Day trading can be an amazing way to make good money, or an amazingly stressful occupation. No matter what some may say, it’s not an easy ride. You have to put some serious work into it.

Day trading stocks and commodities is really a highly lucrative job. Just like a regular job, it needs you to have a number of traits in order to succeed, as well as a number of firmly ingrained habits.

Habit number one is having a good sense of time. Anyone who can’t get out of bed first thing in the morning or has trouble thinking before that cup of coffee is someone who will only be made miserable by day trading. The best time to assess the way you should play the market today is right before the opening bell. That’s at nine in the morning in New York Cit, or six am in California and five am in Alaska and Hawaii. You can’t just be an early riser. You also have to have a great internal clock and a good scheduling system.

Habit number two is maintaining a good set of quantitative thinking skills. You can make or lose money if you’re just running off your basic hunches, but to really do well, you have to make informed choices. That means reading, understanding, and dealing with numbers without thinking about them consciously. You’ll need to be numerate and be able to manipulate numbers in your head with enough skill to tell if you’re looking at a blip or a trend, then act accordingly.

I should point out that you don’t have to be a mathematician to do this. You can learn how to analyze the numbers correctly, even if you’re not fond of math. There are quite a few numerical skills that can turn into second nature, as long as you get well into the game.

Habit number three is maintaining good observational skills, being incredibly patient, and learning to forget. This can be pretty hard, since you have to keep yourself from feeling let down when you don’t catch a stock at its top, or when you lose money on a short sale that never turns up. Don’t get caught up in either your wins or your losses, or you’ll lose focus and money.

Dedicated research is also a must. Day trading doesn’t require you to devour accounting statements like long term investing usually does, but you do need to constantly be able to deal with the flow of data and make analyses. You also have to be proactive about shares that you’re buying or selling, and make snap judgments that you act on fast. The only way you’ll know these judgments are the right ones are through the right research. However, don’t let this desire for good research paralyze you.

You should also keep in mind the fact that much of this analysis isn’t directly done by you. The best traders always keep lots of tools available, and can quickly access a number of different data and research services.

If day trading appeals to you as a new career, you’ll have to build up a support network. You’ll need to find some investors willing to help you apply leverage, as well as a good broker.

If you’ve got all these skills and can develop these habits, day trading could be a great way to make a fantastic income. This is a job you can call fun honestly, and it can be pretty enriching, too.