Best Day Trading Books, Today I will explore the world with you.
Even if you’ve no experience with it yet I’ll discuss the main concepts so that by the end of this post you’ll know exactly how to advance your day trading career.
So grab a notebook, get comfortable, and let’s start training.
Table of Contents
- What are the Best Day Trading Books to read?
- Steps to get started being Day trading
- Paper trading account
- Utilizing free resources online
- Journal your trades
- Premium educational services
What are the Best Day Trading Books to read?
There are many books available on the topic of day trading stock, and the best one for you will depend on your specific interests and goals. Here are a few books that are commonly recommended for day traders:
Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets
“Technical Analysis of the Financial Markets” by John J. Murphy.
This book is a comprehensive guide to technical analysis, which is a method of analyzing financial markets using chart patterns and other statistical indicators.
The Daily Trading Coach
“The Daily Trading Coach” by Brett N. Steenbarger.
This book offers practical advice and strategies for improving your trading performance, including how to set goals, manage risk, and stay disciplined.
Reminiscences of a Stock Operator
“Reminiscences of a Stock Operator” by Edwin Lefevre.
This classic book is a fictionalized account of the life and trading strategies of Jesse Livermore, one of the most successful traders in history.
How to Day Trade for a Living
“How to Day Trade for a Living” by Andrew Aziz.
This book provides a step-by-step guide to day trading, including how to set up a trading plan, manage risk, and make effective trades.
Trading in the Zone
“Trading in the Zone” by Mark Douglas.
This book explores the psychological aspects of trading, including the importance of mindset and discipline, and offers practical strategies for achieving success in the markets.
Trading books to become successful trader
Ultimately, the best day trading book for you will depend on your individual learning style and goals. It’s a good idea to read reviews and compare different books to find one that is well-suited to your needs.
But first of all, I’d like to explain what day trading actually is.
Investing is long-term buying and selling, while day trading means buying and selling within a day.
You buy stock in the hope that it’ll increase in value, and then sell it the same day to make a profit.
Steps to get started being Day trading
Here are the steps to start day trading for beginners.
So this post is for beginners who want to start day trading. And my recommendations on how I personally would start again.
If I could go back in time 8 years ago, these are my personal opinions only not financial advice.
Paper trading account
The first thing you should do is to get a paper trading account. It means that you trade with fake, simulated money in your brokerage account.
The reason I recommend paper trading is because if you are brand new to the market, you do not know what candlesticks are, what technical analysis is, how to read SEC reports, how to identify floats, how to analyze news, etc, etc.
Why risk your really hard-earned money and jump right into it when you have no idea what you are doing?
Take a step back and start practicing paper trading.
Choose your Brokerage
Some of the brokerage accounts I recommend for paper trading are Thinkorswim first, totally free for Americans, and for Canadians, you need a $5k USD maintenance in the account to paper trade with live market data.
Thinkorswim also offers an on-demand feature. This allows you to go back in time and backtest historical price action on almost any stock.
So this is an extremely valuable feature for day trading beginners.
Another good paper trading provider is Interactive Brokers, which is available for both US and Canadian residents.
At IB you need to purchase their data subscriptions to get live market data. I believe the packages are about 20 per month US which is not bad at all.
A third paper trading broker to start with is Webull, a free broker platform.
While I do not recommend $0 dollar commission brokers like Webull, Robinhood, and a few other apps for live day trading.
I think for paper trading it is perfectly fine.
Especially if you are brand new and just learning about it.
Most brokers are very intuitive, they all have a mobile app interface, a desktop PC, and a MAC version.
So you can trade for free on all these devices with LIVE market data.
This is very versatile.
You can trade premarket or postmarket with extended trading hours, trade options, and even short stocks.
Paper trading with free live market data is also available.
Now that you have your paper trading account set up, it’s time to start learning.
Utilizing free resources online
At this point, many people will advise you to buy a couple of $5,000 DVDs and a $200-a-month alarm plan. But here is an unpopular opinion, and again, just my personal opinion just not advised.
I would use free online resources first to start learning. There are literally so many resources out there on YouTube.
Also here on my blog, I have short and simplified posts, talking about trading, trading strategies (Stock Investing Strategies), and important things to look for.
By taking your time with paper trading and using free resources first, you are mentally and financially preparing yourself for the year-long journey that is soon to come.
If you really decide to take this path and start trading seriously.
Remember, if you are brand new to the market, you have no idea of the work, time, and effort required of you to make it in trading.
Most people think that trading is easy, you just spend $200 on alerts for a month and you will make thousands of dollars easily, working 1 hour a day and from anywhere in the world.
Day trading is NOT simple
Let me reassure you, after trading for 8 years now, the reality is far from that. it is NOT simple, controlling risk, and maintaining discipline and focus is a constant struggle on a daily basis.
Trading part-time while working a full-time job, you are basically running a part-time business that requires full-time work.
If you are resourceful and watch all these free videos on trading first, you are basically getting yourself a free ticket through the back door.
If, after watching some of the videos on YouTube, you find that I have to prepare for hours before the market even opens?
That hard work is not for me. That’s perfectly fine.
Paper trading with simulated money and haven’t spent thousands on DVDs.
It’s a risk-free experience.
Again, nothing wrong with these paid courses and instructional DVDs that actually add value and do not just sell a dream,
but I would recommend absolute beginners experiment with free resources first before making such costly investments.
day trading
Journal your trades
So you started paper trading and learned some setups and strategies with free resources.
Now it’s time to log your trades. That means spending 5 to 10 minutes every day writing down your entries, exits, and the setups from your daily trades.
Only by tracking your trades will you be able to see what you are good at as a trader.
Do you have a higher probability of success if you go long or short?
Is it better to trade large caps or small-cap penny stocks?
How well do you manage risk for each set-up?
Do you use technical indicators for entry, or are you better off following the trend and only buying after a reversal trend has formed?
These are all important questions that you need to find out for yourself.
Remember you can see what other people are doing on social media using VWAP, Moving averages, or shorting.
What works for others will most likely not work for you.
And that’s what journaling your trades will do for you, once you figure out a few consistent qualities that you are good at, maybe it’s dip buying the morning panic or swinging overnight.
Once you have one, focus only on those settings and tune out everything else.
After you have spent a few weeks or months paper trading, learn from free sources and track your trades.
At this point, you should know if this day trading business is something you really want to continue and grow.
For most people, this is the point where they realize this is not for them, it’s too much time and effort, and they give up.
But for the rest of the beginners who want to start taking trading more seriously, now is the time to look for a premium community.
No, I’m not talking about an alert service.
This defeats the whole purpose of learning to act for yourself.
I know it may sound contradictory that I was talking about using free resources and now, minutes later, I’m talking about participating in premium services for learning.
Premium educational services
Using these videos on YouTube is a great way to get started and get your foot in the door.
But without live instruction during market hours, you can only go so far by yourself.
In a community with other like-minded traders, you will learn more about it than just the patterns that so many try to memorize.
Personally, it was not until I invested in my “market training”,
and found a good group of solid traders I began to learn all the important things.
That would have otherwise taken me years to try a DIY style with free online resources. This accelerated my learning curve.
It is through premium educational services that I learned about day trading analysis, and how macroeconomics begins to impact stock movements in the short term.
And all the other details like price performance, money flow rotation between the strength of the large caps, and how that affects the small caps.
I have learned from this experience and know what not to do.
All I can say is if it sounds too good to be true, it probably is. Do not fall for these lifestyle marketing and promotions that try to fool you into thinking that it is quick and easy.
The reality is, trading is not easy, but if you are willing to spend the time to learn and put in the hard work and effort, it can be done, slowly but surely.