A Part Time Business?
I trade part time for two reasons. First, I'm nowhere near good enough to take the plunge and, second, I do not want to give up my other job yet which I would have to do to trade full time.
I look to make a few hundred dollars a day and gain experience.
The key is that both jobs are desk jobs. I'm in a position to watch screens every minute the markets are open and I have been watching some of the stocks and options I trade for years now. When possible, I try to get a few hours every day or other day to put to the test some trades that I come up with at night.
Ideas come from print media, sites such as SI, and from other traders that I correspond with. I read numerous magazines, newspapers, and books on trading. Examples are Barrons, Red Herring, Biz Week, Technical Analysis, Industry Standard, IBD, and WSJ. For the past year or so, I've come up with some great put trades just from the print media. I use TC2000, not well, and Barcharts at night. During the day, I participate in Activetrader.net and use Datek, Quick & Reilly and Mr. Stock.
The result so far is that the lack of time has not hurt me anywhere near as much as simply failing to follow a lot of the rules that I've seen posted here and in trading books/publications.
I would like to increase the amount of time spent trading and would like your thoughts on the following:
1. A reasonably priced direct access service for stocks - not more than say 40 trades a week. Maybe as few as 10. Options would be great too because I now use Mr. Stock which is too sophisticated for my needs and way too slow. Also, I would hope that it would be strong on the intraday charts and include futures.
2. Some kind of software to manage the record keeping or maybe the access service could do it for me.
3. A service that provides "squawk box" to the Chicago trading floors because I want to get a sense of the sound of the futures trading. I have seen this mentioned in several publications and I'd like to listen to it for a few months as an alternative to CNBC which is insufferable for me lately.
4. Whether I should mark myself to market starting in 2002 and take the position that I am also a trader. I believe I now meet the tests the IRS and courts use to determine "trader."
Any thoughts on the above or easing into trading would be appreciated.
George K. |
