Types of Trading

Day Trading, Swing Trading, Position Trading, Online Trading
There are several types of trading styles that persons seeking to profit from short term trades in the market may wish to use. Here is a brief description of the most widely used short term trading styles.
Day Trading
Day traders buy and sell stocks throughout the day in the hope that the price of the stocks will fluctuate in value during the day, allowing them to earn quick profits. A day trader will hold a stock anywhere from a few seconds to a few hours, but will always sell all of those stocks before the close of each day. The day trader will therefore not own any positions at the close of any day, and there is overnight risk. The objective of day trading is to quickly get in and out of any particular stock for a profit anywhere from a few cents to several points per share on an intra-day basis. Day trading can be further subdivided into a number of styles, including:
Scalpers: This style of day trading involves the rapid and repeated buying and selling of a large volume of stocks within seconds or minutes. The objective is to earn a small per share profit on each transaction while minimizing the risk. Momentum Traders: This style of day trading involves identifying and trading stocks that are in a moving pattern during the day, in an attempt to buy such stocks at bottoms and sell at tops.
Swing Traders
The principal difference between day trading and swing trading is that swing traders will normally have a slightly longer time horizon than day traders for holding a position in a stock. As is the case with day traders, swing traders also attempt to predict the short term fluctuation in a stock's price. However, swing traders are willing to hold stocks for more than one day, if necessary, to give the stock price some time to move or to capture additional momentum in the stock's price. Swing traders will generally hold on to their stock positions anywhere from a few hours to several days.
Swing trading has the capability of providing higher returns than day trading. However, unlike day traders who liquidate their positions at the end of each day, swing traders assume overnight risk. There are some significant risks in carrying positions overnight. For example news events and earnings warnings announced after the closing bell can result in large, unexpected and possibly adverse changes to a stock's price.
Position Trading
Position trading is similar to swing trading, but with a longer time horizon. Position traders hold stocks for a time period anywhere from one day to several weeks or months. These traders seek to identify stocks where the technical trends suggest a possible large movement in price is likely to occur, but which may not be fully played out for several weeks or months.
Online Trading
Online trading is not really properly described as a trading style. Rather, online trading is simply a term that refers to the medium used to enter and execute trades. Online traders, which can include long term investors, as well as day, swing and position traders, use either an Internet connection or a direct access online trading platform to access and execute trades with Web based brokers.

Money for the Long Run: Learn About Online Trading

When you're starting out in your career, it's smart to invest in your employer's 401(k) plan or a mutual fund.
Another option is to dabble in the stock market. Stephen Rapp, 23, of Avon, a recent graduate of Roberts Wesleyan College who works for Rochester Broadway Theatre League, has decided to take that gamble. And rather than doing business with a local financial firm, he's relying on E*Trade, an online discount brokerage firm, to make his trades at a significant cost savings.
The price of cutting costs
Online discount brokerage firms, such as E*Trade or Ameritrade, allow you to conduct business on the Web or over the phone using a toll-free number. You'll pay less in commission fees for trades than you would if you used a standard brokerage firm.
For example, Rapp pays a flat rate of $9.99 to make five to 49 trades per month. He'd pay a $50 minimum commission fee if he used a full-service firm to make such trades, says Antonio Porretta, 30, of Irondequoit, a financial adviser with Brighton Securities.
Low commissions are what attracted Rapp to E*Trade. While he's saving on fees, however, he doesn't have one-on-one contact with a personal financial adviser, which could cost him in the long run.
"A lot of people outside of our business think, 'You must hate service vehicles like E*Trade, because they're taking business' from us. But that's not necessarily the case," Porretta says. The financial adviser says his focus is more than just trades; he cares about creating client relationships.
"The No. 1 reason investors fail is emotion versus a rational decision. An adviser takes emotion out of the equation," he says.
While discount firms provide a lot of historical information about individual stocks, they won't guide you in making investment decisions. And although Rapp does a lot of research before ordering a trade, he admits to making some blunders.
"There are some stocks that I take a dive on, but I have to look at it as part of the learning process," he says.
Another tricky element of online trading is timing. Stock prices can shift while orders are being routed and change before transactions are final.
Is online trading for you?
Researchers have long studied investors' trading habits, and it seems that women do better using online firms than men.
"The assessment is that the men suffer from significantly more overconfidence than the women, provoking them to trade much more, burning up more in trading costs," says Dan Burnside, a certified financial planner and lecturer at the William E. Simon Graduate School of Business Administration at the University of Rochester.
Burnside adds that, in general, online investors tend to buy too few stocks, when experts say that diversification - buying a range of stocks, bonds and mutual funds and participating in a 401(k) plan - is the key to successful investing.
Remember, you can afford to take some risks and make mistakes when you're young, but, in the long run, your goal should be a portfolio packed with all kinds of investments.