders "look at charts until your eyes bleed." When he started trading, he would print out charts, analyze them, write out his plans and predictions, and see how they played out. Keep in mind he was doing this while he also worked full time. There really is no excuse to getting market study time in. Even if you work full time during market hours, you can look at charts while markets are closed, see how they moved, look at support and resistance levels, and make predictions. Paper Trading is always a great way to start as well. Even though you won't be making really money (or losing real money, which is more likely), you'll gain invaluable market knowledge and build market intuition.