Yeah still lurkin shovel. These times are made for people like...

Yeah still lurkin shovel. These times are made for people like highlandlad, I prefer to ST trade trends so I've had to sit on my hands for a month. Only over these past few days have I started to see some stocks looking appealing to me. I anticipate much more time sitting on my hands unfortunately. With us in lockdown over ere it's a little tough to keep your head in the game either way, mostly spending time watching and analysing.

Oh and please don't call me a guru for heavens sake, people will think I've got a book to sell them or something. I'm just a humble trader that waffles too much.

@Domwaffle
Nice to see another kiwi around here, there are a few around here but not many for sure. Yeah ASB fees make daytrading the ASX tricky business, you do need to be mindful of their fees, especially if you are trading in small amounts. I recall they offer half the fees for the NZX, and with things as volatile as they are these days may be a better option sticking with it. I started out playing on the NZX, and I think it's a pretty good place to cut your teeth. The ASX is generally a lot more volatile, and you can run into trouble very quickly if you don't know what you are doing. The disclaimer that people normally give it to not trade anything you can afford to lose, and that could not be more important to keep in mind than right now. These are not normal times for markets, so I would say please, please, be careful. The US markets are probably about as volatile as they get, but right now the OZ markets are not far off being the most volatile around to be honest.

https://www.directbroking.co.nz/directtrade/static/home.aspx is the only other NZ based retail broker I know is still alive. I haven't tried them as I already bank with ASB and a fine for what I do, I really don't know if they are any better or not but may be worth a look.

For charting I use Tradingview (https://www.tradingview.com/), I highly recommend their platform for those that don't have access to the likes of iress that the lucky Aussies have. There are a few other platforms out there, but bang for buck about as good as you get if you want live data. You can even use it for free if you don't mind 20min delayed data. https://au.investing.com/ is another good free site for market data I use a lot. https://www.incrediblecharts.com/ is another one that is popular with short term traders, I used it before and rate it highly. Just a lack of live data means I don't use it anymore.

There are many books around, probably more books than there are traders! But truthfully whatever you read in a book probably wouldn't help you much through what is happening right now. Actually probably one of the worst times to be trying to learn. I mean we have been having days with the volatility you would normally get over the course of a month. We are getting multi-year volatility over the course of a month. Any good or bad trades will be exaggerated a lot, it's easy to go from feeling like a genius to an idiot over the course of a day, or even a hour. But if you are interested in studying charts or technical analysis, personally I would aim for learning something like VSA (Volume Spread Analysis) or Wyckoff rather than a book about chart patterns, or than one of the many candlestick books I think most of us read first. If you can understand that, a lot of charting will fall into place and make sense rather than feeling like you are just following someone else's playbook. But follow whatever path is most comfortable for you, I'm sure most of us all have had different paths to get where we are.

If you have any questions normally someone around here will help if you ask in the aftermarket threads (they go up a few minutes after the ASX closes), but feel free to tag me if you have any questions (type"@" then someone's username to tag them in a post).

Also be careful of social media, a lot of noise out there, it's easy to get lost in it all. A lot of people that will call themselves gurus and try to sell you a story to get you to buy up their stocks. If something doesn't make sense to you, learn about it until you can decide for yourself if they are legit or not. The best advice I can give is to stay sceptical, of companies, other traders, news headlines, whatever it is. There are traps awaiting you at every corner, but if you keep your wits about you they are avoidable. It's a crazy and stressful pursuit at the best of times, but I wouldn't have it any other way.

Most traders blow up their account or give up within the first few months, so be patient and don't be reckless. There is a fortune awaiting some, but for most all they have found is ruin unfortunately, especially given the month we have had. Like many other jobs in the world, it takes years of training or learning before you are any good at it. Don't be surprised if it sucks at the beginning, for most of us it did. For some it still does haha . If I haven't scared you off somehow, good luck!