Full time trading versus part time...

The debate is: Can a person studying and trading part-time become profitable enough to turn it into a full-time profession.
I think the answer is: Only if you are a dentist.

Everyone starts part time to a degree dont they? You do not commit yourself fulltime as a sole trader when not even involved in trading?

The point is that everyone has to be honest with themselves in what they are truly doing in the markets and if they can be successful and balancing the whole equation to see if it suits themselves. It is not for everyone but for some is in their blood.

Does that stat imply that the 100% from which the 90% is drawn have left their job to trade full time? I would guess not. I'd be very interested to see what % of 'full-time, given up job' traders fail, and what % of 'part-time, scared to leave work' traders fail.

I reckon having the bottle to give up your day job would increase your chance of being successful. Maybe it says something for the level of risk appetite necessary to become successful.

this thread has got huge lol.

bare with me , i have a veyr rich friend and i'd like to quote a part of the email he sent me :

''More important than trading is your lifestyle outside of trading; you can't have self-control, discipline and rational acts in trading without having it in life too. If you are in a good routine, healthy, and productive - Trading will fit in nicely and you can patiently develop techniques to produce money from the markets. If you are using the markets to escape/potentially escape your current lifestyle, then you should first work on improving your happiness/life.

One thing i've learnt from trading; is that, money won't do for you what you hoped - And in fact; humans/we need to work to enjoy our lifes. Having a job, that you enjoy, is more important than anything - Much more than the money. I've been doing some thinking and i am finished day-trading, money is great ofcourse... However; more importantly is your job.

Having a job that you enjoy doing, that is social, that actually produces a 'finished product' is important... People work, to have financial freedom, but financial freedom isn't as great as it sounds; having a purpose, working hard, being part of something is much more important.

My recommendation to you, as someone who has done and won @ trading to an end people wish for, is to think extremely carefully about what career you would ENJOY - forgetting money... Then work hard towards that end, and get that job that you will enjoy doing and enjoy being with the people you work with. Trading; is just a way of 'proving' yourself to everyone, but why bother? Once you've proven you can... Its pointless. Its an immature want, to get social recognition from others.

For example; something creative? Advertisement perhaps, working hard producing new ideas, debating concepts, seeing your finished advertisement and seeing how your campaigns do.

After reading this, consider whether you would like to do trading as a side; not an obsession, but something you patiently work on and don't put pressure on yourself about. Or a career; putting your self-worth and finance on the hope that you CAN. ''

I think that's rather an unnecessary slap, nt, but it does raise the question about part-time, full-time.

Does full-time mean "only source of income" or "every waking hour"? There are plenty of traders who claim to only trade for a few hours each day, then go off to do other things. Isn't that part-time? So, if you're UK based with a day job after which you trade the US market 'til it closes how is that different from a "full time trader" whose preferred time slot is the afternoon US market?

Much more crucial than the time people spend on it, or when, is whether the result of their trading gives a regular and sustainable income sufficient to meet their needs. Only then can they think about full-time in the "only source of income" sense.

jon

I would suspect that 99% of people stupid enough to give up their job to trade without first proving they're profitable fail. This is silly - Why would you leave the security of a job to trade when you don't even know if you can do it?

As Kwickwool said above, practically everyone must start part time to some extent.

Those stats of 90% of traders fail are imaterial surely? Does it matter what that figure is and does that matter to you as an individual? Each person needs to be intelligent enough to be able to look at their trading and if they can indeed be profitable to do it full time, if the success rate is 1%, 5%, 10% or 50% does it matter, it only matters that you can work out if you can be successful or not?

I didn't say they gave up their job without knowing anything about trading did I??