Can You Trade Forex While Working Full Time?

Woman Trading Forex on Laptop Part Time

To trade in a full-time job for the life of a day trader is very much the dream of a lot of people.

However, for the majority of traders, it’s all about fitting their day job into the picture. If this is done effectively, you’re looking at a very lucrative pursuit.

Trading forex part-time can lead to huge deals. When this is combined with the income derived from an average day job, it can seem like day trading part-time on the forex market while working a full-time job is a no-brainer.

But can trading Forex seriously be done in the long term?

First of all, one thing that needs to be made clear.

Many people work very hard at forex trading on a part-time basis every day and this eats into their home life. You can make money trading on the foreign exchange but it is not an easy task. The commitment required to become a quality trader on a part-time basis can be stressful but extremely rewarding.

It’s important that your heart is very much in it. So, consider starting off with our popular Trading for Beginners course. Cut your learning curve in half and get expert guidance on how to start trading the world’s financial markets.  

Make sure you’re committed to more than just the idea

Going into trading can be a real challenge if you don’t walk into it with a clear plan and system for trading.

To make the thing work every day, you have to find a system that you know gets results. Wherever that system comes from, it has brought you success.

… you have to find a system that you know gets results

So stick to it if you want to become a part-time forex trader.

Your main aim with trading while having a full-time job is to supplement your income. One sure-fire way of this is to make sure that you get that income boost by laying the correct foundations in strategy. The finer points of that strategy and the successful areas should be the only things that concern you.

With a real need to create a legitimate second income on the volatile foreign exchange for example, sticking to the stuff that works will bring you confidence, and the money.

Must Read: Trading Psychology: How To Control Emotions While Trading

Use your time and the weekends

Even though you are working full time, you still need to focus on making sure that you use the time wisely.

As many people who work from home soon find out, any time wasted is money wasted. And that means that you can lose money if you aren’t organised with good time management. This is the same if you’re juggling currency pairs or day trading stocks.

The more trading you do, the easier it is to waste time

Needless to say, making sure you spend each hour wisely is an essential skill in day trading.

But there’s a caveat …

The more trading you do, the easier it is to waste time.

Many part-time forex traders find that the weekends are the perfect times to build out a trading plan for example. And then all they have to do as the working week begins is follow that plan so that they have the minimum amount of daily work to do.

Read: 9 Day Trading Books That’ll Up Your Game Considerably

Audit your time

This is one of the most important aspects of trading, but it is even more vital that you get it right if you are working a full-time job.

Take a look at your week and find parts of the week that are just taking up time for little to no reason.

These episodes have no place in your trading strategy.

Expert tip
A weekly gathering with your friends.

Of course, it’s important that you have a social life (and perhaps essential if you are working so hard), but it might be worth considering cancelling 1 in 4 nights so that you grab some extra hours within which you can trade.

And if that isn’t possible, there are certainly some other windows of time in which you can make savings, and focus on buying and selling.

And here’s another example:

If you stop off for a coffee on the way to work and you always take fifteen minutes to read the free newspaper.

Consider changing this a little.

Cut these two actions out of your routine and you are already saving over an hour. While this may seem like a small saving it is still time that you could be using to research markets or to trade.

View: These Are The Best Trading Documentaries You Haven’t Watched

Keep a Trading Journal

With a 9 to 5 job on your hands, it’s easy to lose track of important information on markets and currencies for example.

Start by keeping a journal that notes all aspects of your trades and therefore allows you to make mistakes and learn from them, you will give yourself that extra level of protection. You’ll make fewer mistakes, here’s a handy template journal you can use to your advantage.

Working a full-time job means you can’t afford to make mistakes unless you want to remain in the ranks of the less successful, casual traders. You literally do not have the time to work through the problems, spot the right course of action and then move accordingly.

However, at the same time, mistakes will happen to some degree. To combat the problem, write as many notes as you can about your trading experience. This keeps your info close at hand, and also makes sure that you’re always learning.

Check Out:

How to lose money

While you can be a profitable trader overall, you will inevitably lose money on trades sometimes.

This is true for full-time traders as well as the most casual day trader. However, this should be factored into your mindset. By recognising that losses occur, you will keep that objectivity.

It is also advisable that you think carefully and prepare yourself adequately if you are thinking of working as a trader in your part-time hours. This means making sure that you have a savings buffer so that you can stop any financial issues before they become unmanageable.

To commit to any trading requires that you know what you are doing. To ensure this is the case, we recommend that you, learn to trade the financial markets.

Mastering the stop loss

It goes without saying that traders have to be clear and firm with the stop loss principle. This is perhaps especially true with part-time work because at some point you will simply not be there when things go south.

You could put in 23 hours a day on a trading strategy and still face catastrophe if there’s a huge downswing and you haven’t got the insurance a stop loss provides. Trading from home is great fun and challenging enough to keep you engaged for years, but it’s not a game of chance.

Protect your money and make sure the stop loss is never something you overlook.

Read: Spread betting vs. CFD Trading

So, what’s next?

As you are most probably aware, trading can be done at any time of the day, so doing it part-time is very possible.

A part-time forex trader can have a very lucrative side income if they are prepared and organised. However, working a day job for eight hours and then finding the time to trade from home requires plenty of discipline and common sense.

Anyone can do it, as long as they prepare and work hard.

Get started learning to trade!

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