If you are interested in day trading you first need to know what it is all about and to understand the basics of day trading. As a career, day trading attracts individuals from many walks of life.
Important: The principles presented in this article mainly applies to day trading. But these info can also be used for stock trading, currency trading and futures trading.
What is Day Trading?
Day trading generally stands for the system of selling and buying financial tools such as bonds or stocks throughout the day. Many day traders sell their positions before the market close of the trading day to avoid the risk of price gaps (differences between the previous day’s close and the next day’s open price) at the open.
But don’t be fooled by all the glory of day trading. Day trading is extremely risky and can result in substantial financial losses in a very short period of time. Estimates are that 80% to 90% of all those who begin day trading today will lose their trading capital within the next 12 months.
It is necessary to plan your trading business and prepare a proper strategy for achieving success at day trading. Day trading is like running any other kind of business.
Here are some tips that will help you to succeed with day trading:

It is a good idea to record all of your day trading results.

Get a mentor. Is there any serious profession that you can learn without a mentor?

Before jumping into day trading, remember to do your homework first.

Learn from your losses – take advantage of each loss to improve your knowledge of the market.

Be picky when selecting your trades. Remember, the important point is how much you earn in a month and not on how many times you execute orders.

Characteristics of Successful Traders
If you want to succeed with day trading, then you should do exactly what the professional traders do:

Novice traders spend all their time working on entries, while seasoned traders know that the really difficult decisions in trading involve exiting profitable positions.

Most successful day traders have a true love or passion about their day trading activities.

Practice paper trading until you become completely comfortable with the day trading system and confident in your ability to use such techniques as “buy/sell orders” and “stops”.

Successful traders have one to three things that work and they use them over and over and over and over again for as long as they are profitable.

Successful traders identify what type of trader they are and do not try to trade a methodology that does not fit their personality.
In Conclusion
Matching a method of day trading with your personality is the only way you will ever feel comfortable in the markets. Go with the flow Be conservative, and do not let the position take control of your account. Do not expect to become an expert day trader overnight.

In simplistic terms, an automated or mechanical trading system is a set of specific rules which when applied to the markets, signal entry and exit points automatically. The rules can consist of instructions with regard to the position of say moving averages, oscillators, or some other technical indicator, or maybe specific price patterns, or a markets proximity to certain key price levels, Etc. Most often several of the above are combines in order to create a full set of rules. As a simple example, if a 20 period moving average crosses over a 50 period moving average and the stochastic indicator is less than 20, then buy.

Once your list of rules are coded into a full system, you instruct your trading platform to trade the system on an automated basis. The system will from this point on, automatically place all of the buy / sell orders into the markets.

Automated trading systems take all of the guesswork, personal interpretation, gut feeling, instinct and emotions out of trading, thus eliminating many of the knee jerk reactions traders might find themselves making due to the fear and greed emotions that are part and parcel of non automated trading. Most Systems fall into one of three categories, either they are designed to trade with the trend, against the trend, or on a breakout.

Trend Following means that if the market is moving strongly in a particular direction, then you look for a good place to enter, in the direction of the current strong movement. Counter Trend or Fading means that if the market is moving in a particular direction, then you look for a good place to enter, as you predict that the strong move is about to end, i.e. the market could be overbought or approaching strong resistance. Breakout trades look for prices to move out beyond a certain range, i.e. if the market trades above the highest high of the last 20 bars, then buy. Or positions are taken if prices are breaking out of a particular chart formation, like a triangle for instance.

They can be designed to day trade, say on 1, 3, 5 or 15 minute charts, swing trade on say 60 minute or daily based charts, or trade long term on say daily or weekly based charts.

Day Trading is where traders look to make quick profits from the small market moves that occur during the day. They never hold positions overnight. Swing or Short Term Trading is where traders take a position in the market and look to hold this position for several days in order to make a profit from short term market movements. Long Term Trading is where traders take a position in the market and look to hold it for weeks, months or maybe even years.

Other aspects that are included in the development of a trading system should be risk management, i.e. using a stop loss, trade management, i.e. using a profit target or trailing stop and money management, i.e. how many contracts to trade in relation to the account size.

A person who wishes to trade the markets with an automated trading system has 3 choices, either develop a trading system themselves, have an expert code the system for them, or purchase an existing trading system. Developing a profitable trading system yourself is by no means an easy task. It requires a great deal of understanding with regard to the indicators, the various parameters and how they all interact with each other.