Day trading is an excellent way to make good money, but if you’ve heard it’s easy or a form of passive income, you’ve heard wrong. You need to put some 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.

The second necessary habit is having good quantitative thinking skills. Working on hunches will allow you to make or lose money in day trading. You need to be able to read and understand the numbers without thinking about them if you want to make good decisions. You have to be able to convert and analyze the numbers in your head carefully, so you’ll be able to tell if something is a blip or a lasting trend, and you have to be able to 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.

Successful day traders also have to have patience and skills of observation, and combine them with a short memory. This can be pretty hard to learn, since you have to avoid feeling disappointment when you don’t catch a stock at the top, or when you lose money because the short you’re intending just never shows up. Don’t get caught up in things when you lose, and don’t allow winning to take over your life, either.

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.

Remember that a lot of the research and analysis won’t need to be done by you directly. The best traders always have a number of tools at their disposal, as well as many different data services and research sources ready to access.

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 believe that you have all these skills, day trading offers an exciting and fascinating way to make a huge income. It’s a job you can honestly consider fun, and if you have what it takes, it’ll be pretty enriching, too.

Venturing into a small-scale business may require less investment that getting into a medium or large-scale enterprise, but the requirements are just as complicated. If you are considering starting-up a small business, the SBA or Small Business Administration can help you secure financial assistance.

Although the SBA technically doesn’t provide loans, it acts as a guarantor to lenders so that they may extend financial help to small businesses that have a hard time accessing loans through the usual channels.

SBA’s Mircoloan Program

In the Micro-loan Program, the SBA provides funding for non-profit money lenders in specific areas. The funds are then used by the lenders to provide loans to qualified business-owners. Small-scale businesses can get loans as high as $35,000 under the Program although most business-owners take out about $13,000 on average. Generally, the payment term covers more than six years, although this can fluctuate depending on various available loan schemes. The interest charges also differ, but they are generally between 8 to 13%.

To apply for the microloan, you will have to satisfy certain requirements. For example, lenders may ask for a collateral or written guarantees. Some lenders may also require borrowers to take a seminar of short term training prior to approving the loan. This can be beneficial because you will acquire information and skills necessary for operating your small business.

SBA’s 7(a) Loan Program

Under the Program, the SBA guarantees the loan that you take out from money lenders, thus sharing the risk with the lender. However, the SBA guarantee does not necessarily mean immediate approval of the loan as it is still up to the lender to decide on it. However, if you do qualify, you can take out a loan of up $750,000.

Qualifying for this type of loan also means meeting tight requirements. Such criteria include:

- Meeting certain criteria in business size

- Type of business involved in

- Where the loan will be used

- The business’s financial capability

There are several types of loans under the 7(a) program. One of these is the SBA Express where borrowers can access up to $350,000 in loans. The SBA’s turnaround time for this type of loan is 36 hours.

The Community Express Loan is another important type of loan under the Program which is suited for businesses that are being set up in communities where they are most needed. Under this arrangement, borrowers can avail of loans of up to $250,000, and with technical training assistance from the SBA.

SBC’s CDC or 504 Loan Program

There are certain restrictions that the SBA imposes regarding what to use the 504 loan for. Borrowers may not use the loan for refinancing, as working capital and for repaying debt among other things. Some of the areas the loan may be used for are:

- In buying land

- Expansion, renovation and addition of new facilities

- Parking facilities

- Purchase of equipment or machinery

- Landscaping