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Trading with full time job - possible?

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Twiddle

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Hi all,

I am wondering if it is possible to do any type of successful trading after a normal work day. For example, 2 - 3 hours a night of dedicated trading after coming home from work.

Basically, is it possible to have a full time job and still make money trading, or is it only really possible to get involved in long term investing?

Any thoughts/advice would be greatly appreciated.
 
Unless your the boss you wont be able to day or very short term trade.
But you can end of day trade and or trade Eminis Forex or futures After hrs.
 
tech/a said:
Unless your the boss you wont be able to day or very short term trade.
But you can end of day trade and or trade Eminis Forex or futures After hrs.
Click to expand...

So it is a viable strategy to spend hours at night trading these things?

I am thinking about it from the perspective of;

-Is 2 - 3 hours every night enough time to trade effectively
-Do many people do this?

What I am getting at is, given proper hard work and dedication can it be worthwhile being a trader and having a full time job, or does it really need to be one or the other?

I am deciding whether to embark on some serious learning and hard work to try and make money from trading, but I need to know if it is even feasible before I do.
 
Various european markets start trading in the early evening,

The DAX for instance fires up at around 5pm.
 
Most people trade this way: full-times job first, then you come home and make a trade. Actually, you will have to do a previous middle-term analysis before making a trade, I mean you should prepare for several days and then, when its the best time, open a position. Forget about day trading.
 
It is possible to do trading during the day and drive a taxi at night. Otherwise just do research at night and do limited trading during the day when the boss is not watching. The wonders of modern technology.
 
No its not possible despite what else you read. Its all or nothing you have to dedicate all your time and resource to it and even thats not enough. Dont believe any marketing fluff from CFD brokers telling you can.
 
kazzumX10 said:
No its not possible despite what else you read. Its all or nothing you have to dedicate all your time and resource to it and even thats not enough. Dont believe any marketing fluff from CFD brokers telling you can.
Click to expand...

Once you know how to trade profitably this statement becomes laughable.
Except for the last sentence.
 
kazzumX10 said:
No its not possible despite what else you read. Its all or nothing you have to dedicate all your time and resource to it and even thats not enough. Dont believe any marketing fluff from CFD brokers telling you can.
Click to expand...

Wow, that would have to be the biggest load of cr@p I've ever read.

After the initial learning phase, you can make good coin trading "part-time". Hell a few of us on here learnt how to trade & continue to trade while running businesses during normal working hours.
 
kazzumX10 said:
No its not possible despite what else you read. Its all or nothing you have to dedicate all your time and resource to it and even thats not enough.
Click to expand...
Utter and complete nonsense!
 
kazzumX10 said:
No its not possible despite what else you read. Its all or nothing you have to dedicate all your time and resource to it and even thats not enough. Dont believe any marketing fluff from CFD brokers telling you can.
Click to expand...

I have to agree with what you say. If a person works full-time then the only way to trade properly is to use your bosses computers and time - that's theft in my book.
 
noirua said:
I have to agree with what you say. If a person works full-time then the only way to trade properly is to use your bosses computers and time - that's theft in my book.
Click to expand...

That's not true noirua, trading EOD charts you don't need to have access to the market at all during business hours.
 
tech/a said:
Once you know how to trade profitably this statement becomes laughable.
Except for the last sentence.
Click to expand...

I agree with Tech, but don't underestimate the time it may take
to learn, and keep that day job as it really takes the pressure
off as far as money is concerned. Paper trade for a while, then
very small size for an extended period, there's so much to learn.
Perhaps have a holding time of at least a few days rather than day
trade. Actually, forget about making money for months, years if necessary.
I also think one could forget about placing stops and use their size
(small) as a way of managing risk. Possibly split size in two and
scale in if position goes against you. All this should be decided
in the learning phase as to what works best for you.
 
I have a full time job.

I trade.

I do pretty well.
(Despite being one of the newbiest newbies on these boards: please do not take "I do pretty well" as a declaration of competance).

