How many hours a day are you putting into trading?

Beginner Questions
21

@dudebro I would say a successful trader would need to put in a minimum of 4-5 hours a week and they is no maximum.

However, to awnser your question more accurately- the amount of time you put in is dependent on the time frame that you are trading. To be a daytrader you will have to chart and digest news daily so you will need more free hours per day. To trade of weekly and monthly charts you can study the monthly,weekly and daily charts which of course take longer to form.

A newbie trader will need more hours as they are in a process of developing a system that works for them!

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22

That’s a good distinction to make. Good call.

Man, that’s awesome. Any burnout with that amount of time? How much of that is charting vs reading?

23

Great answer. Thanks!

Definitely depends on where in your strategy development you are.

1 Like
24

I guess you are using pending order strategy to grab your entry points; isn’t? Because; only 4 hours with break is a very tiny session!

25

@LauChoKun How many hours a day are you putting towards trading?

26

Hi; here I am doing my trading job as a full time trader; so less than 12 hours! Thanks!

27

Changing my game a lil bit. I spend 2 hours daily between studying, researching and actually trading something nowadays

28

I dont consider myself a full time trader because I have a full time job but I spend the same amount of time trading if not more.

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29

Yeah nowhere near of an aggressive trader.

30

Right now, since i’m not trading full time but rather doing FOREX as a way to enhance my income, I would put it at around 3-4 hours a day with 90% of that going towards reading, studying and making notes and 10% to actually setting my positions, limits etc.

Sometimes, if i get the chance - I put in a little extra work on the weekends (time & kids permitting).

31

So does anyone here do live trade as in do the following

  1. do your days research
  2. set aside a time period say 14:00 to 16:00 where you will trade based on your research
  3. 16:00 close positions, keeping long-term ones open

is all trading done in a semi automated fashion… set SL and PL and wait for one them to activate

Really intrigued to find out

32

That’s one of the best if not the ONLY to avoid the pitfalls of overstaying on a position when you know you “should have” left already because “it’s doing so well, why stop now?” - set things on auto so that you don’t lose your pants because you relied on your “gut feeling” instead of trusting your plan!

33

@Ray316 are you referring to my post

34

How long have you been doing that @MaydayJane? Great commitment for sure.

35

I spend a few hours every day researching, it takes me only 15 minutes to review my charts for entries.

Maybe I am addicted. lol

1 Like
36

Depends how good you want to be.

When you have your strategies down to an algorithmic format in your head with a proven profitable track record, you don’t have to spend that much time in the hot seat, just make sure you are available and keeping your eye out for the market to come to your level.

If you are flailing about hapless, chopping and changing between setup strategies, impulse trading jumping in and out of trades left right and centre without really knowing why you are taking the trade well in advance of it setting up…

…then the more time you can afford to spend, or bear spending, then the better you will become, providing you are spending that time well, really looking for the good patterns and breaking them right down into component parts that you can easily list for assessing future opportunities.

37

Yes, sorry, must have clicked on the wrong “reply” button!

38

I spend 3-4 hours, 5 days a week.
I’m currently testing some strategies live on a micro account but most of the time I am still developing and backtesting new strategies.

I start at 8.45 (UTC+2) (after I have dropped of my kids at school) with some preparations
My trading hours are from 9.00-12.00 (mostly on 15m, sometimes 30m, depending on the strategy).
During these hours I only actually trade if my system alerts me on average once a day. So 95% of the time I am doing analysis and testing.
I quit at 13.00 to pick up my kids, rest of the day I’m a stay-at-home dad.

1 Like
39

Thanks for sharing. I like the idea of breaking them down into component parts.

Thanks for sharing the details about your day to day! It’s great to see people with more than just trading, trading. Sometimes I imagine that to be successful, you can’t do or focus on anything else but trading.

40

Well…
after that comment I got a lil bit lazy!! But I’ve been trying to keep the two hours a day for a month and a half now (with the occasional slip up!)