Here are some share trading tips to help you stay focused and moving in the right direction.

The first thing to do is determine what you want to achieve from your trading schedule. What level of return do you expect? Are you willing to follow a system in the pursuit of success? How much money are you willing to risk? Always be clear about your goals and objectives, otherwise you will not be able to measure your success or failure.

Secondly, think about how much time you can commit to your daily trading activities. It is good to have a regimented block of time to commit on a daily basis, because this is your best way to learn quickly and also to keep a close watch over the performance of your portfolio.

Remember that their may be tax implications for holding shares. You will need to have a chat with your accountant to find out what, if any, implications there are for you and your portfolio. Do this sooner rather than later.

Make sure you have a separate account for trading, distinct from your personal savings or other accounts. This may seem obvious, but you definitely do not want to be confusing and mixing your trading money with your regular daily money.

Finally, remember to be patient. Share trading is a lifelong skill that takes time to learn.

Put simply, a share trading system is a strategy; it is a set of rules that you base all actions on regardless of how the market is performing.

The real advantage to using a quality share trading system is that it forces you to make stock market decisions based on proven market patterns, and not on emotions.

In a sense, having a system is about taking the guesswork out of trading and using history and rules to advantage.

There are five elements to a normal share trading system.Style – this is where you define your share trading objective.

Entry – these are the conditions that must be present for you to trade a certain stock.

Risk – these are the rules that you have in place to limit any losses.

Exit – your strategy for getting out of a stock.

Testing – checking that your strategy works before using real money on it.

There are three main types of share trading software and each is very different from the others. These three types are tool boxes, grey boxes and black boxes.

But not every piece of share trading software can deliver on its promises, and users need to approach with caution.

The way tool box software works is to allow traders to assess price action and to apply technical indicators to help in determining opportunities in the market. Basically, the tool box software categorises information (for example, company earnings) efficiently to inform traders before taking action in the market.

Grey and black boxes are a different species, however, and require far less user interaction and decision making. In essence, these systems run on ‘auto pilot’. The way they operate is to provide buy and sell signals based on a formula.

The main difference between grey and black boxes is that the grey boxes reveal the details of how the trading signals work, and the black boxes do not. The effect of the black boxes on novices is to appear secret and special.

Many experts warn against using grey and black boxes, and not just because they cost exorbitant amounts of money to buy.Tool boxes, however, are widespread and very useful.

The good news is that setting up an online share trading account is a relatively easy, hassle-free exercise.

But before you sign up for a new account, you owe it to yourself to do a little research and find an online broker that suits your needs and financial position.

For this reason it is worth reading widely about the different features and prices on offer from the various stockbrokers operating in the market.

Generally speaking, online share trading accounts have cheaper brokerage fees than traditional brokerage firms. Some services will charge you as little as $17 or $18 for a trade up to $5000 value.

This means that using online brokerage services you could begin your trading career with as little as $1000.

The flipside, of course, is that with online brokers you get far less investment advice and support than you would from a traditional broker.

Traditional brokers have far greater costs involved but can also accelerate the learning of new traders by lending their wealth of experience and knowledge to your trades.

It is a good idea to find out about both online and traditional brokers before you commit to one or the other.

Put simply, the real time share price is the latest market price for a stock.

Every stock exchange will have real time share price data available, and the online trading platform you use should also display real time data.

Some services will charge extra in order to provide the most detailed and useful real time market data, but it is almost always worth the extra investment for serious day traders.

Once you organise a real time share price data feed in your trading platform software, it should update automatically to keep you notified of the latest market happenings.

A good feature of several modern share trading software packages is the ability to ‘watch’ designated stocks and monitor their performance.

You can even trigger alerts with some software, so that you are informed when the stocks you are watching hit a certain high or low price.

It is worth finding out how ‘real’ the real time data of your software package is, because the greater the lag time the less useful the data is to you.

If you are unsure about the best way to consistently access the most up to date share price data, it is a good idea to speak to experienced traders for some advice.

Experienced investors will tell you a common mistake of new investors is looking to sell well performing shares in order to obtain a short-term cash boost.

Instead, they say, it is a far better strategy to hold on to shares that perform well and pay dividends. If you are in need of a cash injection, look to sell your worst performing shares.But judging which stocks are performing the worst (and which are the best to sell) is not as simple as glancing at the share price and offloading those on a downward trend.

Rather, the best approach is to look at the overall health of the company. Ask yourself why you invested in that company in the first place, and what has changed to make you lose faith in it.

If the company has fundamentally changed, it may be a good option to sell.

A good indicator when you are weighing up whether to sell a stock is to ask yourself the following question: would you buy the stock at its current price?

If the answer is no, then you should almost certainly sell.Remember that you can always buy back into a stock, possibly at a lower price. So try not to beat yourself up over a loss!

If you develop a talent for online share trading, you could take it to the next level and start your very own home-based share trading business.

Online share trading is a particularly attractive endeavour for people with plenty of talent but who have grown tired of working in an office.

The great advantage of online share trading, of course, is that you can work from the comfort of your own home. You won’t have to report to a boss and you won’t have to wear a suit every day. In addition, you control the hours you work and can make them flexible to match the other parts of your life.

If you are interested in becoming a home-based day trader, your first task should be to read as thoroughly and as widely as you can about online share trading.

There is no shortage of useful books on the subject, and you could also start off be opening a fantasy share trading account.

Fantasy share trading is a brilliant innovation that has allowed thousands of people to learn the ins and outs of share trading without risking their own money.

Being a successful online share trader is not beyond you, you just need to get the ball rolling and you will be in your element in no time at all.

Here are some instructions and tips to give you a basic idea about how to trade shares and get your investment strategy rolling.

First of all, you need to have an account with either a stock broking company or another intermediary licensed with the stock exchange you plan to trade in. Common types of stock broking intermediaries include financial planners and accountants. Many new investors find it very helpful to have a broker on their side as they begin their journey into share trading, but the use of online brokers (normally setup through banks) is becoming more widespread too.

When it comes to providing funds for trading, your broker will most likely require you to have money in a cash management account, to make sure you have enough money available to process new orders.

If you are using an online broker, you will definitely need to start an account with the broker’s associated financial institution before you can start trading.

In terms of the actual buying and selling of shares, there are two commands you can issue to your broker. Shares traded at “market price” will be bought or sold for whatever the prevailing price is at the time the trade goes through. Shares sold at “limit price” are where you instruct the broker as to your minimum sale price or maximum buy price.