The Electronic Day Trader: Successful Strategies for On-line Trading

Most of us have been conditioned to approach the stock market as a long-term proposition. Many of the bestselling investment books coach readers to seek value in the best companies for long periods of time. Day trading, a recent phenomenon brought on by the reform of the financial markets and by the growth of online trading, goes in just the opposite direction. Instead of buying and holding stocks for years, successful day traders make money by dipping in and out of the market in a matter of minutes, finding profit in the tiny fractions between the bid and asking price of a stock or by catching the ups and downs of stock prices, which are driven by everything including the latest news from CNBC or speculation on what Alan Greenspan ate for breakfast.

In The Electronic Day Trader, authors Marc Friedfertig and George West explain the rationale behind day trading and offer strategies that can help you become successful at this fast game of speculation and timing. The authors write, "Day trading appears so deceptively easy, yet in reality it is a never-ending challenge. It is a game, an opportunity to match wits against the majority and thereby prosper. Day trading the stock market is the ultimate opportunity to speculate and the ultimate game."

The book goes into great detail about how the various stock exchanges work and shows how to get direct access to the NASDAQ through various electronic trading systems. If you're looking for an investment book that will help you build a retirement portfolio, look elsewhere. But if the daily fluctuations in the price of a stock make your heart beat faster and if you're seriously interested in honing your skill as day trader or want to become one, The Electronic Day Trader is definitely worth a look. --Harry C. Edwards