Please do not quit your job to day trade right away. Keep your job, and grow your small account
slowly by trading following these 3 important steps
So I think you and I must have very similar situations. I didn't come from a rich family,
and i didn't inherit a trust fund. And lets be real, if we did, we wouldn't need to trade.
So in this video i’m going to be talking about the three important factors of how I
traded part time, while working a full time job. Not only am I going to talk about the
specific trading strategies that I personally used, but most importantly, how to manage
your time, prepare yourself financially, mentally, and property allocate enough effort to build
your small account from trading part time.
As always, these videos take me a long time to make, thats the time I could have spent
cruising around in my lambo. So if you don't mind, please remember to drop a like on the
video. I’d really appreciate it.
First of all we’re going to talk about time. When is the most optimal time trade part time
and of course, the biggest question you’re probably wondering… how do you find the
time? To trade part time, while working a full time job?
At the end of the day, we all have the same 24 hours. And if you want to squeeze in an
extra 2 hours to trade before going to work, or 30 min before the market closes, it all
comes down to very meticulous time management,
What I did as a trader living on the Pacific West coast time zone is, waking up at 5AM,
which is 8am market time. I didn’t really trade during pre market hours because I didn't
know how.
Then ill spend around 5am to 6:15am creating my watchlist. I didn't have any fancy scanners
back then. So i used finviz, stock market watch, and stockcharts dot com for my free
research resources. And thinkorswim premarket gap up scanner to find the daily gappers.
If you’re interested in seeing how I set up the free gap up scanner in TOS, make sure
to check out this video.
Then I'll trade from 6:30am to about 8am focusing on some long strategies specifically at the
open, which i’ll be talking about later on in the video. And what so great about trading
the open and the first 30 minutes, is that you almost always get immediate price movement
on the premarket gappers.
Either some low float will dip and reclaim and break out on high volume and go parabolic
such as TCCO right here, or a penny stock will pop at open with low volume and sell
off on day 2 or day 3.
Whether you are a long or short biased trader, the opening 30 min to an hr is where you get
to make the quick trades and be done for the day and you can head out to work. Note i said
quick, but not easy.
And u know… most of the time I end up showing up 30 min late for work. But as long as no
one found out at work hey its fine. I hope none of my former bosses or supervisors see
this... Im not suggesting anyone to do that btw. Don't hold me liable if you lose your
job. Do your job, and keep your job, please! Because you need a stable income from your
job in order to trade well on the side.
And during the day while at work, yes I did check on the overall market once a while.
But generally speaking, I do not trade while at work. And even if I do, it's just closing
the rest of the position that I had already entered from the morning. Usually thats if
I was trading mid cap and large cap stocks.
I never liked to hold small cap penny stocks positions open while im at work. Because there
was just no way I could keep an eye on the stock or any of its PR during the day. Imagine
if a penny stock drops an offering in the middle of an important call at work, or imagine
if you walk into a meeting with wind on your feet knowing that oh you’re up a grand,
and after the meeting ends 1 hour later you see a red negative $3000.
I know you must think that's one of my world famous bad jokes.. But eh thats actually a
true story. Let me tell you, the rest of that day at work making that $300 a day slowly…
minute by minute for the next six to seven hours… was not enjoyable. And it truly affected
my performance at my full time job too.
So after that incident, I personally didn’t want to take that kind of risk if I cannot
fully concentrate on the ticker. Thats why I always make sure to either close my entire
position before going to work, or leaving only a quarter of the size on.
Whether you want to manage your positions full size on your desktop or on your phone
while at work, that’s entirely your own decision of course. I'm just sharing my tragic
story here, to provide some reality check.
And of course, besides trading the first hour of the open, I also tried to find time in
the last hour before the market closes, which would be what we call power hour from 3pm
to 4pm eastern time. And for me, that would be around 12pm to 1pm lunch time for me at
work.
And yes, that means I had to say goodbye to socializing with coworkers at lunch and the
amazing lunchtime yoga or gym sessions. But thats just the kind of sacrifice you might
have to make.
During power hour, I actually don’t actively day trade. Most of the time I spend the hour
looking for stocks thats closing strong on the day and holding daily key levels. And
i would sometimes look to take a swing position overnight. I rarely day trade during the power
hour.
This is the basis of my buy overnight strategy video. This set up would be an especially
valuable solution to the part time traders in the US who are under the Pattern Day Trader
rule and trying to grow their small account while working their 9-5 job.
If you buy a stock with the intention to swing it overnight and sell pre market the next
day or at the market open, that would not count as a day trade for you.
Fortunately, I’m in Canada so I never had to worry about trading under the PDT rule.
See there's tons of great perks to being Canadian besides the fresh air, unlimited lifetime
supply of maple syrup, and expensive gas prices.
Now I will say, this swing overnight setup is rather seasonal, and the opportunities
come and go according to the small cap stocks market condition. So please don’t expect
to be swinging a long position overnight every single day while at work. There are some months
that I just don't buy or sell anything during the last hour of the market.
But the work doesn't stop there when the market closes. If you haven’t noticed by now, this
trading part time, while working a full time job concept, actually requires full time effort,
and also you to hit the like button for the YouTube algorithm.
Studies show that once you hit the like button on this video, your trading account is more
likely to grow 1000% in 2020. Science
And at the end of the day after getting home around 7:30pm to 8:00pm. I would still spend
about 2 hours before going to bed researching the key gainers on the day. See how each gapper
I had on watch from the morning performed. Any offering, biotech data or earnings news
to watch.