Non-day trading: I trade two-weekers - break-outs and half-arsed fundamentals. Triggers set each evening - takes half an hour if I'm just tinkering stops, a couple of hours if I'm hunting for new targets. Trades manage themselves during the day. Returns a lot better than having the same money on my home loan.

Some of the most relaxing and educational trading I do is Nick Radge's power setups. Have a look at The Chartist website if you're interested in that sort of thing. If you like, you can just sign up for the systematic setups or growth portfolio, and trade along with his trades while you try to learn what the hell he's talking about. Easy. Perfectly suited to evening trading.

Day trading: Evenings are not too bad for Forex trading. Even if you miss the opens there's decent activity at that time. And getting to know the pair(s) you trade at the time you trade it (them) is an important skill to learn.

I don't have real money in this yet (not been doing it long) but I'm getting from treading water to making consistent (if minute) amounts of fake money. It's fun, it's good evening entertainment for people who don't like TV (passive entertainment - eeyeew) and the data is free.

For an entry level education in Forex, look at http://www.babypips.com/school/ .
 
Not only do i have a full time job, but a job that I'm at for 12 hours per day in including travel.

I still manage to trade very successfully EOD. My big advantage is out sourcing the analysis, so i only have to enter the trades and manage them. It works great for me.

CanOz
 
Yes its very possible, i earn more from trading than i earn at my day job, tried trading full time but for me i found the isolation and boredom too much, so i took a job i had always fancied doing, took a big pay cut but i earn enough to just cover the bills and the trading income is all extra, so my lifestyle hasn't changed at all thanks to the income i gain from it.

Trade off daily bars, some very simple strategy's work, enter everything into an online platform like IB,s TWS and your up and going.

Check out the Chartist, Nick runs several strategy's that you can enter all your orders in a trading platform the night before if you wish, his stuff works but like everything in trading you need to give it time and be disciplined to build your equity.
 
kazzumX10 said:
No its not possible despite what else you read. Its all or nothing you have to dedicate all your time and resource to it and even thats not enough. Dont believe any marketing fluff from CFD brokers telling you can.
Click to expand...

In the old days is almost impossible. But now, with all this modern communications many markets can now be traded round the clock. At night you can trade the European and US based markets. That's what I do.
 
noirua said:
I have to agree with what you say. If a person works full-time then the only way to trade properly is to use your bosses computers and time - that's theft in my book.
Click to expand...

Incorrect,

Three time zones, pick the one that suits you needs.
 
Thanks very much for all your input.

It seems like most people think it is possible and many people do it, so I have decided to give it a go.

I have spent the last 3 nights paper trading indicies, DAX, FTSE, NASDAQ, gold, oil, EUD/USD, GBP/USD using a demo account with GFC. (I have no idea if they are any good or not compared to others, they certainly have an ironic name)

I am learning a great deal and so far I can see why people stress money management. I have had a few trades get away from me that I should have cut early. Although, most of them ended up coming back and making me a profit, which they would not have done had i put strict stop losses in place. (This is definitely a point of confusion for me currently)

So far I have made around 40 trades, with about 35 being positive, and I am up $2,280. I have been spending 2 - 3 hours a night, for three nights. I am managing each trade manually, which I realise is a mistake, and I tend to be cutting my profits far to early from fear they will drop back into the red, hence why out of 35 positive and 5 negative I have only made 2k. (Although truth be told I am happy with that as a beginner and it only being 3 nights work)

Going forward I think i really need to learn how to get the information I need as indicators, which news sites to read, how to get it etc. As currently I am just trading from pattern observation.

And then most importantly i need to implement a system so my trades execute mechanically without my involvement, so I take emotion and fear out of the equation. Trailing stop loss seems to be a great idea, that is the next thing I will explore.

Any pointers anyone could give which be much appreciated.
 
there are plenty of stocks on the asx that you can trade that are range bound buy them at the bottom of the range sell them at the top of the range and set a stop loss if they fall thru their support

i work f/t and earn more on the asx than my day job, morning tea and lunch give u a chance to assess how the portfolio is going and close any trades
 
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