Day trading (whether in forex or stock trading) refers to the buying and selling of financial assets/ instruments such as currencies, stocks, futures and options within the same day with the goal of making a profit from the difference between the buying and selling price. Day trading is different from other styles of trading in that positions are usually opened and closed within the same trading day. Most day trading systems have a lot of flexibility, and can have open positions for anywhere from a few minutes to a few hours, depending upon how the trade is doing (whether it is in profit). Some day traders will place multiple trades, while other traders will prefer to place one or very few trades in a day.

1. Knowledge and Experience

Anyone who wants to be a successful day trader must have a broad understanding and experience of market fundamentals. You must be able to gauge market sentiments. This can be done by doing constant research and also endeavour to get current information from the internet on the instrument you're trading.

2. Capital

Every trader must understand the fact that it takes money to make money. This goes to say that if you must succeed as a day trader, you need a huge amount of capital so as to be able to make many smaller trades. This increases your potential returns.

3. Business Plan

Every type of trade is regarded as a business so they require a business plan. The same is true for day trading. When organising your trading plan, you must take certain factors into consideration such as trading styles (short and long-term goals) target markets, trading hours and days, business setup needs, capital reinvestment, tax considerations to mention but a few.

4. Discipline

The fact that the market volatility within a day is usually high, day traders require discipline more than any type of trader if they must be successful in their trades. They must be able to separate themselves from their emotions and must not act impulsively.

5. Trading Tools

In order to be successful at day trading, the right technical tools must be used. This is because the right technical tools will get you into good trades and keep you out of bad ones. You need powerful and reliable indicators and tools to cross-verify the message of your chart pattern so as to place profitable trades and exit the market at the right time.

All successful day traders who are trading either on part-time or full-time basis possess these attributes which makes them successful and fulfilled in their trades. A lot of day traders fail because they either lack the above mentioned attributes and resources or they deliberately ignore them.