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Hello,
I would like to ask, who in this community is trading fulltime.
I know this might come across as a judgmental question, but I don't want it to be interpreted this way.
Knowing that there actually are some traders doing this full time, could really motivate other traders to keep fighting for their goals.
If you are a full time trader please let us know how long you've been doing full time, if you have tried to go full time in the past but now you are not doing it full time, please explain what happened.
Also, this might be a good thread to ask questions to full time traders.
Full-time, on and off, 10+ years. Failed literally dozens of times, but always came back. There was a deep inner awareness that this is what I was supposed to do with my life... not just to 'make money', but as a vehicle for my own personal growth (and that's exactly what it has become over the years). I would never consider doing anything else (Ok, I grind poker too, and love it, but that's not full time).
I found that the key to success was not external but internal.
Happy trading my friend!
You are never in the wrong place... but sometimes you are in the right place looking at things in the wrong way.
Thanks a lot for the reply, this really motivates me since I am also in the same situation. I am now going full time again after a break in which I had to find a job, I cannot tolerate a 9/5 job anymore, I feel extreme freedom and happiness in trading.
I've gone full-time 1 1/2 years ago, but am still immensely struggling.
I've studied the subject for about a year prior, besides working a normal job and then jumped into it. I accumulated a lot of theoretical knowledge, but I have to admit that I underestimated how difficult it is to put that into practice.
For now I gave myself time until the end of 2021, before I have to critically think about how to go on. If I still can't see any kind of consistency in my trading, which gives me real confidence that I'll be able to turn it around before my capital shrinks too much, I'll have to think of getting some normal income-job again.
The problem is, if I'm into something I really don't want to step in any way down again or make compromises. Working for somebody else in a job that doesn't give me satisfaction is just absolute torture and a complete waste of time for me which I want to avoid that at any cost.
Some time ago I found a job-advertisement as a trader at a small investment-bank, which is absolutely rare in Austria, but with no financial background whatsoever and being completely self-taught it's questionable if there would be any chance of getting the job.
It's nice to see that others also "jumped in" prematurely. I think a bit of pressure is a good thing, and one has to show to himself that he takes it serious and not as some playing around that eventually leads nowhere and will be always that typical "next month, next year" type of endeavor that never becomes reality.
"Thou hast been faithful over a few things, I will make thee ruler over many things"
Jumping into trading meant day after day struggling and losing by overtrading or revenge trading.
My strategies
Developing a system for testing reasons and polishing that one led for me to this:
• cutting down just to days where gains are highly possible (studying the markets)
• starting a journal here on fio to discuss the positive and negative about the trades
• reducing the screen time to the max.
• omitting lengthy low volume markets - to not give in previous gains again
• using the time to develop more systems - such that add to the first system
• automating the ones that just need to sniff for a good entry (given by alarms)
Result
Less trading, more gains. That easy. No need to be glued to the screen (I use just one).
BUT
My real goals in life are accompanied by a bunch of other interests: my CO2 down projects in the environment segment worldwide. That is my mission for our children. Coming from the family that first developed green roof gardens (1972 with patents) I am following the big idea to reduce the footprint of every citizen. Developing new ventures based on experience helps to continue this green streak.
Thus I am combining my work on both - and indeed - very different areas.
Just think out of the box - and you will feel your destiny: (day)trading is just a base for further adventures!
This is an excellent point. When I first opened a personal futures trading account I had a full-time job that kept me very busy. As a result, I was only able to devote a small amount of time to my personal trading. Because I worked in finance I was well abreast of market developments in real-time and had my screens up all day, but I only logged into my personal futures account when I saw something really compelling and had a few moments of free time. I also had no choice but to focus on longer time horizons (holding periods ranging from a few days to a few weeks) because my professional responsibilities precluded me from constantly monitoring my own positions. My job, and the firm's clients always came first. If I was able to put on a trade I simply had to set it and forget it, knowing that I might not have a chance to monitor or even look at the position again until the evening session.
But somehow, despite all these limitations, I was very successful, making quite a bit of money in a short amount of time.
Several months later, for reasons completely unrelated to my success in trading, I left my job. I had not planned to become a fulltime futures trader, but it became my fallback. And as soon as it did, my results declined substantially. I went from making a lot of money to losing a lot of money almost immediately. I was discouraged, frustrated, and afraid. And these emotions only compounded my problems while preventing me from objectively diagnosing their root causes.
