How to Get Started in Electronic Day Trading: Everything You Need to Know to Play Wall Street's Hottest Game Review

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(More customer reviews)The information in this book is simplistic and (in my opinion) there does indeed seem to be a not-so-hidden agenda aiming readers toward the author's courses and his trading firm. On the other hand, if you don't know much about trading, it's a pretty good introduction to the basics.
Most of the strategies discussed would work equally well simply by using any of the reputable on-line brokerage firms such as Waterhouse or E*Trade for trade executions. In my experience, placing appropriate limit orders with a good online broker results in almost instantaneous executions and if you want to play the level II NASDAQ game, well, good luck! May I say from many years of trading: If you wish to "scalp" or do short term swing trading, or make money on 1/8 point moves at the speed of light, beware! (At least the author warns of the inherent dangers lurking to snag the day trader.)
It's OK to be optimistic, and this book certainly is. It's a little reminiscent of the now-infamous "Wall Street Money Machine" (by a former cab driver who will go un-named) but to be fair, it's not nearly as irresponsible. It IS a GREAT idea to simulate trades before you use real money and, to the author's credit, this rational approach is advocated. Then details get quite fuzzy and the clear message seems to be: For more details, take my course.
In the 1990's I have watched friends and aquaintances jump into the various "hot" and "exciting" arenas of OEX options, option writing and buying, commodity futures, short-term-day trading, and the like. These are not dumb or untrained people, but PhDs in engineering, business professionals and the like. Results have been, to put it kindly, mixed, and one of them got wiped out to the tune of $200K rather efficiently.
My wife was a financial analyst for a Fortune 500 company and I have been a trader for many years. Now that I am retired from my engineering career, I have lots of time to dedicate to the craft of trading...I choose the word "craft" deliberately...and my advice to those who "have a passion for trading" is: Take a cold bath for the passion, learn as much as you can as long as you can, and then start with teeny trades, one at a time. Maybe one day I'll actually meet somebody who was an instant success in this challenging area, but I haven't yet.

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