Hi. I am currently working full time on a family business. I used to work as a trader and now I want to trade on my own account without quitting my job. I really need to do it investing the minimum time, I can get to about 2-5 hours a week. I would appreciate any comments, resources or links. Thanks!
Be a slave to gamma. NEVER let shit get too close. Keep it a fortnight out, or more. ALWAYS. ("Hold it. Are we talking 'options'???) If we're talking equities/etfs, maybe re-word the question??
So what happened ? If you were not profitable full time do you think you'll make it part time ? Something don't add up..if you worked as a trader full time you should know the answers to your questions.
Equities, though I would like to learn options some day. I like to do some swing trading and some position trading. I look both at technicals and at fundamentals. I like to spot equities that look undervalued, that have nice technicals, and a catalyst. That is my ideal trade. The holding period could be from a couple of days to maybe 4 or 6 months, I even buy and hold with really good companies.
Yes, I think a trader/ swing with a job has an exponential better chance to make it than one who doesn't.
I worked as a trader before 2013. For 2 years I did sales and trading, selling equities to institutional investors. After that I was named head of equities, for 3 years, and in my team we had one position trader, we also managed institutional portfolios (one that did Adr arbitrage, another traded common vs preferred also sort of an arbitrage). Although I did work with position traders, I did not manage a position myself. I did place trades for institutional clients permanently and supervised traders. I must say that this is all in Bogota, Colombia, where regulation and oversight is different from the US. We do have a fairly functional equity market here though. Anyway, I have my account right now in IB and am trading global equities, mostly in the US: NASDAQ, NYSE... My dad asked me to come work in the family business, and I liked the idea, I have been in the family business since 2013, but I do want to trade part time. I hope this answers your question.
2 Options: 1) Be like Buffet value investor (long term) this assume decent starting capital. I do not mean hold forever, just trade where you think is value. 2) Quit. Unless you living and breathing it, you will fail. There are no short cuts.
If you don't have 24hrs a day to trade you can regard that as an advantage, not a handicap. This work situaiton will force you to trade using daily charts, with a long-term tine horizon. This is where the big profit lies. I used to swing trade when I was working full-time but found my successes came form swing trades that got me into price trends. So now I just follow trends. It takes about 20 minutes each evening after the US close to see which forex pairs or stock indices are still in strong trends and to place orders if suitable entry signals have emerged. I also check to see if any new trades have triggered from orders during the day and I set pyramid orders for these markets if they have. I never trade "live", all trades are opened or closed using orders. Its really not a problem.