Can You Day Trade for a Living? -- with David Moadel
hey everybody and welcome to looking at the markets with David Modell sometimes
people ask me about day trading should I quit my full-time job and start day
trading I would say for most people don't do it keep your full-time job and
try swing trading and or long term investing I'm not saying that you cannot
succeed as a day trader and I'm not saying that if the market offers you a
day trade that you shouldn't take it for example if I buy a stock in the morning
and it goes up 10% that same day I'm gonna take profits and technically
that's a day trade however most of my trades are swing trades or long-term buy
and hold trades sometimes people tell me that they want to quit their full-time
job and go and trade or day trade instead but day trading is a full-time
job you'll just be a switching one full-time
job for another full-time job think about it in order to day trade you're
going to have to stare at that screen for six-and-a-half 8 10 12 hours a day
and if you have kids if you have college if you have work to do
that's not really feasible so therefore day trading is not for most people also
I have a tendency to believe in the randomness of the short-term moves of
the markets I believe that in the very short term in the next minute or five
minutes or hour you really can't predict very easily if
at all where a price of an asset is going to go on the other hand the longer
you buy and hold your position the more it it becomes predictable to a certain
extent because most assets most really good companies have a tendency to go up
over time and so if you just hold on to them and if they're a really good
company you might use a stop loss and that's fine but if you don't really
really great companies have a tendency to go up if you
long enough and so swing trading and long term trading I think is great for
people who are busy too busy not to take on another full-time job basically and
it gives you the freedom to do other things and also you don't have to worry
about the work the short-term randomness of price movements because when you're
buying great companies and great commodities and things like that you can
at least have the assurance that they'll probably not always would probably go
back up over time and so when I coach people I generally start them with swing
trading and possibly also some long-term buy and hold positions and that way they
can collect dividends if it's a stock that pays dividends and then we discuss
whether you're going to use a stop loss or not it depends on your time frame
your risk tolerance account size all that good stuff and in the end at the
end of the day you have to make your own decisions I cannot tell you what to do
all I can do is help people to make decisions for themselves because
everybody is different so for most people I would say you probably don't
want to do a lot of day trading you can look into it but unless you have time to
be watching the computer screen or the phone or whatever for many hours during
the day because remember your entry and your exit points for day trading can
come and go very quickly and they can happen very suddenly and you can lose a
lot of money very quickly I mean if you have a stop loss in place that can help
you to avoid that but still you really need to be watching it constantly for
opportunities to get in and to get out and so therefore day trading I think is
not for most people alright it can be profitable it could be
very profitable and I help people with that as well if you want to learn how to
do that I can help you with that but again for most people if they don't
know what their time frame is going to be or if they have unrealistic
expectations for what day trading they think is all about then I have a
tendency to start them off at least with some swing trading as well as some
long-term buy and hold positions so I hope it gave you something to think
about you have to decide your own timeframe decide how much time you're
willing to spend on this how much money you're willing to put into this keep
your positions small have your stop losses if you think those are something
that you want to do and if you're not gonna have a stop loss then have an exit
plan or decide that you're gonna ride it out but only if it's a really great
company things like that these are things that I help people to make
decisions with based on every individual's particular situation so if
I give you something to think about if I helped you to clarify in your mind where
are you gonna where you want to go with your trading or investing please give
this a thumbs up okay on YouTube and leave a comment what do you think are
you into day trading swing trading long term buy and hold or a combination of
all those because that's what I tend to do I tend to do whatever I feel is the
best set up at any given time and also please subscribe to my youtube channel
if you haven't done that already and hit that notification bell so you can get
updates whenever I put out a new video and if you want more help from me I'll
go ahead and put my email address for coaching on skype or on phone it's David
Modell at gmail.com thanks a lot I appreciate it I'll talk to you again
soon