For those working a full time job, how do you go about your trading? What timeframe are you trading? What pairs? How do you manage trading with the few hours left after work?
Well, I’ll normally pick no more than 3 pairs to look at throughout the week based on the setups I see Sunday night.There are times I’ll wake up around 2am before I have to get up for work and see what price is doing. I’ll set orders if I see that price is about to bust a move and go back to sleep. Also, since I happen to have a desk job, I am able to trade US session also, which is my favorite session. I don’t place any trades after 12pm, just monitor the ones I already have open.
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Hi zianfx,
So i’m a day trader and therefore I found it difficult to trade and work a full time job. I was entering late and making wrong decisions as I would trade when I could open the charts during breaks. So I stopped trading. Instead, around the hours of work I would read books, watch videos and analyse charts. This would include at the end of the day testing different strategies. I would then forward test any strategies I found day by day or on the weekend if I busy at work during weekday.
If you read trading books, they all contain tips on how to trade so every one will lead to more strategies to be tested. As I became more confident with trading and understood different principles I started working as a locum so working adhoc contract hours which were covering vacant shifts and saving more money. During annual leave and days off I would do trial runs at trading full time. Once I realised I was ready I gave up work and started trading full time. This included funding capital to my trading account by way of savings and loans. This is the way I did it but I did it this way because I’m day trading. If I was trading in a longer timeframe or swing trading then it wouldve been different but I’m sure there are traders who can give their experience. Good luck 
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If you must work in a full-time job, you are going to have to be a bit creative with trading styles and strategies.
Firstly, accept that manual entries and exits on lower than daily time-frames is impractical. But that does not mean you must hold overnight. It might be possible for you to use an opening range break-out strategy and set SL and TP accordingly.
Or you might simply trade off the daily chart. This obviously generates fewer opportunities per year than a 4-hourly but with 28 main forex pairs to pick from you should find there is almost always some kind of opportunity. And D1 TA is more reliable than anything in the intra-day range.
Don’t be tempted to day-trade through the Asian session. Volumes are low, volatility is low, pip ranges per hour/day are low - this all means TA is unreliable, therefore risk is high.
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Higher time frames (daily and up)
Market orders
Market alerts
The ability to not have to check on your market orders or open positions constantly.
Doing the majority of your preperation and homework during your off time, that way during work you dont have to worry about analysis so much, you can just focus on execution.
I’m in Australia so my session is the Asian session and can agree to this. Trading from this part of the world is HARD.
Long term trading is the best way to go. You’ll poor your energy into two or three pairs using 2 day to 1 week chat and look for the killer signal. Place your trades and spend less time monitoring it, as long as you’ve set your TP and SL in place. It is difficult be a day trader with a full time job.
which trading approach is more appropriate, it depends on your trading balance and experience. long term trading is much comfortable than short term but need standard equity with real knowledge and experience.