How To Trade Part-Time while Working a Full-Time Job

are you struggling to trade part-time while working a full-time job then this video is made for you I'll be talking about my personal part-time trading routine that has allowed me to eventually quit my nine to seven job and become a full-time day trader I'll also share some amazing strategies and tools for part-time trading best practices and rules for Traders of all time zones and a list of deadly mistakes that you definitely need to avoid [Music] my name is Shea AKA humble Trader over eight years ago I had a real job I was learning to trade part-time while working my Dradful nine to seven job in a VFX and film industry however through a lot of struggles and breakthroughs I slowly grew my trading account on the side and I'll be sharing that with you today whether you plan on quitting your job to become a full-time Trader or you want to stay doing this part time as a psyched hustle and another source of income you will definitely learn a lot in this video If you appreciate my effort in sharing my stories and tips for you instead of spending my time cruising a Lambo and laughing to the bank then please remember to drop a like on the video I'd really appreciate it first let me share with you my exact part-time trading routine from years ago when I had a 9-7 job and yes I did say nine to seven if you haven't nine to five instead you are so lucky but remember at the time whether I worked hard or slacked off and watched Netflix all day stayed busy or not in office during my nine to seven job I was still guaranteed a paycheck at the end of the day and never had a risk of losing money just a risk of losing my soul as you probably know I'm a Trader living on the west coast when I first started as a beginner day trader I was living in Los Angeles and then later on I moved to Vancouver Canada since I lived in the West Coast time zone that means I'm three hours ahead of the market and don't worry I'll still give you tips for other time zones later on as well my typical morning will look something like this I'll wake up at 5am Pacific time in the morning which is around 8 A. M Market Time by 5 15 I'll be at my trading desk and starting the pre-market trade planning process I'll start out with scanning for stocks to trade with my pre-market scanner I'm looking for stocks gapping up or gapping down huge overnight obviously the trade planning process doesn't stop there I'll proceed to reading the news on these overnight gappers are these stocks gapping up because of new 500 million contract from the government or due to earnings bids or other stocks gapping down due to the overnight Market fearful conditions or did they miss big on earnings so after I've selected a handful of stocks then I'll eventually spend the time charting out the levels and planning out all the strategies I'll use to trade them that means I'm basically spending the entire 5 15 am to 6 a. m my time to plan out the trades I would execute at the market open I know some of you might be wondering right now not sure what about premium market trading the answer is I really traded pre-market the reason is for the strategies I personally traded I need a lot of range and volume I know 2020 and 21 really spoiled a lot of Traders those were the two years that were indeed amazing time to trade during the pre-market session I definitely participated in that as well however those two years aside I find that I don't execute that well during pre-market because of a lack of liquidity during that time and also keep in mind you cannot play stop loss Market orders in extended hours trading so in order to avoid execution errors slippage and bigger than expected losses I really prefer to take the pre-market session as the time to refine my trading plans for the open at the time many years ago I strictly focus on Long strategies I didn't quite know how to go shorts just yet and whether you are a loan buyers or sure buyers Trader the opening 30 minutes to an hour is when you get to execute some quick trades and be done for the day and you can head out to work note I said quick but not easy and if you're wondering right now which strategies I traded and which tools and scanners I use I'll recommend that later on so make sure to stick around and find out now from 6 AM to 6 20 local time I'll take a quick coffee break and do some quick stretches and get ready for the market open once the bell rings at 6 30 am at local time or 9 30 Market time I'll trade and take advantage of the volume and momentum within the first hour of the day from the earlier trade planning sessions we talked about I would have around four stocks on watch when I was trading part-time but really even with those four stocks on watch most of the time I really only execute on two trades and in case you were wondering no I didn't have all these screens and real estates that you see right now one was trading part-time my setup many years ago was very simple and cheap I had one laptop with One external monitor connected I started out using a MacBook Pro running interactive brokers and think with swim however I eventually upgraded to a PC to be able to run more advanced broker platforms with faster executions if you're just starting out part-time I really recommend keeping your setup really simple just have enough screen real estate to focus on one stock at a time and no I do not recommend trading on your phone I actually have a story for that later on my trading in the morning would end around 8 to 8 30 in my local time which is around 11 to 11 30 Market time and that's when I'll hurry up close my positions and pack up my things to go to work and as you may have guessed most of the time I end up showing up to work late by about 30 to 40 minutes but hey as long as no one found out that you're sneaking in from the back door at work it's totally fine I really hope none of my previous bosses or managers see this otherwise it won't look too good actually who cares that that was like years ago I am not suggesting that you go to work late by the way I'm just suggesting that hey maybe you could perhaps maximize your time in productivity while increasing your earning potential even though I used to show up to work late a lot my managers know that I was really efficient and I could still meet all my deadlines so my work never suffered all jokes aside please remember to do your job and yes keep your job please because you will need a stable employment income from your job in order to trade well especially if you're still learning as a new Trader now going back to my routine during the day while at work yes I will still check on the overall Market condition on