Trader Upgrade

TDAmeritrade announced today , October 1, 2019, that it will begin offering $0 commissions on stock trades, effective October 3, 2019. The news came after a competitor, Charles Schwab, released news that they would be offering $0 commission trades effective October 7, 2019. There has been pricing pressure on brokerages' commission structures over the years after many brokerages charged up to $10 on trades just a few years ago. Popular firms like Etrade and TDAmeritrade gradually lowered their commissions to $7 or $5 to compete against each other. Recently, startups such as Robinhood and WeBull have gained popularity with millennials and new traders with their $0 Commission pricing structure. The downside to these startup brokerage companies is that they have not been able to offer much as far as customer support and trading tools and platforms. TDAmeritrade's award-winning Thinkorswim platform , education program, and customer support really give them a hug...

You've probably heard that bitcoin just spiked 25% this week from a friend, uncle, or that guy on Facebook who is anti-government, anti-police, and anti-everything and you don't really know him in person but for some reason have him as a friend. Should you buy bitcoin? If you are looking for an answer to this question without doing your own due diligence, then probably not. I've been seeing a lot of hype over the next move bitcoin is about to make. "It's going to $100K!" or "This is a precursor to its next HUGE crash!" . The reality is that nobody really knows what's about to happen. You can see that bitcoin has had some pops on its continuing downtrend so this pop could very well just be the same. Although it has been consolidating above $3,000 for about 4 months. The most important things to look at right now it the strong resistance level at $6,000 that it is approaching and of course the $3,000 level its been hol...

You've probably heard of Robinhood if you've been thinking about investing. Robinhood is one of the most popular zero-commission stock brokers available and is available on Apple and Android devices as well as on desktop.  More some investors, Robinhood is a great broker, but for more experienced traders, it may not be. Here are some pro's and cons to give you an idea if Robinhood is for you:  Pros:  $0 Commissions: No Fees $0 Account Minimum: Most brokers have minimums of a few hundred or thousand dollars. Mobile App : Much better-looking than most brokers' mobile app Stocks, Options, and even Cryptocurrencies available Beginner Friendly : Very easy to use and the zero-fee system allows you to trade small. Cons:  Customer Support : Email only. They don't have a phone call option Charts are Very Basic : Not a huge problem since you can use other charting platforms and use Robinhood for your orders. *Not Friendly for Highly-Active Traders...

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 firs...

In this post, I'll talk about what you can expect when becoming a Day Trader. I also have some other posts with Day Trading Tips and Day Trader FAQ's if you'd like to look around my blog, Trader Upgrade . I'll do a basic overview of the most important aspects of a Day Trader, which should help you decide if Day Trading is the career for you. Salary  The salary of a Day Trader varies tremendously and can realistically be anywhere from $0 to several Millions of dollars . It is a very entrepreneurial job, so you "eat what you kill" in a way. If you become an independent Day Trader, your salary may actually be negative. Working at an investment firm or prop trading firm, you usually take a percentage of your profits, using their capital to trade, which can range from 20% to 90% depending on many factors like credibility and experience. You usually don't have to pay for losses if you never become profitable but that would likely end in termination of ...

We've all been there . You enter a trade, confident that you're about to become a little richer. You're thinking in your head how much you're about to bank on this trade and the stock instantly drops... You're PnL moves as much as you predicted, but in the negative. At this point, you're frozen and don't know if you should get out of this stock or wait and hope it comes back up. Although, the first choice isn't an option, since you're body is physically not responding; much like your old computer back in the day running Windows 98 every time you try... well every time you try doing anything on it. You watch and hope, while your loss slowly grows bigger and bigger until you can finally muster the energy to sell and stop the pain. At this point, this behemoth of a loss is staring you in the face as you contemplate quitting trading altogether and taking that sales job that your friends have been talking to you about. Well, there's good news. Th...

Implementation Intention Stock Trading is full of temptations and that can make it hard to stick to your trading plan. There are times where you see a stock running and you get in, not wanting to miss the action, only to see it top out and retrace, forcing you to get out for a loss. Sometimes you take a loss and quickly get back into a trade because you want to make your money back, which leads to an even bigger loss. Even the most elite traders make these mistakes and you can't rely on sheer willpower to make you disciplined. This is where Implementation Intention comes in. Implemetation Intention is the act of simply writing a detailed plan which projects your mental plan into a physical form. Is seems too simple to be true but it has been tested in several studies and results show that it can more than double your chances of following through with a plan. Its very simple to ignore your plan if you only have an idea of it. If you have it written down, staring at you, it c...