Your story sounds very similiar to mine. I have saved up over the past few years for nothing in particular and have been interested in day trading over the past year or so. I took my chances and started to trade only to get burnt very very quickly. Brokerage fees ate my money, no stop losses, bought some very silly stocks and of course didnt research the stock THOROUGHLY enough. I stopped trading and went back to the drawing board. I then researched as many stocks as possible and instead of investing real money, I made up an excel spreadsheet and noted each stock I would of bought and at what price I would of sold. This took a lot of discipline because at times you just want to "adjust" your actual results. I checked volume to make sure these trades would of been ok to action. I soon had a list of around 140 stocks and I printed out each stocks printable report (which is found on ETRADE) and listed what they do and where they do it, relationships with other companies and the most recent important announcements. This still doesnt classify as research but gave me good ground to dig further into a company and see exactly what makes them tick. I did this for over 3 months until I become confident enough to re-join the market. I'm no big player or make a heap of money, just enjoy trading and the fun it brings when you just get on a good thing. Being in similiar circumstances as to you, I just had to pop in and say what worked for me and if it helps you AWESOME, if not, I hope your theory works much better :). The biggest thing I can suggest is to research, research and do more research on anything that strikes you as a "winner". If at anytime something goes wrong, stop and look back at why it went wrong. This will help to avoid at anytime in the future :)
Wishing you all the best and hopefully soon, no more weekend work!!!!