my phone but generally speaking I do not trade while at work and even if I do I'm just closing out the rest of the position that had already entered from the morning I would only leave large cab or mid cap stock positions on while I'm at work I never like to hold on to small Caps or low float penny stock positions for an extended period of time especially when I'm not watching these low float smoke cap stocks are way too volatile and unpredictable their volume can drop significantly midday and slowly bleed out in prices for the rest of the day or once every blue moon they'll trap a little v-wop and rip into the afternoon and squeeze out all the shorts so generally speaking I believe that having all of your day trades closed out before going to your full-time job is the way to go whenever I did that I built way more at ease and I could fully concentrate on my job without any distractions imagine if a stock drops due to negative news in the middle of an important call at work or imagine if you walk into a meeting thinking that oh you're up a grant on your long position and after the meeting ends one hour later you see a red negative three thousand dollars because your best friend Jay pow pow said something hawkish after reviewing some economic data yes something similar actually happened to me many years ago during a meeting and I had to sit through the rest of the five hours at work every second was a torture knowing that I would make two hundred dollars by the end of the day and that's not even enough to cover 30 percent of my losses so guys and girls please learn from my lessons whether you are a part-time Trader or full-time Trader neither of which means trading all the time so after that incident I personally didn't want to take that kind of risk anymore if I cannot fully concentrate on the ticker whether you want to manage your positions on your phone or desktop and have a stop loss order in place that's entirely up to you I'm just sharing some of my tragic story here to provide some reality check during Power Hour from 3 pm Market time to close which is around my lunch time at 12 I actually did not actively day trade all that much most of the time I'll end up spending the one hour looking for stocks that closing strong on the day and holding key daily levels on my phone or on my computer and if I see some stocks that has a good Chart good strength into the clothes then I will look to buy the stock and swing it overnight or the next few days we'll be talking about the strategy in a little bit this will be great for part-time traders who are still under the PDT rule as well but the work doesn't stop there when my it closes at 4 pm Eastern if you haven't noticed by now this trading part time while working a full-time job hustle actually requires full-time effort so at the end of the day after getting home around 8 PM my local time I will spend about two hours before going to bed on stock research and analyzing the top movers on the day see how each of the gappers I had unwatched on the morning performed some additional homework I would do in the evenings are planning out my levels on the charts journaling trades from the morning into my journal and watch any video lessons from the trading communities that I was in which was a great way to help me prepare for the next morning this way I can really speed up my pre-market trade planning process the next day remember trading is 90 about the work you do outside of Market hours so that was an extensive breakdown of my part-time trading routine from when I had a full-time job now let's move on to talking about some of the key strategies and tools that you can use to optimize your part-time trading but before we do so if you're enjoying the video so far are please remember to gently tap the like button this video sharing my stories and tips to help you out really take me a long time to make I would appreciate your support so I can make more educational videos like these in the future so here are my long strategies for part-time trading as mentioned earlier in the video one was trading part-time and mostly focused on going long meaning buying the stocks to sell higher I will buy the dip on strong stocks with positive Catalyst most of the time and sometimes I would join the trend instead of buying the dip a very important part of this strategy is to be able to find stocks with strength and high volume that are potentially great for your long setups so that's why I set up my scanners to look for the highest percentage Gap and the highest volume on the day both of these are the some of the most important technical criteria that you can scan for in my first year or so trading as a beginner I didn't have the money to purchase additional scanners so here are my recommendations for free market scanners that you can use to find suitable gappers for the long strategies or joining the trend and the free scanners are we both stock screener think or Swim pre-market Gap scan and thin the screener they are not perfect but they will be able to find most gappers every single day and speaking of Weeble they're running a promotion right now and you could get up to 12 free stocks you'll get two free stocks valued up to three hundred dollars after opening an account and up to 10 more free stocks valued up to three thousand dollars after depositing any amount of money this is basically free money so if you're looking for free live market data and free pre-market scanner now is a perfect time to check out weibo and get some free stocks down below so I was using free options for a while but after about two years I transitioned to paying for premium scanners and that was a game changer I can do so much more than just scan for stocks now I can find all the average volume float market cap short interest average daily volume all within a few seconds this honestly saved me so much time and especially when every second counts as a part-time Trader paying for premium scanners really allowed me to build my morning watch list faster and more efficiently I have been using and paying for trade idea scanner for many years now I highly recommend it you can download my scanner settings down below and try them out if you're trading part-time and need to speed up the process every single day before going to work this is worth it now moving on to a second strategy I would highly recommend for part-time traders to build your account is Swing trading when I had my full-time job there were periods of time well we're just so busy working overtime for certain film Productions that I just couldn't bring myself to wake up at 5 00 am in the morning after staying late to work till like 9 00 or 10 p.