And from there I would pick the potential stocks that I want to play the next morning
again. Most of the time, I prefer to play the stocks I had already prepared the night
before. And the reason is, I have already spent 2 hours in the evening after work studying
the catalyst, the float structure, and observed the stocks movement.
I also had the support and resistance levels drawn out beforehand. So that helps me react
to the price movement and volume the next day.
The truth is, 90% of the work in day trading happens outside of regular market hours, and
definitely before you even enter a position. It's the preparation you put into your trades
either premarket, afterhours, or before bed, that's going to give you better chances of
making it in this game. Yes doing all of that still does not guarantee
you 100% success rate in making that profit. but the odds are definitely better than waking
up 30 minutes before the open and stumbling straight to my computer and get ready to follow
chat room alerts.
And ill be honest here, In the six months to a year, that's exactly what I did. I had
no plan each morning, no support and resistance levels drawn out, no knowledge of what the
news is, no idea of the stock’s float, fundamentals, i just had a list of 10 or so tickers with
headlines from the chatroom. What exactly am I supposed to do with that?
And with that list and some alerts. I was so naive and thought that I can make quick
and easy money just by doing that. Clicking a few buttons in thirty minutes, while in
my pajamas in my with my messy bed hair and sometime even hungover… ok ok i was just
joking, about the messy hair part.
I know, i know i know this doesn't sound at all like the easy, working 1 hour a day lamborghini
money you and i were promised when we both bought that $5000 DVD.
Because i’m being real here, trading is not a hobby. It's a business, you are essentially
starting a part time business that requires full time effort, while you’re working your
9-5 job, well in my case it was more like a 9-7 job, and sometimes even 6 days a week
too.
So if I could do it, while maintaining only 10% of my sanity, 50% of my normal sleep schedule,
and 30% of my personal relationships. You definitely can too!
Now the second thing that’s extremely beneficial when you are trading while working a ful ltime
job is utilizing range orders or bracket conditional orders on your broker platforms.
So let’s say you want to enter this stock CPAH at $2. Because you see that it’s reclaiming
a key daily level and broke the downtrend intraday. But you want to make sure while
you are away, you get to sell if the stock goes in your direction, and cut the loss small
if it doesn't.
So solution is, you can use range orders, or bracket orders that allow you to attach
both stop losses and take profit orders once you enter a position. once your buy order
gets triggered. You can attach a stop loss market order at let’s say $1.84, and a sell
limit order at $2.5.
That means you intend on risking 16 cents to make 50 cents. Thats a good risk reward.
And one of the two attached orders will trigger, and once one triggers the other will cancel.
So in this example, your take profit sell limit order at $2.5 will get hit. You made
your 50 cents, and your stop loss market order at 1.84 would be canceled automatically.
That’s something I used on mid cap and large cap stocks, not penny stocks. Like I mentioned
before in this video, when i was slowly building up my small account, I preferred to trade
these higher priced stocks and higher market cap stocks because there’s almost always
volume in them when there is a catalyst. And they are a lot less volatile than these low
float penny stocks.
Most brokers out there have these order types available for you. TD thinkorswim, Interactive
brokers and Trader zero all offer those order types.
Now the third important factor to understand when you’re trading part time and working
your full time job… do yourself a huge favor, and keep your job.
Contrary to what the lifestyle marketing around this whole day trading industry tell you,
quitting your job altogether to day trade. Is really not as glamorous or as easy as it
seems.
For me, like any good first generation asian immigrants, I went to college, and I got a
paying career in VFX/ film industry. It pays pretty decent, well ok not like six figure
annual salary with $50,000 signing bonus at Facebook or Google. But hey, well enough to
support myself a comfortable life as a single individual with no dependents.
I was not rich by all means. But I really do believe that having the financial stability
from my job, was a key factor to allowing me to trade well, after quitting the chat
room alerts, and slowly build up my small trading account gradually.
Because let’s be real here, you can spend 8 hours a day trading in front of the computer,
but you are not guaranteed a paycheck, you can even lose money too. But that 9-5 job
you go to everyday is not going to cost you money right? Just costing you time.
Having that stable income that you can count on will provide you the mental comfort to
take trading slow and allow yourself more time to learn about yourself as a trader.
Whether you like to long or short, what strategies work for you, are you better at, penny stocks
or large cap stocks. Those are all the things you need to give yourself time and more importantly,
market tuition to learn.
Keeping your job or multiple jobs will allow you to not be so attached to the money that
you’re trading. It’s unfortunate but losing money is part of the business in trading.
It's evitable. The key is to control your losses and keep them small.
And the only you can cut your losers small, is if you are not attached to the money, because
you have your full time job, or jobs, to pay your rent, your food, and providing for your
kids or family.
I read this amazing quote from this trader/ business man on twitter, and I'm never going
to forget it. Learning to trade means living a few years of your life most people won't,
so that you can live the rest of your life like most people can't.
Like i mentioned earlier, It all comes down to sacrifices. Do you want this bad enough?
Maybe it means partying a little less on weekends. Eating out only once or twice a week, and
sleeping only six hours a day and keeping only one boyfriend. Or just, none at all.
But of course, if everything I just talked about sounds like too much effort and too
much time, theres still hope. My answer to that, chat room alerts baby. Takes only 2
minutes to make millions. Works well 100%, 1% of the time.
Now I'm sure you must be curious by now, what are the exact strategies I personally used
to trade at the market open and at the end of the day during power hour. Well you’re
in luck, make sure to subscribe and ring that notification bell.
Because in part 2 of this video, we are going to talk about the specific long strategies
thats suitable for part time traders trying to growing their small account while working
a full time job. So if you want to see that video, make sure to let me know in the comments
section below.