I eventually realized why my performance had deteriorated so massively. A lot of it had to do with expectations. And I think this is common among people who make the jump from part to full-time.
As members of modern society we are all conditioned to receive compensation for our labor - it is one of the most basic and essential components of a functioning economic system. You work, and you get paid. You work harder, you get paid more. Right? Well sure, if you're a laborer.
So I sat there at my desk, convincing myself that all my knowledge and experience in finance, economics, portfolio management and trading should readily translate into a steady stream of income for my "labors" in the markets. If I put in a solid eight hours a day in front of my screens I should get paid for it, right? How wrong I was. And man, just re-reading these words is frankly embarrassing. It sounds so absurd, looking back on it now, but that was my state of mind.
Going fulltime, I now know, led me to make three specific (but closely related) mistakes that I now know to avoid. The first, and most obvious mistake, was over-trading. I figured that as long as I kept my eyes on the screens I should be able to find something to trade. I didn't want to just sit there watching and waiting endlessly without actually doing anything, so I took weak setups, sometimes almost on a whim, without really having a strong rationale for doing so or well planned strategy to manage the position. I traded anything that looked interesting, even if I had zero knowledge or experience with that product.
The second mistake - perhaps another symptom of over-trading - was to shorten my time-horizons, trying to become more of a day-trader or scalper when that clearly wasn't my strength. This behavior was again encouraged by a strong impulse to do something, to "work" for my living rather than just sitting around and watching the action from the sidelines. The law of large numbers can and should smooth out a trader's equity curve over time, but that only works if he's adding good numbers!
The third mistake was to have unrealistic expectations that made me emotionally vulnerable. The only expectation a trader should have is that his P&L will vary from day to day. Any other expectation that isn't supported by real data should be abandoned completely. In other words, don't expect to make money trading simply because you think you're a smart, hard-working person who has had some past successes. Instead, expect to probably make a certain amount of money over time, based on your actual tested setups and strategies. If your expectations aren't met, go back and review your data so you can better diagnose the problem, and adjust your strategies and your expectations accordingly.
I may have more to add to this later but need to run out for a bit. In the meantime, I hope that these hard-won lessons are helpful to others who are starting out, or planning on going fulltime.
I'm already full-time.
For me easier to make the same amount per month of markets than going to the job. + in the market I have a lot of upside potential to grow.
The only thing I regret is not discovering trading and its endless opportunities at a younger age...I'm 24, but still.
This is so true!! for me the big problem is what should I do when I do not trade?
Good trades are the one that I put on and I just "forget" about them for hours, the problems normally arise when I want to "do something". I sometimes need this sensation of working hard to make money, and this is when normally I screw things up.
@GFIs1 what do you do when you are not trading? do you spend a lot of time studying the market? I wish I could take just one trade per day.
Part time since 2015 to 2017
2015 - Net made money (Newbie luck or maybe being bullish in bull market)
2016 - Net made lot of money ( Thanks to holding lot of good equity long positions in bullish market, literally lot of my holdings multiplied over the year)
2017 - Net lost lot of money (Thanks to introduction to derivatives and getting overconfident and greedy, I lost almost 70-80% of the portfolio in a single trade)
Full time since 2018,
2018 - Net lost money (Very small amount, I was wise to trade small)
2019 - Net lost money (Very small amount, I was wise to trade small)
2020 - Net recovered money lost on previous 3 years and made some (Thanks to being bullish in covid shock recovering market).
2021 - Net in very good profit (Thanks to having managed to develop decent discipline to go with edge developed over last couple of years, edge here is not just mathematical advantage but also personal development)
Also, its important to note that while I trade full-time, I'm not really dependent on trading earnings as such, I run couple of other businesses which run fairly passively and have developed trading related other revenue streams like buying broker franchisee and having decent amount of accounts under me. This also allows me to net pay zero brokerage (yes, my trading is free of brokerage, I do have to pay different types of taxes though), as there are number of incentive schemes by broker to people who introduce active accounts under their umbrella.
What I'm trying to say here is that there is visible change in my fortunes along the way but strangely enough factor effecting it most is my lack of need to earn directly from my personal trading. I'm by nature very anxious person, I've invested lot of time to learn and gain experience, I also program and develop/test all my trading strategies/indicators/systems etc on my own, so that has also reduced direct monetary costs others might experience.
Not sure if you are looking for this but sharing it out there my personal journey in short.
