When you begin your journey into investing and saving money, you need to start with a platform that will help you reach your goal. Many people over the years have used Ameritrade for that purpose and with good reason. The company has many years in the business and is one of the pioneers of online investing. The Thinkorswim platform, which TD Ameritrade acquired back in 2009, is geared towards frequent traders.
Frequent traders is a good term to use to describe day traders. When you are day trading, the more often you trade, the better chance you have to make money. Also, there is a much higher chance that you are going to lose money. That is just how it works. Which is why you need to develop strategies and techniques to approach the market every day that will allow you to make quick trades that capitalize on opportunities. And to make the right quick trades. As well as to avoid making the trades that do not make sense.
Practice is a great way to get good at day trading. But how do you practice if you can’t trade any money? If your savings is tied up and locked down and unfit to be risked on the open market. You do it with paper money or paper trading. Ameritrade has a proprietary platform called paperMoney that allows you to trade virtual currency in a stock market simulator. And the best part is that you are not risking any real money. That is how you can hone your trading skills without risking real money.
Paper trading is great for newbies that do not have the capital to really jump into the market, but want to learn how to do it. Or for those that have capital but are a loss as to how to get started. And then there is the group of actual veteran traders that have ideas about new strategies and are able to test them out in a virtual environment.
For aspiring day trader, practicing on Ameritrade can allow you to understand risk management before you actually have anything to risk. The managing of the risk is where the good traders separate themselves from the bad. Where the cream rise to the top. When you take the time to understand what you can actually risk and how to do it.
Risk management is a product of careful planning and diligent record keeping. Being able to see what you have done in the past and how that might affect trades in the future is great. Data from paperMoney can be essential to understanding your profit/loss ratios and how they came t
And even veteran traders can get in on the practicing action with Ameritrade. They can try out different asset classes like foreign exchange commodities or futures and not get hurt in the wallet. The potential for growing as a trader is great.
Ameritrade has these great practice resources and even ways to do more in-depth research on their platforms. Don’t forget to check out the third-party research and improve your understanding of the market on all levels.