As you know I am currently not full-time trader and my trading journey is currently in slow building phase and honestly I feel much better even though I do not have 100% of the time I had previously, so if you are pushing yourself to be full-time trader, read closely and I hope it will change your perspective on what you now think it is and how it is in the reality.
My trading journey is pretty wild ride. My first year I had my fist funded account and I broke my first expectations even further I thought would be possible. Made my first good money when I was studying, so I was not that poor student anymore - I now had money and was eager to leave the school to pursue trading career. Hopefully I didn’t do that.
I - It is boring even more than you can imagine
I know you have heard it multiple times already that trading is boring when it is only thing you do - but most of people who are saying that, did not live it enough or just say it because it sounds cool. I really went through that and you can’t even imagine how boring it was.
Day started, woke up whenever I wanted, had a breakfast, took a look on the chart, did anything just to waste time because I was waiting for New York session to open. I did a lot of productive work as well, I was working on this newsletter, reading and working out in the gym.
Sounds awesome right?
I was thinking that as well - first 2 years. Maybe it was because I was not too rich to really live the life trading should be about - expensive cars, travelling all the time, wasting money on nonsense. I wasn’t that at all. I had decent money monthly, saved some also and just living normal life. At one time it became basically purposeless. I felt like the multi-millionaire who sold the company and was just “at the end” of his career life. Sounds weird, but that’s how it felt. I was just guy in the room who was trading, had no obligation on meeting anyone, everyone around me was working on something - either business or basic 9-5 and I had nothing to do. My only job was to trade. To trade, make money off it and repeat.
I watched a lot of anime, played games, just wasted the time.
At the beginning it felt awesome, but since I am the guy who just wants to get better and see some progress - it killed me inside. I was feeling like the boat without sailor. I was simply on the ocean of the markets, going in the direction it guided me. I couldn’t control it.
So if you are idolising how awesome it has to be a full-time trader and do nothing - you probably never did “nothing” and never had “nothing” to pursue. It’s much worse than you think and if you do not know you will be making millions daily (I did not make that lol), you will probably feel the same way I did. I was not just sitting at home and doing absolutely nothing, I went on the trips, I was travelling, part of this was the almost 3 months trip in Asia, but I still felt this way.
Maybe you would feel similar or it would be great time for you, I do not know, that’s just my experience.
II - In the worst time, your performance will decrease dramatically
The other thing is that when I needed it the most, I basically stopped making money. It could be because of the market cycle, market change overall, the edge stopped working or most likely because I just started to suck at making important and fast decisions as I did before. When the only thing you do is to make decisions in the markets - you will get better at it. Consistency in that is awesome. But imagine it’s only thing you do. Everyday you just take those decisions. If you should enter or not. If you should close the position or not. How much risk to put on this specific position and why. Why do you feel that this position is not good enough for entering? - All these types of decisions, I was just flooded daily with it. I got simply overwhelmed. So I started to suck at it.
Do the math, I said that I made money monthly and had some money saved - so now I stopped making money monthly and lived just off the money I saved. This was not so bad at all, I had over one year decent amount of monthly expenses saved, but when you switch into paying daily things from saved money - without the income - your thinking just changes. You start to think more on what you are doing. You feel like you are just wasting money. Even though I told myself that this is the reason why I saved so much - for the case like this so I am not totally ruined and can continue to trade, but it felt the way it felt. It was horrible.
Month by month, drawdown was increasing on all my funded accounts and even though I had biggest account ever I realised that without making profit it is for nothing. It’s just number on the screen which makes me feel even more sick from myself that I can’t make money from it. It was never ending cycle of realising this and finding hope that I will make it back somehow. Then it came. My biggest loss streak ever. I took 36 losses in the row. Not good timing. Not good timing at all.
I do not think there is good timing for that, but I think there are some better situations it can happen to you and worse, I think this was the worse time for that. I basically was running out of money after 3 years of pretty good life from trading (totally bored but atleast I had money lol) the next year was about to break me. Followed my plan to the T as gurus always say and was waiting for my edge to start working again - the losses have to go away right? If you follow the edge long enough it will just change and start working again. I made money with this edge. Right? Was far from truth.
I have blown all my accounts - lost my only income I had.
For the second time.
III - The stress will outweigh the time freedom
Time freedom. You hear it all over the space. Those who did trading for real and do not live just from the selling nonsense would argue that the time freedom is paid with your mental health at some point.
Just imagine.
You have all the time in the day, sounds awesome right? But what about the days when you put in the work, you did trade. You entered the trade. You tried your best and executed flawlessly based on your strategy. But even so, you got loss and now you are in drawdown - but the expenses are still present. They will never go away. So your only option is to go from your savings, there is nothing you can do. Just accept the fact that you can put in hundreds of ours in upcoming months and you can be on the zero - or even worse, below the zero. That’s what happens in trading.
“Hardest way to make easy money” - this sentence explains trading pretty well. Looks easy when you are starting, you just simply do not know what you do not know. There is just so much stuff you need to know, that you accept the fact you now know what to do - that’s absolutely false. Better to accept the fact that you will never know. That’s what I do.
Sounds cliché to speak about trading this way, but I am honestly pretty tired of everyone telling you how awesome it is to be full-time, mostly because they never were full-time and probably never will. Statistics speak for itself. There is no doubt, that only 3% people can live off trading for extended period of the time (more than 3 years), somehow I did so and I am telling you this, quite paradoxical. But that’s just how it is.
I switched to part-time and my trading is blooming. I wouldn’t say that I have the best performance I had, but I feel the best in terms of my psychology. I am not stressed to push the button, I now do it just like 1-2 times a month and I am absolutely OK with that. I can just chill.
Bills are paid. No matter my performance, I do not need to waste my savings on that - I can invest it. That’s pretty nice change for my life. Life feels much more chill now.
I am not saying you not to go full-time ever, but just have different expectations and most importantly have some savings ready, you will probably need it.
IV - You will be alone
All the time in the world - but other people will be living their normal lives without you - they need to work or study. You do not need any of it.
Look around, how many people are full-time traders or even real traders around you? How many people do you know that are trading in your country? Have you met them anytime? I think that answer is clear.
Now imagine you are just trading, you have nothing to do except of doing your own stuff and you would like to see someone, they will be just busy with their life. Doing normal stuff. Doing what everyone, except you, is doing. You are just weirdo who doesn’t need to go anywhere, see anyone, do anything and somehow makes money. No surprise people will ask you what you are doing, if you are not selling drugs or anything. It just doesn’t make sense for society.
Since 2020 when I started trading I simply haven’t met a single person who would be doing trading full-time as I was. Never, but suddenly when you open social media there will be full-time traders all over the place. It might be easier to fake it for most of the population but what I see is just trash. And imagine that you are doing it “right way”, you just trade, do not deceive people about anything and all other people who do not know what trading is see just those fake gurus promoting non-sense materialistic style of life.
Just live your life, do trading on the sidelines until you really have a lot of capital to trade with - I mean so much capital that for example 1% could pay you your yearly expenses. I have tried it with couple of hundreds thousands in Funded Capital and I have to say, that I was full-time, but it was not as dreamy as I thought it would be. I enjoyed some parts of it, but when the drawdown hit, it was one of the most stressful parts of my career I ever had.
Bless you all.
- Luke
charts call like sirens, promising the crown~
yet heavy is the quiet when the screens go down. a slow~ steady building in the shadows of the trade~
for empires are hollow if they're too quickly made~✨️
The part about being alone was definitely something I didn’t expect. Besides Substack, what do you prefer to do to fill your day with productive activities?