Decide which kind of trader you want to be. The approach you choose will determine: Your stock ideas, Your typical holding period, Features you’ll need from a broker, Tax impacts. What kind of strategies are you going to use?. Are you going to be a scalper, trying to get a few pennies on every trade?. Are you going to only buy stocks or are you also going to short-sell them?. At what point will you cut losses and realize gains?. Are you going to do swing trading, trying to ride a longer up or down move in a stock?. Or will you be a day trader, trading in and out of a position in a day or two?. Do you need the money soon?. What level of risk are you comfortable with?. Do you want to buy stocks (more risky) or funds (generally less risky)?. How much money do you want to invest and how much can you add over time?.
Set up your brokerage account. you might want to select a broker that’s known for providing a high level of customer support. Some brokers also offer excellent educational resources (articles and videos) on their site that can get you up to speed on the broker’s features and tools. You may want to consider brokers that offer charting capabilities and other technical studies to help you spot opportunities or those that have low costs, since you’ll likely be making a lot of trades. Let your style direct the brokerage you select.
Learn how to read charts and trading tools, bars, candles, coulomns, line, area, etc. Indicators, Volume, Drawing Trends, Patterns, Fibonnaci, etc. So you can find your support and resistance that help you execute the trade. You don't have to expert in all tools. Remember that the tools are there to help you not to confuse you.
Find trade ideas. Your broker may provide ideas for you, or you may have to do your own research to find interesting set-ups. That can mean analyzing lots of stock situations. You’ll also want to consider when it may be best to sell a position. As traders, you’ll often sell when the stock hits a certain price, either a gain or loss.
Execute the trade. Once you own the stock, you can carefully watch for when you want to sell, or you can be less attentive if you aim to hold the stock for years.
Manage risk. Traders who want to live to trade another day should know how to manage risk so that they don’t bleed cash when they do make a bad trade. One of the first rules of trading is to cut losses before they turn into big losses and then into catastrophic losses. Risk management is the most important skill a trader can have.
Diversify your positions. Diversification is another form of risk management, and it has the potential to increase your total returns, too. Diversification helps to smoothen your returns over time versus a few (volatile) stocks dictating your returns.
Stay away from pump-and-dump schemes. You’ll want to be wary of hucksters promising quick returns. Trading is hard work, and no one knows with certainty how a stock is going to perform. But traders can make it easier on themselves by only buying and selling legitimate companies.
Practice virtual trading. As you practice, however, track your performance so that you have an accurate gauge of how you would do in reality, not just rely on your subjective impression. And don’t forget that you’ll probably trade much differently when your real money – and your emotions – are on the line.