The answer to this question is a qualified yes. Many people make a great income day trading the emini contracts from their computer at home. That being said, there are some important prerequisite skills you need to develop before you make your first foray into the trading world, and the first question you need to ask yourself is "Am I committed to learning how to day trade?" If you don’t have a high level of commitment to the task of learning, you should shelve your plans to day trade. The markets can be very unforgiving to those who think they can start a trading account and the markets will reciprocate and fill their account with cash. Trading is a skilled profession, but the skills can be readily learned. Like any profession, your commitment is

all that is needed to master the skills of day trading.

What do you need to learn to day trade?

There are several things you can do to hasten the learning curve in day trading, but first you will need some basic necessities.

1. A reliable computer with at least 2Gb of RAM.

2. A high speed Internet Connection, preferably through the cable company, but DSL will work.

3. An office in your home or somewhere you can work uninterrupted.

That takes care of the physical necessities, which is the easiest part of your preparation to trade. It is important that your computer is in great working condition and your Internet connection is reliable and fast. A dial up connection will not work in day trading, as the speed required to execute trades is insufficient. Cable modems are optimal as the speed and throughput is superior to anything else on the market.

Next you will need to learn a system and practice for a time. There are several reputable and scores of disreputable trading education firms out there and I have a favorite I reference in the resource box below. I don’t recommend buying a book or two and then trying to tackle the markets. Learn from a good firm and develop a mentoring relationship with the firm. I think this is one of the most important aspects of trading; most good traders had someone who served as a mentor to them and a backstop when they get in a rut or simply have questions about the market. Know your trading system inside and out, then spend some time and trade on a demo account to learn how the trading platform works.

You will want to establish a working relationship with a futures brokerage, and an individual broker in that firm. Many of the brokerages have substantial online and off line resources that can be of great help in your trading. Usually your mentor will have a suggestion for a good brokerage, and quite possibly an individual broker in that firm who has been helpful to his past students. As I said, I always cultivate a good relationship with my broker as they can be very helpful in your trading and account management.

One of the toughest skills to master in trading is not the technical aspect of the trade. No, you would think all the charts and lines would be confusing, but that is not the case. Mastering your own emotions is among the most challenging aspects of trading and probably the causes the demise of most new traders. Once you have learned a good system to trade, you must require yourself to stick to that system regardless of what your emotions tell you. It is very common to see a trader get off to a great start and then start improvising a bit and find themselves consistently in losing trades. Self-discipline is the name of the game, and maintaining self-discipline is a challenging proposition. Trading psychology is an emerging field in trading and their findings are startling, and most of the findings point to the euphoria created by winning trades and effect it has on the ego of the trader. Winning trades beget sloppy trading technique and overconfidence in an individual trader’s ability. The consequence for this kind of thinking can be catastrophic and the market has little regard for your crestfallen ego when you lose your trading self-discipline and trade outside the parameters of the system you were taught. Trading systems work if you stay true to the system, but when you decide to take trades "on a lark" you will find the machinations of the market to be very unforgiving. Self-discipline is the name of the game.

The day trading profession is the fusion of technology and skill, and the markets have developed specific products for day traders to use, specifically the emini contracts. You will learn in your trading training which markets to trade. I always recommend a trader learn one market before he/she begins to tackle another emini market. Each market has it’s own personality and you are well advised to learn that personality before jumping from contract to contract.

Hopefully this brief article has given you some insight into day trading, and encouraged you to seek out information to see if day trading is a good profession for you. I love it, because I get to spend more time with my family and children, travel, and I don’t have a boss. If those are goals you desire, you might want to investigate day trading as a profession.