m so that's where I developed this backup strategy for swing trading there were two kinds of swings that I would trade the first one is an overnight swing strategy I will use a lunchtime break around 3 to 4 pm Eastern Time to find the top gainers on the day again you can do that easily with free or paid scanners that I mentioned earlier after that I would studying the Catalyst on the gainers rule out any of the ones that doesn't have news or only has fluff news and only narrow down to one single stock this has to be a stock that's closing strong on the day with really bullish news that's likely to have continuation for the next day or even the next few days that's when I'll buy the stock overnight however in recent years I find that I swing overnight less and less now I prefer to Open Swing trades that would take a week or more to play out I would pick stocks uh consolidating on a daily chart and is a part of hype up sector with a lot of chatter and optimism a perfect example is my recent AI stock swing trade that I mentioned in a chat GPT video I bought the stock at around 20 to 21 dollars and swung it to 26 dollars for next 24 percent profit in one week the swing trading strategy will be especially valuable to the traders in the US who are under PDT Rule and trying to grow their small accounts while working their nine-to-five job remember if you buy a stock and hold it overnight and sell it next day or the next couple of days that will not count as a day trade for you now let's talk about how to execute on this day trading and swing trading strategies I mentioned earlier I really recommend you to check out Oco orders on your trading platform Oco order stands for one cancels the other order also known as bracket orders essentially this allows you to manage your existing position when you're on the way to work or at work if you really must trade at work you get to set a life take profit order and a stop loss order at the bottom let me show you an example of how Oco order works for example let's say you're law on Tesla stock on this particular day you're already long at 195 over here around let's say around 9 50 and you need to go to work let's say you already sold some at 197 but you really think the stock is going to continue trending up higher and do what Elon Musk loves to say to the Moon well instead of leaving your position open and risk coming out of your work meeting with a three thousand dollars last like what happened to me you can use an Oco one order so the first order you're gonna set is a take profit on your platform perhaps you think Tesla has room to let's say 200 on the daily chart then that's the first half of your Oco order you're gonna set a cell limit order at 200 over here so over here that's a sell limit of your remaining position but remember you also have to protect your downside as well in case a stock drops midday so the second half of your Oco is a stop loss Market order let's say you got in at 195 and you only want to risk 50 cents from 195 so you'll set a stop loss Market order at 194. 50 over here this Oco order will be perfect because if either one of the take profits on the top at 200 or stop loss at 194 50 gets hit and triggered the other one linked will be canceled automatically hence the name one cancels the other it depends on your platform but this is what it looks like on Das Trader so over here on the Montage window you can see the stop loss Market order stop loss at 194. 50 that's your trigger price and that's set to Market okay that's your stop-loss order and down here this is my take profit you can see I'm selling a thousand shares at 200 and that would be limit order or whichever route you're using and make sure your Oco is checked on so that's how you link these two order pairs into a Oco order and that's the reason why Oco orders are also known as bracket orders because you haven't ordered limiting your downside below well the other one is helping you take profit above remember to use Market orders for your stop losses whether you are loan biased or sure biased you're basically never safe leaving these day trades on without proper stops besides the tools and strategies I mentioned earlier here are some very important tips for me to you if you're a part-time Trader at the moment and looking to trade well generate some consistent profits while working a full-time job you will want to learn from a costly mistakes the first one is important and I know you won't like hearing this know when to walk away from Trading it's not necessarily hard to make money but extremely difficult to keep it when I was trading part-time I find it very hard to shut down my computer and pull myself out of the market to go away to work if I had a good day and the market is really hot I will want to keep on pushing and really try to make more money but if I had a bad day then I would want to stick around longer to make back my losses both of these situations will lead me to over trade and give back all my morning gains or even worse make me lose even more money than I already had as a part-time Trader with a full-time job you shouldn't have to push all the hard every single day so remember to take it easy and slow down put in the hard work yes but the market is going to be open again tomorrow take the meat of the move and run this is true for day trading and swing trading there were many months in the past before where I just couldn't find any good potential swing trades to hold overnight or a few days I used to force those trades and lose money those were really stupid mistakes on my part so I really hope you don't do the same the second important tip I have for you is do not quit your job I know you might not like hearing this once again but I'm just being realistic here do yourself a huge favor and keep your job contrary to what a lot of Lifestyle marketing around the whole day trading industry tell you quitting your job altogether to day trade is really not as glamorous or as easy as it may seem well yes I did hate my nine to seven job just like most people keeping that job really meant to have predictable employment income and some Financial stability which were key factors to allowing me to trade well after quitting the chat room alerts and slowly build up my small account over time because let's be real here you can spend eight hours a day day trading in front of the computer but you're not guarantee the paycheck you can even lose money but a nine to seven job you have you go to every single day is guaranteed income having a stable income Source you can count on will provide you the mental Comfort to take trading slow and easy and allow yourself more time to learn and yes your employment income will be paying for your Market tuition at the same time it's unfortunate but losing money is part of the business in trading in the beginning it's inevitable the key is to control your losses and keep them small and the only way you can cut your losers small and follow risk management is if you are not too attached to the money because you have your full-time job to pay for your rent food and providing for your kids or family now I'm sure some of you are thinking okay Shay your part-time trading routine works well for you because you're on the west coast but what if I'm closer to Eastern Time Zone well I've never lived and traded there for an extended amount of time I do have some tips after gathering information from other traders in my community the first tip for you is actively seek to work for from home after 2020 and 21 most workplaces will allow you to work from home at least two days a week so make sure to organize your work and trading schedule and block out your time accordingly the second tip if you really cannot work from home then at least negotiate a different starting time instead of starting to work at 9am Eastern Time see if you can negotiate to start at 11 or 12 p.