Tools I use to be a successful trader

To be a successful daytrader you need to have a full set of tools at your disposal. Some of these tools can be costly others are free. There are so many different brokers, chat rooms, screeners to choose from it can be hard to find the best ones.

First lets talk about brokers. When I started trading at 18 I opened a scottade account. With all of the advertising and 7 dollar trades it seemed to be the obvious choice. They do not allow shorting for stocks trading under 5 dollars. At the time that didn't bother me as I didn't want to mess with cheaper tickers anyway. Over the years scottrade has always provided me with great service and a extremely low commission rate. Much lower then the advertised 7 dollars. A good chuck of my net worth has been made with scottrade. About a year or so ago their borrows started to get weak and maybe 6 months ago they started restricting volatile stocks from shorting. Guess where I make all of my money, yep volatile stocks. As of late scottrade has been my least used broker and I even consider closing it today. I would not recommend it to a short biased trader. If they take away their restrictions I would use them again. They are good if you want to place a large order and don't want to worry about ecn fees.

Lets talk about my best broker today Centerpoint. I started opening ETC 2 years ago. I was pleasantly surprised with their borrows and the ability to short tickers of any price. I'm not a big penny stock trader but I do play a lot of stocks between 1-5 dollars which scottrade does not allow. The customer service at Centerpoint is hands down the best I have ever received. There are countless times I have been boating, hunting, shopping or just away from my computer and I place an order over AIM. Tremendously helpful! One thing I was not used to at the time is ecn fees. If you are taking liquidity these can add up fast! After a while I learned to add liquidity most of the time and actually get a rebate for doing this. After a year with centerpoint using ETC I opened a Wedbush account. There are times ETC will restrict a name from shorting and that's where Wedbush comes in handy. Also with Wedbush I have never been bought in before T+3. Overall the customer service and borrows I get at Centerpoint make this my go to broker. Fees can add up quickly for borrows and taking liquidity. I consider this a cost of doing business.

Third I use Etrade for some long term positions that I have. I'm also on a negotiated commission rate there. I use this account infrequently mainly to just have extra BP if I need to box shares or just need extra cash. I do not recommend Etrade for daytraders.

I have used Interactive Brokers in the past but closed the account due to their horrendous customer service. If you plan to trade with IB, make sure you are ok being on hold 20-30 min waiting for an answer to your question. Even with the poor customer service their borrows are decent and they are a great option for long term borrows if you need them. Im considering re-opening an account

I used speedtrader with great success for 2-3 years but when they went to COR clearing I left. COR was hands down the worst clearing firm I have ever been with. Horrible borrows, huge maintenance requirements and they would always give me a margin call and want me to deposit more cash. To me, COR was literally a nightmare. Even though I loved speedtrader, I decided to close the account. Speedtrader had excellent customer service and very aggressive commissions. Today they have ETC and I would recommend them again. I already trade with ETC and centerpoint so I have no re-opened with them yet. 

Next lets talk about my screeners. Finviz is by far the best screener that I have found. My daily scans consist of the biggest daily, weekly and monthy gainers. Obviously if you know how I trade I'm looking for a parabolic move or over-extension to short. With finviz you not only get the scans but you also get a corresponding chart to go with each ticker. This cuts down tremendously on time. Before I found finviz I would have my scanner load the results and I would have to put each ticker into bigcharts to get a look at the chart. With finviz all of that is taken away and my scans are now completed in about 1/4 the time.  A few times a week I go over the biggest daily, weekly and monthly losers as well. With the bull market we have had the past few years I haven't used this much. Here are some of the scans I use. Daily gainers, here, weekly gainers here and monthly gainers here

I also use Equityfeed for intraday scanning. I just started this a few months ago and I haven't familiarized myself with all it has to offer yet. The main reason I got it was to find big intraday moves. What I'm looking for is big moves in the 5, 10 and 30 minute time frame. This screener is mainly just used for intraday scalping. They have raised their prices to 250 a month but for me it is well worth the money.

Next lets discuss chat rooms. I have used 3 in the past which I will not mention but only stuck with one of them Investorsunderground. There are so many reasons I recommend this service. First of all Nate the head trader has a method very similar to mine. He is definitely more versatile then me but I'm trying to catch up. He goes long, short, trades nasdaqs otc's you name he trades it. If you want to learn it all he is the best. The room is probably the best I have found to share momentum stock ideas and it is very timely with news releases as well. First thing I do when I power up my computer each morning is to log into chat and see what is going on premarket.  Not only is the chat room very beneficial but the webinars are great. I haven't caught as many webinars lately as I have wanted because of time but hope to start getting back to them. The other thing I like about this room is the friends I have made. I chat daily with other great traders and sharing ideas is extremely helpful. Lastly Nate makes himself available daily to chat with his members one on one. The small cost for this chat room pays for itself time and time again. I also recommend Nates trading DVDs found here 

As most of you know I'm almost strictly a technical trader and do not trade news very often. Again a lot of news is mentioned in the I/U chat room. I hope to get into news and fundamentals a bit more and from chatting with some very good traders it seems tradethenews, briefing and flyontheway are probably the best for breaking news and staying on top of upgrades/downgrades.

When I really got into trading about 8-9 years ago I would simply search for the cheapest brokers and any free content that I could get my hands on. I quickly learned that the cheapest is not always best and you get what you pay for. The services that I use today are well worth the money and pay for themselves time and time again.