How much capital do you have? How much trading experience? What kind of trading/business plan do you have? If you are profitable, experienced, and well-capitalised, with a sensible trading/business plan, then your wife shouldn't be too worried. The fact that she is worried means she's either a cowardly shrew, or she feels you aren't fully prepared. Assuming it's the latter, have you asked her why shy doesn't like the idea of you trying for yourself? What reasons does she give? Key elements of a trading/business plan that should alleviate some of her concerns: 1. Profitable track record part-time - you have that, a good sign 2. Adequate capital - do you have this? 3. A guaranteed maximum loss. E.g. if you have 100k saved up, you should agree with her that you will quit if you lose 20k, and take a time out if you lose 10k (e.g. to see what went wrong and how to fix it). Having a "career stop" like that both preserves your family savings if things go wrong, and means you will concentrate a lot on risk control, since you won't want to have to stop trading. 4. You need to show your account statements each day, as long as she agrees not to make any adverse comments if your losses are within pre-agreed limits 5. A time deadline for profitability e.g. 1 year, so you won't endlessly grind away or lose perennially if things don't work out. If you follow those steps then she should be supportive.
If the human race consisted entirely of people who think like you do, then we'd still be living in mud huts and communicating in grunts.
People say this every other year. The fact is, it's never "the right time to jump in" - just as the market is hardly ever at the ideal buying or selling point, so there is no perfect predictable point at which you can tell the next 2-3 years will be a great trading environment. Every single year, traders who will in 10-30 years be the best in the world, are just starting out with minimal capital, little experience, and naysayers telling them it's a bad idea. If you want to trade for a living, then the time to start is now. You only get a limited span of time on earth before you get old and die. Carpe diem and all that.
Most of what I see in threads of this nature are random rantings, wisecracks, and irrational statements. The situation you are presenting is a very serious one, and hopefully I can do it some justice with this post. Two formulas: Your actual day trader "salary" = How much you are expecting to make * the probability of it actually happening Your actual job salary = ((How much you are expecting to make in one year * (1 - probability of you losing your job)) + (probability of you finding another job * expected salary for that job for one year)) / 2 Coming up with realistic figures for probabilities of success and losing your job, as well as not overestimating your trading profit potential is the hard part for most people (since it involves being honest with yourself). If more people used the formulas above, they'd generally end up realizing they are making more at a $40k a year regular job than they would making $200k a year day trading. I have personally seen what happens when financial stability that affords a comfortable, happy life is traded in the for the potential of wealth, and that potential is not realized. It can put the individual through hell and more importantly, devastate a family. If you leave your job and screw up, your trading account is not all thats at risk - you may very well be risking your wife. You don't make bets with the important people in your life. If you are serious about going full time, you are going to have to build up to it. What I'm about to say won't sound lavish or exhilarating. However, it is REALISTIC. Estimate how long you think it would take you to find another job of a similar caliber if you were to leave your current one. Take that number and double it, and that's the amount of time you should be able to live comfortably without any new income. For the sake of demonstration, lets say you come to the conclusion that it will take you 6 months to find a new job. In that case, you should have enough to last for 1 year without any new income. Let's call these savings your "savings account", which are to be completely separate from your "trading accounts". As you trade, keep your profits accumulating and live off of the savings account. If after 6 months you see that you're making as much as, if not more than you would at a regular job, keep trading. At that point, start living off your trading profits and DO NOT TOUCH YOUR SAVINGS ACCOUNT. No matter what happens to you, the funds in that saving account are NEVER to be traded with. Just leave it accumulating interest. If you are truly succeeding at trading full time, this approach will ensure that you get to reap the benefits of trading, while leaving you with a backup. With this setup, if you start taking losses for any reason or your trading income is just not cutting it, stop trading, stop using your trading profits, go back to living off of your savings account (which is why I said to leave it untouched), and start looking for a job. After you get a job again, you can start trading again part-time. You can trade part time during your job hunt, but it is very likely that is not a good mind-state to trade in. If you want to go full time again, start the process again. With this approach, the primary loss is the potential lack of contribution to your nest egg during the 6 months you are starting. However, no business is without risk, and this is a very minimal risk given the nature of this business (yes, trading is a business). This seems like a lot of work, and some may call it "excessive security". Just consider it all a stop loss or a hedge - not for your trading but for your family and your psychological/emotional well being. A lot of people will say "screw it and just chase your dreams". These people are called dreamers, idealists, and almost always financial failures who neglect the well being of those around them. Surely, a few of those people will have attained financial success, but even an idiot can win the lottery. You may see a lot of posts after this bashing what I've just said. Just come in mind that what I've said is meant to accomplish four things: - Allow you to reap the benefits of trading full time - Give you a realistic financial backup - Allow you to trade with greatly reduced levels of psychological and emotional stress - Allow you to pursue your goals without placing your family at risk (this is the most important thing) (given the nature of this post, I do have to add in the obligatory "everything I've stated above is what I'd do if you I were in your position. You'll have to do your own due diligence before making any final decisions") I wish you all the best. Hopefully you will approach this with a calm, level mind clarified by a sense of purpose and responsibility, and unblinded by the allure of wealth.
Those who say you should go for it won't support your family when you fail... and you will fail because you're too inexperienced, you obviously haven't thought this through and you're doing it for the wrong reasons. You "believe" you can make it? Why do you think trying to make your life easier by not "working for the man" is more important than your responsibilities to your family? Check out this thread about a guy who quit his $750K/year job to start a hedge fund but ended up losing everything, going into serious debt and delivering pizza. He didn't think it through either but plenty of ETers thought what he did was admirable and that his failure was not foreseeable. It was. Just like yours is now. http://www.elitetrader.com/vb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=158102
How about learn to program to trade by automation? then you could you keep your job and let the computer trade for you. It is not easy and it is an arduous journey, but people out there are doing that successfully after hard work in research.