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The Complete Idiot's Guide to Daytrading Like a Pro
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352 pages, Paperback
First published August 1, 1999
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November 11, 2018
Another form of Gambling?
9 November 2018
I still remember when I purchased this book. It was something like ten years ago, just after the market had completely tanked and at the time I thought that it would have been a great idea to get in on the action while the going was still good. The thing is that there is this myth that you could make oodles of money buying and selling stocks with little to no effort whatsoever. In fact all you needed was a good internet connection, and some money in the bank and away you go. Actually, I even remembered watching some documentaries about such traders. Well, as it turns out nothing could be further from the truth.
You know how there is this saying that the only winner at a casino is the house? Well, that is also the case with daytrading – the only winner is the broker who facilitiates your trades, particularly since every time you buy and sell shares he is charging you a fee. That means that when you are ‘day trading’ your gain, and that is if you make a gain, needs to also take into account the brokerage fees that they charge you. Oh, and there is also this idea that the best way to make money in the market is to buy when the stock is really low and to sell when it is really high. Well, I don’t know about you, but unfortunately that crystal ball isn’t doing me all that good in this circumstance (and don’t let me get started on the concept of timing the market vs time in the market).
So, is day trading worth it? Well, if you are willing to put in the time and effort, and also willing to sit in front of your computer all day pouring over stock charts and attempting to work out when it is the best time to buy and when it is the best time to sell, it probably is, but it is certainly not a free lunch. Mind you, that is all well and good, particularly since all you can lose is the money that you happen to have in the bank. That is the same when it comes to casinos – all you can lose is the money that you happen to have squilled away. This is where the catch lies though – while credit betting in a casino simply doesn’t happen, or at least doesn’t happen in the legitimate ones, it does happen on the stock market.
Let me explain: there are basically a number of ways that you can find out that you are really in deep do dos when it comes to share trading. For instance, you can borrow money to invest, and if you lose all of that money then, well, you still have to pay it back. Hey, at least the loss in that instance has a floor, it doesn’t when you are dealing with what are called short sales, that is where you borrow shares off somebody, sell them, buy them back at a lower price and pocket the difference. Well, if the shares don’t go down then unfortunately there is no difference to pocket. Oh, and there are also these wonderful things known as Contracts for Difference, which get even nastier, and don’t even let me start with put and call options. At least when you are trading normally, and your investment goes south, you don’t loose all your money, not like that really bad hand you end up with blackjack.
Well, is this book helpful? Not particularly. In a way it is like one of those books that people write to tell you how to make oodles of money, and the only person who is making oodles of money is the guy who wrote the book. Then again, that has been done so often that you probably can’t get away with it anymore, or if you can get away with it, you need to put something a little more substantial between the covers than just ‘write a book like this’. You know, something like Rich Dad, Poor Dad, not that I have read it, or even intend on reading it.
Okay, this book isn’t particularly like that because they do cover a lot of ground in what is essentially a reasonably sized book. However, we should also remember that it is one of those ‘complete idiot’ books which means that while it covers the basics, and gives you a few pointers and tips, it isn’t going to go into huge amounts of details, and further it isn’t going to actually tell you what to buy and what to sell. Mind you, this book is pretty dated these days, especially since they are talking about 56k modems and penny stocks like Amazon. In fact when this book was written Facebook didn’t exist and Google wasn’t a listed company. The other thing is that the market is changing so much that even a book written two minutes ago is probably already obsolete.
Mind you, they keep on telling us that this isn’t gambling, but honestly, I would beg to differ. Sure, there is a lot more research involved than your typical game of blackjack, but honestly, you go down to the races and you will find people that know an awful lot about those horses, or people that have the low down on pretty much every single football team that if you put them into a tipping contest they will completely wipe the floor with you. In fact, when you are watching horse races you will even notice that they use the term dividend in place of the term winnings, yet in all of our minds horse racing is still gambling. In my opinion, so is day trading.
9 November 2018
I still remember when I purchased this book. It was something like ten years ago, just after the market had completely tanked and at the time I thought that it would have been a great idea to get in on the action while the going was still good. The thing is that there is this myth that you could make oodles of money buying and selling stocks with little to no effort whatsoever. In fact all you needed was a good internet connection, and some money in the bank and away you go. Actually, I even remembered watching some documentaries about such traders. Well, as it turns out nothing could be further from the truth.
You know how there is this saying that the only winner at a casino is the house? Well, that is also the case with daytrading – the only winner is the broker who facilitiates your trades, particularly since every time you buy and sell shares he is charging you a fee. That means that when you are ‘day trading’ your gain, and that is if you make a gain, needs to also take into account the brokerage fees that they charge you. Oh, and there is also this idea that the best way to make money in the market is to buy when the stock is really low and to sell when it is really high. Well, I don’t know about you, but unfortunately that crystal ball isn’t doing me all that good in this circumstance (and don’t let me get started on the concept of timing the market vs time in the market).
So, is day trading worth it? Well, if you are willing to put in the time and effort, and also willing to sit in front of your computer all day pouring over stock charts and attempting to work out when it is the best time to buy and when it is the best time to sell, it probably is, but it is certainly not a free lunch. Mind you, that is all well and good, particularly since all you can lose is the money that you happen to have in the bank. That is the same when it comes to casinos – all you can lose is the money that you happen to have squilled away. This is where the catch lies though – while credit betting in a casino simply doesn’t happen, or at least doesn’t happen in the legitimate ones, it does happen on the stock market.
Let me explain: there are basically a number of ways that you can find out that you are really in deep do dos when it comes to share trading. For instance, you can borrow money to invest, and if you lose all of that money then, well, you still have to pay it back. Hey, at least the loss in that instance has a floor, it doesn’t when you are dealing with what are called short sales, that is where you borrow shares off somebody, sell them, buy them back at a lower price and pocket the difference. Well, if the shares don’t go down then unfortunately there is no difference to pocket. Oh, and there are also these wonderful things known as Contracts for Difference, which get even nastier, and don’t even let me start with put and call options. At least when you are trading normally, and your investment goes south, you don’t loose all your money, not like that really bad hand you end up with blackjack.
Well, is this book helpful? Not particularly. In a way it is like one of those books that people write to tell you how to make oodles of money, and the only person who is making oodles of money is the guy who wrote the book. Then again, that has been done so often that you probably can’t get away with it anymore, or if you can get away with it, you need to put something a little more substantial between the covers than just ‘write a book like this’. You know, something like Rich Dad, Poor Dad, not that I have read it, or even intend on reading it.
Okay, this book isn’t particularly like that because they do cover a lot of ground in what is essentially a reasonably sized book. However, we should also remember that it is one of those ‘complete idiot’ books which means that while it covers the basics, and gives you a few pointers and tips, it isn’t going to go into huge amounts of details, and further it isn’t going to actually tell you what to buy and what to sell. Mind you, this book is pretty dated these days, especially since they are talking about 56k modems and penny stocks like Amazon. In fact when this book was written Facebook didn’t exist and Google wasn’t a listed company. The other thing is that the market is changing so much that even a book written two minutes ago is probably already obsolete.
Mind you, they keep on telling us that this isn’t gambling, but honestly, I would beg to differ. Sure, there is a lot more research involved than your typical game of blackjack, but honestly, you go down to the races and you will find people that know an awful lot about those horses, or people that have the low down on pretty much every single football team that if you put them into a tipping contest they will completely wipe the floor with you. In fact, when you are watching horse races you will even notice that they use the term dividend in place of the term winnings, yet in all of our minds horse racing is still gambling. In my opinion, so is day trading.
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