These days, you’re probably seeing a lot of bitcoin billionaires and TikTok investors buying mansions and Lambos from their trading profits.
For simpler folks such as myself, having the freedom and flexibility that comes with full-time trading already sounds like a pretty sweet deal.
Imagine being able to ditch a 9-to-5 job while staying at home, watching the markets for a few hours, trading in pajamas, and doing whatever you want for the rest of the day.
If that ain’t living the dream, then I don’t know what is!
But is it really possible to make a living from trading full-time? Here are some factors to consider.
First off, just like any other profession, trading takes a lot of practice and experience to develop the skills needed to turn it into a primary source of income.
Med students don’t become skilled surgeons overnight and bar exam passers don’t become competent lawyers in the blink of an eye. You’re simply setting yourself up for disappointment if you think you can live off your profits within your first few weeks (or even years) of trading.
Just as pilots go through several simulations before flying commercial, you might need to clock in several hours of trading demo and live before making it your full-time job.
Next, you also have to look into your capital and treat trading as a business. Just like in any other business, you need to come up with a tried-and-tested strategy that you are ready to execute as the CEO, manager, employee, and intern.
You are in charge of top-level planning, but there is a lot of grunt work involved, too!
A key business principle you need to remember is that it takes money to make money.
If you are undercapitalized, you simply run the risk of losing your funds quickly, especially if you are unfamiliar with margin and leverage.
Being properly funded will allow you to sweat out periods of bad business (poor trading, drawdowns), and give you a higher chance of surviving long enough so that you can stay in periods of good business.
Oh, and did I mention that you should only trade money you can afford to lose?
If you have to put all your live savings into a trading account or, god forbid, take out a personal loan in hopes of catching outsized gains, then full-time trading might not be for you.
And if you’re planning to do all these from the comfort of your own home, you should also look into these 4 Challenges that Home-Based Traders Go Through.