The Rules of The Game

OK I've been swing trading for about a month now. I'm down and have tried to learn from my own mistakes.

FYI: Here is a good article on day trading & strategies.

Rules

1. Check the News on a stock before your put in a trade.
2. Save your day trades for stops as well as exits. (More on this later, since it's different by broker.)
3. Focus one only 1 or 2 stocks at a time when starting will small base of money (10k).
4. Reserve a third of your cash and only invest the other 2/3 rds.
5. Establish exit points for your purchases. Trail Stops or Market Sell orders.
6. If you make money in a trade in a particular stock don't play it again in the same day when starting out. (Your emotion takes over.)
7. Check the news nightly and again before the market open in case you need to adjust your exit strategy. (Got burned on RF and JBLU with second stock options to finance debt.)
8. Don't average down on stocks. (I.E. You by RF @ 5 and it drops to 4.75 don't by more to get your average cost down. Most likely the stock will continue to drop and you will want to keep averaging down, throwing more money in the sink hole! I'm in a trap like this now LEA)

Here are some good sites that I've started to use.

Tools

1. FinVis - Good market overview and news site.
2. Short Squeeze - Lets you know if a stock has lots of people shorting it.
3. Investopedia - Good research and learning site.
4. Free Stock Charts - Good charting tool and Free!
5. Stock Charts - Good site for charting and charting education and message boards.