| In the simplest terms, the purchase and sale, or sale and purchase, of a security on the same day. Day traders aim to make (often small) profits on a large number of 'intra-day' transactions. They follow the markets, use technical analysis to spot price trends, and get 'in and out' very quickly. Day trading became synonymous during the bull run in the late 1990s with the trend for private investors to abandon their normal jobs, set themselves up with a computer, some software and a data feed, and trade the markets for a living. One difficulty for UK day traders is that dealing costs are still relatively high. In the US, where charges on trades tend to be lower than in Europe, and traders can link direct to the markets, it is more practicable. Day traders are sometimes known as scalpers.
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