If you’re watching this, you probably havea passion for trading financial markets and most likely you hope to turn one day thispassion into a full time profession.
You probably enjoy learning about the markets, trading, investing and finance, but you might have a major problem preventing you from movingon to the next level and that problem is time.
Having a full time job, or going to studies, or having a busy schedule doesn’t mean that trading should be out of your reach.
You don’t have to be in front of the chartsall day to trade profitably.
In fact, not being in front of the screenall day might be a huge advantage.
So today we’ll discuss about the simplesteps you should take in order to trade successfully even if you have a 9-to-5 job, go to school, or simply want to allocate more time to your friends, family or other hobbies.
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The process of developing and refining a tradingprogram based on your other daily schedule, is an ongoing process.
This is not something you do one time; itis a continuous process that begins with ideas, progressing to transforming those ideas toactionable trading systems, and then monitoring the results.
If you want to maximize your chances and actuallymake some money trading part time, while having other activities, you need to incorporate7 steps into your daily routine.
Number 1.
You need to adapt yourself to swing trading.
I have some potential bad news for you.
If you like day trading but don’t have time, it’s very hard to make consistent profits on a daily or weekly basis.
Swing trading, on the other hand, is verypopular among traders for two main reasons.
First of all, trading strategies of this typeusually include entry and exit techniques that involve monitoring the charts, perhapseven once or – usually – twice a day.
This relatively relaxed program is very suitablefor those with an active life and full-time jobs because swing trading is a style thatinvolves holding a position in a traded instrument for a short period of time, typically betweena few days to a few weeks.
So, forget about day trading and focus onswing trading.
Number 2.
4h, daily or weekly timeframe.
Since you have a day job, or other activities, you will have a very limited number of hours to study and trade.
Therefore, you should limit yourself to tradingthe 4 hour, daily or weekly timeframe.
If i had to suggest one timeframe for peoplewith 9 to 5 jobs, it would be the daily timeframe.
This allows you to check your charts for afew minutes, once or twice per day.
The trading reality is that the lower thetime frame, the less accurate any trade setup becomes.
When you trade the higher time frames youget a better picture of what is really happening in the market because most of the market noiseon the lower time frames is eliminated.
And this is a very good for you because thereare so many opportunities on the 4 hour and daily charts and concentrating your mentalenergy on lower time frames could become quite inefficient.
So, swing trading and higher timeframes.
Number 3.
Find time to research and analyze.
Now that you know your style and your timeframes, you need to make your analysis.
Swing trading may require less time than daytrading, but you still need to do your homework.
No strategy will succeed if you just blindlytrade on the daily chart.
Now, depending on your schedule, you can analyzethe markets whenever you have free time—before work or school, after work, or during theweekends.
Many traders find that the weekends are theperfect times to build out a trading plan.
And then all they have to do as the workingweek begins is follow that plan, so that they have the minimum amount of daily work to do.
So, take the time to research and analyzecarefully because the more information you have, the better you will be able to planyour strategy for the coming days.
When researching and analyzing, focus on recognizingrelevant support and resistance on higher timeframes, understand momentum and volatility, identify if your trading a range or channel, or a strong trend and recognize chart patterns, in both trending and range-bound markets or any other analysis you feel comfortable with.
The 4th step: set buy and sell prices aheadof time.
Once you have made your analysis, choose theinstruments you want to trade, stocks, currencies or cfds and identify the prices where youwill buy and sell.
Your goal is simply to buy and sell at thebest prices, so use your research to identify the acceptable prices beforehand.
Not only this will this allow you to executequickly during trading hours (when you have some time between meetings and other tasksat work), but it will also help you avoid making trades based on emotions.
So, when you leave the house, no matter ifyou made your research late the other night, or in the morning, you already know your buyor sell prices.
Number 5.
Use ranges instead of exact prices.
As a swing trader, you won’t be able tomonitor price movements every minute of the day.
That is why you should use price ranges ratherthan exact prices.
This will give you some flexibility, but becareful not to take it too far.
You still need to be strict with yourselfwhen executing your plan.
You might get impatient when the price getsclose to your defined range, but don’t be carried away by your emotions.
Swing trading requires patience and discipline, two psychological issues most traders fail to deal with during their trading program.
Number 6 and probably the hardest step formost traders: stay consistent and disciplined when executing your trading plan.
Because you already planned your trades aheadof time, you won’t need a lot of time to execute them.
Set aside even just 15 minutes of your lunchbreak to check on your charts.
If you see that the prices have reached thebuy or sell range that you set during planning phase, then simply execute the trade.
Or if you’re very busy, use limit ordersand let the market come to your best price.
But if you don’t like limit orders and useclassic market orders, if the prices have not reached the defined range when you wereplanning your strategy, hold your position and check the market again tomorrow.
Of course, if the day passed without any trades, it’s better to re-adjust your analysis.
The most part of it is already done, you justhave to re-adjust some levels, and search for other clues that might interfere withyour initial plan.
Number 7: let technology help you monitoryour trades.
Nowadays, you can access everything with justyour phone and a wifi.
There are many free services and apps thatcan help you monitor the markets on the go.
If you have a very demanding schedule, youcan also use some services so you can get messages and emails whenever a stock or currencyhits your defined buy and sell prices.
This way, you can react instantly to marketevents, by receiving alerts for desktop or mobile.
If you’re relying on technical indicators, you can use a screener for technical indicator notifications.
You can find some free screeners that allowyou create notifications using popular indicators like moving average, rsi or other common indicators.
If you’re strategy is more complex, thereare other useful screeners that will allow you to create simple or complex conditionsby combining different indicators.
So, take advantage of technology, it can saveyou a lot of time if you have a busy daily routine.
Now, trading, like business, sports or art, requires a consistent effort over a period of time and going into trading can be a realchallenge if you don’t have a clear plan and system for trading.
Like any other activity, if you start withrealistic goals, good education and quality practice, you will eventually gain an advantageover others and get ahead of the game.
Learning how to swing trade successfully mayseem like a full-time job at the beginning, but once you've mastered your strategy andyour technique, your trading program will requires only part-time hours.
If you're casual and unstructured about yourtrading, you'll experience losses, while those who take trading seriously and work on refiningtheir technique will most likely succeed.
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Until next time.
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