What's the difference between part-time and full-time trading?

Okey, it can look like kind a silly question, however…

I understand that if i’m swing/position trader it’s part-time then,
and if scalper/daytrader its about full-time. Am i right?
Is it possible for example to be full-time swing trader?

How many hours a day do you trade and what kind of traders you are?

Best wishes, Stronger91

It’s a really good question actually because I myself having a hard time figuring it out what’s the difference between part time and full time trader.

I view full time trader who makes money solely in trading and that he/ she do not hold any regular job and living out off profit from trading. Part time traders are still holding on a job but still do trading on aside.

Intraday trader. Mostly trades NY session and sometimes Asian Sessions.

I would say full-time is when you do nothing as trading every day and earn enough money so you needn’t do anything else. -and part time is having a job and trade in your free time (in hope) to make some extra money:27:

I think full time is when you live from it and part time when you are on the way.

There’s no difference as far as trading goes. It depends more on what your definition of full or part time is. Full time could mean you don’t do anything else but trade. Part time could mean you have a job and trading is not your main income. You could be a student and trade along with going to school. I do other things beside trade, I say I’m a business man. The amount of time you spend is dependent on your situation. No matter how you classify someone full or part time to trade successfully, they need to use a method to trade, along with proper money management and exercise patience and discipline, while you work your plan.

Yeah, i agree with all of you guys…
but still, lets say scalping is the best i can do in forex market, but i have a regular job…
Soo… its kinda complicated to say am i full time or part time trader, isnt it?

Best wishes, Stronger91

Use some caution with scalping and shorter term intraday trading when you’re starting out. When you’re learning, you want to give yourself time and not have to be rushed into making quick decisions, even if you do have a trade plan laid out 1 , 5 , 15 min charts I feel are really for more advanced traders, and even those guys can go for wild unexpected rides.
Also longer term charts gives you plenty of time for your day job, you can always go to faster charts later.

Well, I’m defenitely a part-time trader. But if there are people who, let’s say trade only like 5-6 times a month on during the economical news releases or people, who trade with EA. Maybe it is still enough money for living, but what to do all the rest of the time? Just nothing? So they go to work. Aren’t they full-timers than?

Thank God you took the trouble to bump a thread from 2013 to point this out - otherwise we’d never have known.

maybe a full time trader wears a better shoe!!!

Part time traders are smart enough than the full time traders as they keep their other options open while the full time trades risk it all by relying only on the Forex Trading, which is very much risky.

Trading part time in the forex is now very simplified. You can even duplicate trades of expert traders or simply look to EAs for signals.

Simple answer but the right one, it doesn’t matter when you do it or how do it. As long as you don’t do any other thing aside trading, then you are a full time trader!

I think it is better to trade part time, this way you could do some other jobs too and earn an extra livings.

when your trading frequency and time is limited to your spare times and you do not depend on trading for your main sources of income, you are a part time trader but when you make it an integral part of your business it becomes full time trading.

You can only make it full time, when you have enough investments to back you up in the time when you lose, and that is the only way to do it full time, else you could do part time anytime and achieve success.

Alternatively, you could [I]understand risk-management and position-sizing[/I], and not need “investments to back you up”.

It’s downright bizarre to tell someone that they can trade full-time only by having other investments, and that that’s the [U]only[/U] way to do it!

Not only do I know from my own experience that it isn’t true, but it also carries a connotation of needing something else to support your trading, which is weird, given that people with the intention of trading full-time are obviously doing so [i]because they already know it provides them with a secure income[/I], not because it’s something that’s going to [I]lose[/I] their money.

I disagree in a way, from a perspective of running my own business: it is extremely risky to assume that a new business will just be profitable all the time, so when accidents come your way (like a dip in income (which will come no matter how good you think you are) or illness) you must have another source of income or insurance against going broke. I cannot stress this enough, how one cannot treat trading any differently than running any other business. And in running a new business, lots of people rely on their partner or family to back them up…I did so too, because when you give up a salaried job to go solo, whether it is to run your own ice cream shop or to trade e.minis from home, it is insane to have some kind of pride and assume you will never hit a bad patch.

I agree with that, for sure …

The point I was trying to make (but not very articulately! :8: ) about [U]risk-management[/U] is that you ought to take that reality into account before you start trading [I]full-time[/I], know that you’ll hit some bad patches, and have enough trading capital to budget for that without needing to rely on “other investments” to subsidise your trading. I was kind of having a dig at undercapitalisation.

I think you’re making the point that you’ll need something else to support you, during a bad patch, and of course that’s a great point and a perfectly valid way of looking at it … so I take your point, of course. :8: :slight_smile:

Very important point, Lexy, indeed that would cut off a lot of retail trading because it would limit the number of people going into it with insufficient capital… As you say, one should capitalise before going into it (I say that to myself too)… It is like opening a shop with insufficient capital: even if you [I]could[/I] do it, you would probably not survive losing periods and go under, so the moral of the story is: even with all the right training and ideas about trading, just like in any other business, you will not survive it if you have insufficient capital (or you will make such small returns that you will soon realise it is pointless).

Thanks for clarifying, Lexy… sorry if I misunderstood you.