Trading (what it is)
Trading is buying and selling something, like a stock, hoping to sell it for more than you paid. Traders work over minutes to weeks rather than years.
In depth
The mechanics are plain. You buy 10 shares at 100 dollars, so 1,000 dollars. If the price moves to 104 and you sell, you keep 40 dollars less costs. If it falls to 97 and you sell, you are out 30. You can also sell first and buy back later, which pays when the price falls.
Holding time is what separates trading from investing. An investor buys a business and waits years. A day trader is out by the close and a swing trader holds days or weeks. Shorter holds mean more decisions, more costs, and less time for a good idea to work.
Why it matters
The market pays you for being right about price, not for effort or for hours in the seat. That is why a written plan and a loss limit matter more than a clever forecast. Money lost early cannot compound later, so surviving the first year is the real job.
TraderLog is where the results live. It imports your trades, shows each day on a calendar, and turns them into win rate, expectancy and profit factor. The free Morning Map draws the zones on SPY, QQQ and IWM before the open.
Frequently asked questions
Enough that losing it would not hurt. Frequent day trades in the US also need a broker-set minimum account size.
Time. Investors hold for years and care about the business. Traders hold for minutes to weeks and care about price.
Keep your Trading (what it is) trades on the record in TraderLog
Trades import from Schwab and IBKR on their own, every day lands on a calendar with its P&L, and the day's entry sits beside it. Replay any trade on a TradingView chart. Free to start, no card.
Every trading morning at 8:40 ET our model draws the SPY, QQQ and IWM zones it expects to matter, on a TradingView chart, before the open. Where price reaches one, it has turned 74 percent of the time. Free, no account. See today's map