I want to sit in front of a screen draw trend lines, follow the market prices and trade throughout the day or every frew days (particularly futures and/or options). I dont want to be a broker, I dont have $25k to become a day trader, so what types of trading jobs are out there? What type of trading jobs are within an investment bank and how do I find one of those jobs? How do I get a job in a trading room?

Eh well, you need an internship if you want a hope of getting a full-time grad role in a bank. And trust me, most of the time you’re a middleman. You do market making on behalf of your clients, and depending on where you go, from vanilla equities to the highly structured fixed income products, it becomes more difficult. In essence there are few types, market makers, flow traders and prop traders. The last one is the most glamorous as you’re trading the bank’s own money. But you need plenty of experience to get there and if Obama and Volker have their way, they’re going to cut back on it. All I can say is get an internship anywhere on a specific desk, and do some quantitative finance courses (options theory, credit pricing, etc) or read Hull, and you’ll be in good stead

I am considering becoming a day-trader using spread betting as my vehicle.

I want to know what out of fundamental or technical analysis is of most benefit for day-trading the financial markets if you want to consistently make money as I know from my practice experience that trend trading the minutes, hours and the days range, whatever the direction is good to follow to take in lots of little profits.

Which out of technical or fundamental analysis is best to use for the purpose of day-trading – which is most efficient in consistently making money?

if you are day trading technical analysis is far more important – however you cannot neglect fundamentals – say the company is in to announce a trading update this week; can you really disregard that?? Likewise you cannot disregard inflation or unemployment numbers as these can have a big effect on the financial markets. Having said that I believe a lot in technical analysis, not necessarily because I believe it works but because so many traders follow it that it becomes a bit self-actualizing…

I am 18 and new to the stock markets. I have read books on it though. I am also an investor in penny or AIM listed oil companies. I want to become a milllionaire before age 30, and I’m looking for some proven stock investing strategies to get me there. Does anybody know of any proven stock investing strategies that work to make you rich? What about trend trading, and if so, on what types of stocks?

Gambling has nothing to do with the stock market. Unfortunately, those that equate the stock market to gambling, do it based on their own experiences of losing money in the stock market. This doesn’t "prove" that the stock market is a gambling mechanism. It only proves that they didn’t posses the basic intellect needed in order to make informed decisions based on factual evidence.

For hundreds of years, us humans have valued subjects based on our own personal experiences and not taking into consideration the very plausible fact that rather than that particular item having a lacking quality, it very well could have been us that had the lacking quality in our basic use of logic. I often find this to be true with people who purchase stocks and subsequently lose all their money. The first to be blamed is usually the stock market itself, then the Government, then the television commentators, then the blog site in which the investor received the "free" stock tip, and so on and so forth. The last person we often blame is ourselves because, unfortunately, a stupid person is usually the last person to realize that he is stupid.

The fact is, 80% of those who purchase stocks end up losing money. But, there is a small group who make money consistently by using common sense and patients. These people are called Value Investors.

In closing, you can’t be stupid and make money in the stock market. There are a lot of crooked people who work in this industry, but none of them are stupid. If you’ve failed at everything else in your life, at this job and that one, don’t expect to be successful at making money in the stock market. It takes intelligence, time, and a strong passion. If you lack one of them and don’t have all three of them, I guarantee you – you’ll be just another statistic of someone who purchased a stock and didn’t know what they were doing. Then, you can complain on a message board similar to this one and tell people the stock market is just a "gambling" casino when the fact is you aren’t intelligent enough to be purchasing stocks to begin with.

If one were to look at the first 30 minutes to one hour of the average stock that is trading in any particular day, does the positive or negative trend on average tend to span out for the rest of the day accordingly even if the continued change is very low? Thanks.

any day things can change in minutes

no real trend

I just have a curious question on spread betting the foreign exchange markets or forex and if the best way to trade it is by following the medium-term to long-term trend, i.e. a few weeks to a few months? Is this the best way to trade it as this is what I did with my practice account and gained 426% in 2 weeks? Is this the best way to go about it as I know currencies usually trend long-term? Please help/advise. Thanks.

There is no definite timeframe – some traders trade on a short timeframe, others like me prefer to take advantage of long term trends lasting for weeks/months. What is important is that you have a system and are sufficiently disciplined to stick with it. As for gaining 426% in 2 weeks on your practice account it implies that you are taking very big risks and you would probably trade differently when hard money is on the line…