Everyone wants a shortcut to learn day trading or any other kind of short term trading – someone to teach them the “secret sauce” that will take 10-20 years of experience and allow them to come up to speed in a few months. If you needed brain surgery, would you want the guy who got his degree online in 6 months OR the guy who spent 10+ years in med school + residency + specialization? Is that even a fair question?? Well, it's lucky for everyone that trading is far harder than brain surgery … not really but it can seem like it. In actuality there are really some positive things you can do to dramatically decrease the learning curve, BUT there is no holy grail solution or indicator that can ever ever replace experience. That is learned. The key to winning is doing things that will cause you NOT TO LOSE.

First off, you really need to treat  day trading as a profession. This means act like its a real job and your only way to make money. You need a dedicated computer to trading with at least 2 monitors. Older computers are fine for some things, but do not try to use an older computer that is underpowered for trading. I can assure you that computer will fall behind of the task. Nothing is worse than lagging data (meaning the market is at place C but your computer is showing its at place A still) and failed network connections. Trading is super data intensive, make sure you have a computer with at least the following specs:

1. A minimum dual core chip, ideally you want a quad core chip. Each core can run a separate app, really lessens the chance that the computer will stall out. Make sure the processor you choose has a decent amount of L2 cache also - this increases speed as well. If you dont know what this is, ask a local computer nerd, they will help you.

2. A minimum of 2gb memory, the more the better. If you want more than 4gb you will have to use a 64 bit operating system. Make really sure before you do this step that whatever software you plan on using is compatible. As far as memory goes, you should be fine with 2-4gb. The faster the memory the better, but no need to really pay up for special memory.

3. a separate, discreet graphics card from AMD or Nvidia. Make sure the card can handle at least 2 monitors. You do not need a high end gaming card, you should be able to get something decent for about 100-150 bucks easy. Do not rely on the built in graphics on the motherboard, they are notoriously underpowered for any graphics intensive software. Running real time charts and quotes is very graphics intensive - there are hundreds, and sometimes thousands of things that need to be presented in real time.

You will only need this on your main computer that will be traded on and used for charting. You want 1 dedicated screen for order entry and 1 screen for charting. If you have any other computers that are older, those are totally fine for surfing the net, getting news, IM chat and other stuff. Once your trading computer is setup, you should keep it uncluttered with other applications - install those on another computer. You do not want it to crash or lock up during trading hours.

You need a dedicated work area that will serve as your trading area and workplace. It needs to be setup no different than a desk in a normal working environment - phone, lights, supplies, computer, printer etc. In order to succeed at trading, you have to treat it as a real business, not as a hobby or whim or a way to get your gambling fix. A hobby is fine, but you cannot expect to become an expert unless you treat it seriously. When you are concentrating on trading, do not let outside influences distract you. This means chatting on the phone to friends, watching tv shows, and doing other things while “kind of watching” the market. If this type of behavior would not be acceptible in a normal office, it will not cut it for trading either.

Once the office is setup, it is time to get serious about how learning the in's and out's of the market. The internet and free blogs are a great source of information, but you should not expect to learn everything online. Go to Amazon.com or Traders Galleria and search for the term “stock charts”. You want a beginning book and an advanced book on charting. In order to learn about trading, you have to figure out the mechanics of price movement and become and expert at charting. This can and will take some amount of time, and is not easy. As you get better at it through practice, it is much easier to learn new ideas and concepts because you have the background to understand them.

Expect learning charts to take about a year to get good, but in a month or 2 you can get a good start. Again, do not fall into the trap of thinking “if I throw some money at this, someone will show me secrets and shortcuts”. If you don’t have the background to understand, no amount of shortcuts will help you at all because you have no clue about how or why something might work or not work. One word of caution - do not attend any seminars until you have at least mastered basic charting - your money and time will be wasted. IF you think you know enough to tackle the advanced book, then it is probably time to attend a seminar to learn more. Again here there is no substitute for experience. Every day you have to plan time to watch the markets live, even if its just for an hour or two - ideally for the whole day if possible.

You really need to watch it live AND go over static charts after the market has closed. If your time is impacted because you have another full time job and cannot watch the market here is a secret: Get some screen capture video software (records your screen to video) and an external usb hard drive, probably 500gb will do. Set up a real time chart of the market and a few stocks on your screen before you leave for work. Set up the software you are going to use for recording to save to the external usb hard drive. You can set up a macro (there are free programs out there that can do this, search Google) if you are not home when the market opens. Set i to record at least an hour of video of the market open and any charts you have open. Then when you get home at night, you can play this back in real time and work on watching for chart patterns. If this does not appeal to you, some of the brokerage firms or data vendors have market replay that can replay parts of the prior day for you.

One last thing I have not touched on yet - charting software. There are tons of them out there. I have my own preferences, but that does not matter. You need to find what you are comfortable with. Some programs are very complicated, some are simple to use, and yet others will let you code custom indicators and trading systems. If the beginning , I would suggest everyone go with simple. What good is having 500 things you have no clue what they do or how they work?? All that does is confuse more and add things you are not ready to use. Just make sure its a fully robust charting package – meaning all charts are live, you can put tick charts AND minute based charts up (not delayed data, live data) AND its not web based. By web based, I mean it runs in a browser rather than a dedicated, loadable program. For the most part, you always want a standalone, executable program - they are far faster and speed is money. You do not want web based order entry (browser) for active trading, its just too slow - you need real time profit and loss and the ability to watch positions in real time. It is too slow in general to be of any use. Web based applications and software are totally fine for buy and hold and longer term investing type trading. Winning at trading is about time, even 5 seconds delay can cost you 50c or more per share in lost profit if the market is moving fast. That is a real cost and can cause you to turn what would be a winning trade into a losing trade.

While this was not a tutorial on how to trade, I tried to touch on a few subjects often overlooked when people are trying to learn to trade. They overlook these because they either cost money (charting software, real time data, computers) or they think they take too much time so lets find a way to skip this or that part.

Every business has fixed costs that go along with the territory. Data costs and chart program costs are one of many costs you will incur as a trader. Often you can get them minimized or waived if you are active, but for probably the first year expect to pay for them as you are learning.