L ast time, I outlined some of the primary differences between professional stock trading and retail stock trading. Let me clarify a few things. In general, trading for a living involves 25 to 200 trades per day, and a daily share volume of around 60,000 and up. In contrast, retail investing is when you make five to 20 trades per week. Investing online is fine, and is actually the preferred way to get into or out of a particular stock.
Investors try to get a good return on their investment dollars and try to outperform the market.
Traders make money trading based on their skills, efforts, and time. That would be ridiculous. To have a chance to make a living by trading, you really must be able to trade in blocks of 2,000 shares or more. With that in mind, do the math. Many traders who have traded online tell me horror stories of having to sell one stock before they could buy another.