A couple of blog posts ago, I mentioned the concept of having multiple streams of income that has changed the way I traded in 2020. It also helped me formulate my thoughts on trading part-time as opposed to becoming a full-time trader. In this blog post, I’d like to share them, as well as my preferred way of trading when having a packed schedule.

Trading part-time vs full-time

Many beginning day traders nurture a dream of going full-time once they become profitable. To be entirely honest, I was one of those traders myself. My initial motivation was to make good money fast. Once I started posting some profit, I decided to quit my office job so that I could trade during the day.

Now, it’s important to mention that there’s no right answer to a question if you should quit your job for day trading. A lot of it comes down to your personality type, life circumstances, risk tolerance, and goals.

At the time, I just wanted to make more money and have more freedom. And while I was working from home, it didn’t exactly give me the freedom I desired. I was still glued to the screens for most of the day. I traded more, but it didn’t result in a much better PnL because trading more gave me opportunity to make more mistakes. However, I did learn a lot, and I started my podcast show and a Youtube channel in order to occupy my time, share the knowledge, and build a great day trading community.

You see, it’s not a binary kind of situation that had a clearly good or bad impact on my life. Quitting my job wasn’t a mistake since it gave me so much to work with. On the other hand, I didn’t achieve my goals, so I haven’t exactly succeeded at becoming a consistently profitable full-time day trader.

At the end of 2019, I had to make a tough choice and go back to my old job with a new part-time schedule. A couple of months later, I left that job again and got a work-from-home job. I was getting paid 1/4 of the salary, but the freedom to be home and trade was more important to me. At that point, I saw day trading and income generation in a totally different light.

I started at a place where I didn’t like the job I initially had very much. I wanted an easy and quick way out; I dreamt of replacing my W2 income with day trading profits. But after a while, I realized how limiting that goal was.

My aim is no longer to substitute one source of income with another one. Instead, I’d like to have multiple streams of income and enjoy doing what I do. This is how I get to work on multiple projects at the same time and diversify the sources where my money comes from.

This is how I can afford to trade for passion and not get burnt out or too stressed if last month’s PnL isn’t looking great. After all, I have other income streams to fall back on.

Now I realize that this is a much healthier way to approach any hobbies and interests. Start doing it as a side-hustle, build it up into a business at your own pace, but don’t jump into it head first. Let yourself learn and grow without putting monetary pressure all over it. And while you’re at it, have your regular job support you financially.

But how is one supposed to trade if they’re at work all day? There’s a method called swing trading. But before we dive into it, let me just revisit the wrong assumption that more trades always equal more money. There are some cases when it’s true; personally, switching up my strategy and trading more gave me some great results. However, if you’re a beginner trader, you typically want to stick to one or two patterns maximum. Most likely, they won’t be showing up on the market every single day, so it’s normal to have fewer trades. And if you’re experiencing FOMO, fear of missing out, I strongly encourage you to read about my experience with overtrading. 

Swing trading

Swing trading is a slower method of trading. You can place a trade and get out the next day, week, or even the next month. You can set a longer plan and look at the big picture instead of chasing smaller drops and peaks.

Switching to this style will definitely take some time, and it will require some adjustment. You’ll be looking at different charts, and automation will be your bread and butter since you can’t stare at the screen all day. You’ll need to develop an effective trading plan, figure out your entry and exit points, and wait for the ticker to hit it. It may take a while or happen relatively fast; there’s no way to know exactly. You’ll need to have a lot of faith in your strategy since you won’t have time to execute manually.

 On the bright side, many of your skills and habits will transfer. As a swing trader, you’ll still be looking at the support and resistance areas. Volume is still an important factor that can help you confirm the direction of the trade. However, now you’ll be mostly looking at the daily and hourly charts as opposed to the 1 to 15-minute charts. You’ll also be looking for key areas of support and key trends in order to plan out how you’d like to see the trade go. Their intersections are also very important, and I often seek out confluence before entering a trade.

And once you have it figured out, all you gotta do is set up the trade and let it play out.

Another huge benefit of swing trading is that you can set up profit targets in a more sophisticated way. Some traders like to execute once their profit mark has been hit. Other traders have a profit target for a half or a quarter of their position, and they let the rest ride it out until the chart tells them to get out. There is still a lot of versatility and nuance when it comes to swing trading, and traders have some amazing opportunities and tools at their disposal.

Wanna know more about it? Check out the video below! Also, subscribe to my newsletter and stay tuned for future content.