The advantages of day trading

Posted by Nick Niesen on November 8th, 2010

Historically, stock trading has been the domain of professional traders. Trading has been in essence a "private club" with restricted access. Day trading has changed that. For the first time, amateur traders have the tools (real time quotes and order execution) to compete with the professionals.

Speed advantage of day trading

The key advantage of day trading is its speed. Now the technology is advanced enough to afford day traders the ability to receive and observe real-time price quotes tick by tick and to send electronically an execution order directly to the NASDAQ market maker. Electronic order execution is fast. Confirmations are received in seconds. Exiting trades is as easy and fast as entering the trade positions.

Control advantage of day trading

The other key advantage of day trading is the control of trading. Day traders are always in control of their own trading. They are their own brokers. They examine the financial data, ascertain the trends, and make their own decisions to buy or sell. Day traders do not have to worry about the price slippage. They monitor market prices tick by tick. During trading, at any point of time the trader always knows the stock's best BID or ASK price.

Going home "flat"

At the end of the trading day, day traders close all of their trade positions and go home "flat". Day traders do not need to worry about a "long" or "short" position - because they do not have overnight positions. Without any open positions, day traders do not carry any overnight risk exposure.