How to become a successful stock trader starts with learning the basics of trading. How to become a successful stock trader progresses to picking a part of the market to trade and studying it. Next comes following technical market factors and exploiting market moves for profit. There is no end to how to become a successful stock trader as the learning and improvement do not stop when you start making money. They continue as an integral part of the life of a successful trader. Traders need to learn how to use technical analysis as the basis of successful stock trading but there is more.

A stock market is an open or public market for the trading of company stock and derivatives. Stocks are listed on exchanges where trading takes place. In today?s electronic world a large portion of trading occurs online in live trading. The largest stock market by market capitalization in the USA is the New York Stock Exchange, NYSE. Other exchanges include the NASDAQ in the USA, the Toronto Stock Exchange, the London Stock Exchange, the Tokyo Stock Exchange and so forth around the world. Traders can trade an individual stock or an index such as in trading the Russell 2000.

Stock traders often follow and exploit market trends. Online software gives indications of continuance of a trend or reversal. Using price pattern analysis the trader can either make repeated small profitable trades or wait out a choppy market in expectation of more substantial profits. Unlike long term investors who look for a degree of stability as well as long term growth the trader tries to pick stocks whose prices fluctuate. However, trading high volatility and low volume can be risky and requires a degree of expertise that a trader needs to obtain with experience.

Stock selection is important as trading a very stable stock is not profitable. Much like long term investors the trader will look at a company?s fundamentals to see if there is either potential for growth and a jump in stock price or decline with a drop in the price. However, the successful stock trader will also do continual technical analysis on stock price movement to pick the right time to buy or sell. How to become a successful stock trader has to do with picking the right stocks, right market sectors, and being able to read market activity

Over the long term, though, becoming proficient at technical analysis and execution of trades is how to become a successful stock trader. To a degree, working at a trade station is a performance art. Like the actor who knows his lines but needs to avoid stage fright the trader needs to focus on his work and apply what he knows without being pulled into the market psychology of greed and fear. Having a firm trading strategy and habitually reviewing trading results are especially important to long term success in trading stocks. Trading is not trying to outguess the market. It is the application of a set of skills. Discipline and hard work pay off when the trader learns the business of trading, does the homework to put himself in the right stock at the right time, and uses his technical analysis software skillfully to profit from fluctuations in stock price.

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