NEW YORK (CNN/Money) - When the tech bubble burst three years ago, it took legions of daytraders with it, but there are growing signs that some who went dormant during the bear market are coming out of hibernation.

Though daytrading may be creeping back, most of the people involved now are "professional" traders who took a break during the depths of the bear market. The traders who dropped steady jobs in hopes of a big payout during the bubble may take longer to come back -- or may never return at all.

"For many retail daytraders, it's a case of once bitten, twice shy," said Don Bright, co-founder of the daytrading firm Bright Trading. "There's certainly still risk in daytrading, but those investors that bought and held lost 70 percent during the collapse. Good daytraders close out their positions every day and go home with a clean slate."

Although that strategy may sound appealing, "it's not part of a responsible investing technique," warned Barbara Roper, director of investor protection at the Consumer Federation of America. "You'd think retail investors would have learned their lesson from the last collapse."

But with the end of the war in Iraq, stock market prices -- and volume -- picked up, which helped signal the all-clear for die-hard daytraders.

"The traders are more confident because there's greater liquidity in the markets, and they feel they won't get caught in a position during the day," said Bright, adding that his firm is hiring more traders after staffing was little changed in 2002.

Another thing daytraders watch is volatility since they can profit from even small movements in a stock's price. And some lower-priced stocks have experienced big price moves and heavy volume of late.

Since May 6, shares of Sirius Satellite Radio (SIRI: Research, Estimates) have had some big one-day moves: up 33 percent, down 17 percent, down 5 percent, averaging 96 million shares traded, more than double its normal 44 million.

Another lower-priced stock that consistently shows up with the volume leaders is Charter Communications (CHRT: Research, Estimates), which has had average volume of 18 million shares in the past four sessions through Wednesday's close -- also well above its norm of 7 million.

The emphasis of daytrading on these stocks is more pronounced considering most mutual funds prohibit ownership of stocks priced below $5.

"It only takes a handful of traders to make a market in these stocks, and they can move lots of shares in a day," said Dennis Ceru, director of retail brokerage with TowerGroup, a Needham, Mass.-based research firm. "Once there's interest in a stock, that volume creates more interest, and traders start taking advantage of the momentum."

The pickup in daytrading has also been apparent at brokerage firms that cater to daytraders, many of them online services.

Lou Klobuchar, spokesman for E*Trade, said the company's Professional service, where users come into its offices and trade, has seen a strong pickup in trading volume recently.

"It became noticeable at the end of April and has remained strong through May," Klobuchar said. "Although this active volume can come on quickly and disappear just as quick, it's the strongest level we've seen in 12 months."

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Beth Stelluto, vice president at CyberTrader, said daily volume at the Charles Schwab unit that caters to active traders has jumped 15 percent since the start of the year, and 40 percent since the drought before the war in Iraq.

E*Trade's Klobuchar added that the company tracks the results of traders using the Professional service, and that measure has also increased recently, but he warned that this trend has appeared before in the past three years. "It's good because it hasn't been a spike, but a gradual increase. However, 15 days doesn't make a trend."

In the years leading up to the bubble's peak, the volume of online trades soared 161 percent to a peak of 800,000 trades a day in 1999, according to a study by TowerGroup's Ceru.

That volume plunged by more than 50 percent to a low of 390,000 trades a day in 2002, but Ceru expects daily online volume to tick up to 411,000 trades in 2003 and grow about 8 percent annually in the next five years.