day trader

While many day traders focus on stocks, the practice is not limited to equities. Some day traders also buy and sell bonds, foreign currencies, commodities, options, and even derivatives contracts.

There are several types of day traders. Some are called scalpers; they attempt to earn small profits on large volumes of securities. Meanwhile, momentum traders look for securities that are exhibiting strong trends on a particular day and attempt to profit from those trends. Day traders often use technical analysis to determine which securities to trade, as well as to pinpoint the ideal entry/exit points for their transactions.

Day traders tend to execute most of their transactions through low-cost online discount brokers, as the higher commissions paid to traditional full-service brokers would soon become cost-prohibitive. Some day traders avoid using market makers or brokers entirely by purchasing memberships in direct-access broker systems. These systems route orders to an electronic communications network (ECN), which is a computerized matching system that allows traders to advertise bid or ask prices and execute trades.

Most day traders close out their positions at the end of the trading day to avoid the potential negative effects of news, earnings announcements, or changes in investor sentiment that may occur overnight. Those willing to bear this risk and hold securities for up to several days are often referred to as swing traders.