“I’m speculating on life, not stocks! “: “Can I trade full-time?” If you ask this question, I think you may not be suitable

Can I trade full-time?

I often receive letters from some netizens asking: “This is my account statement for the past few months. May I ask if I should trade full-time?”

“May I ask how much money do I have to deposit to trade full-time?”

Whenever there is a wave of market bulls, similar problems will spring up like mushrooms after rain. Seeing everyone’s enthusiasm, I am embarrassed to pour cold water on anyone, so I will probably only mention it with the word “come on”.

This does not mean that I deny their ability to trade, but I think that if such a question still comes out of your mouth, it means that you still have concerns in your heart, and “concerns” are professional trading human fatality. So, I think you may not be ready for full-time trading yet.

Take myself as an example. I have been in contact with trading since I was a student, until I was about to graduate from the graduate school. I never planned to find a job outside. The reason why I can be so sure is that I have been doing trading persistently for several years. It not only gave me the compensation I deserved, but also became the focus of my life. And I know that when I’m working on an analysis, nothing beats the enjoyment I get from doing it. So there is no doubt that trading is my lifelong ambition. That being the case, why should I look for a 9-to-5 job?

Furthermore, if I go to work outside, based on the current average starting salary of 36,000 yuan for a freshman with a master’s degree, if I guarantee it for 14 months, I can earn about 500,000 yuan a year. At that time, if I look back at the trading performance of the past three years, I can make an average of 300,000 yuan a month in the stock market through short-term trading, and 3.6 million yuan a year, which is more than seven times my salary when I go to work outside. . With such a huge disparity, I believe whoever chooses will not choose to work outside, right? Therefore, I never ask others: “Can I trade full-time?” Because the answer to this question is too obvious to me.

Whether you can trade full-time has never been decided by anyone. When the time is right, the market will naturally give you a firm answer, an answer that allows you to quit your job without hesitation and embrace freedom.

I want to be a professional trader! No, you just don’t want to go to work

“At 8 o’clock on Monday morning, the alarm clock rings, and the sun shines through the large floor-to-ceiling windows in the bedroom, and through the translucent gauze curtain, it sprinkles on the edge of your bed like gold sand. You wake up with the tiredness after the carnival in the high-end private club the night before. Come on, get out of bed with heavy steps, and walk towards the Expresso espresso machine that you have been relying on for many years. After pressing the start button, accompanied by the humming sound of the machine, your face is dull, It seems that he has not yet recovered from the world of luxury and gold just a few hours ago.

The headache caused by the hangover keeps hitting your forehead. So you turn and head to the bathroom, trying to wake yourself up with your morning shower. In front of the sink, the sleepy self is reflected in the mirror. You and the person in the mirror look at each other for a few seconds, thinking, I am my own boss anyway, why not give yourself a vacation today! “

The above situation should be the way of life that many people yearn for. Not only do you not have to force yourself to get out of bed at 6 o’clock in the morning to take a shower, just to clock in at the company on time, but you can also decide whether to attend work today as you like.

Therefore, many people always subconsciously think that maybe “professional traders” live such a life.

After all, for ordinary people, the greatness of full-time trading is a job where you click the buy and sell buttons with a mouse, and the profits will roll in. No physical exertion, high remuneration, and free time, do you think there is any job in the world more enviable than full-time trading?

Well, if this hits your heart, I must tell you honestly that the life of a full-time trader is not as easy and comfortable as everyone imagines.

It looks like you don’t have to go to work, but in fact you can’t go to get off work

Since I accepted an exclusive interview with Caixin in early 2020, following the media exposure, I began to receive many letters from my friends one after another. Most of them want to ask me: How can I become a professional trader working from home?

I found that these people generally think in this way: “I’m dying to work outside and don’t make much money. You can make a lot of money every day by ordering a little at home. Why don’t I come to speculate in stocks too!”

I have always felt that this is a very unhealthy state of mind. I believe that no matter what job you do, you must choose what you love and love what you choose. After all, life is short, and we may spend half of our life at work. If the work is not happy, how can life be happy?

Many people think that stocks can make a lot of money, so they want to enter this market one after another to try their luck. But what they don’t know is how much bitter blood and tears are behind the glamorous beauty. It is very simple to become a trader, as long as you have a computer, a mouse, an internet connection, and a brokerage account, you are a trader; It can be achieved overnight in one class and one book. In the world of financial transactions, there is no short-term quick fix, only years of accumulation.

I think people who want to trade full-time can be roughly divided into two types: one is those who really love the stock market, and the other is those who simply want to escape reality.

Most people who really love the stock market will choose to paddle in the water and use their leisure time after work to continuously improve their market experience. Because of this, they know how high the mountains are and how deep the waters are in this market, so they never leave their jobs hastily before their performance has stabilized.

As for those who want to escape reality, most of them have no experience in financial transactions. They want to do financial transactions simply because they don’t like what they do. These people tend to think about trading too simply, thinking that it is just stocks? How hard can it be? Hurry up and leave your job to speculate in stocks together is the kingly way.

Trading is an endurance race. Whether you can have a persistent belief will always come from whether you really love it. If you join just to escape reality, you will eventually leave for the same reason.

I have also been told by many people: “You don’t have to go to work, you can make money with just a click of the mouse at home, it’s really cool.”

I really don’t understand why these people have such naive ideas.

In fact, “professional trading” and “general office workers” are just the difference between “self-employed” and “employees”: the former is responsible for themselves, while the latter is responsible for the supervisor or boss in the company. The so-called “no need to go to work”, to be precise, should be: “no one will watch you go to work”.

Many trading classics at home and abroad have mentioned: “Self-discipline” is the most indispensable part of a successful trader. The most common term “self-discipline” refers to self-regulation when executing transactions. For example: resolutely stop losses, boldly rush in. If you are not self-disciplined enough and always look forward and backward when it is time to stop losses, it will only happen sooner or later.

Of course, in addition to self-discipline when executing transactions, you must also be self-disciplined in life. Those who think that they can do whatever they want after full-time trading are obviously a group of undisciplined people, so they have wrong expectations for the life of full-time trading.

I know many powerful professional traders who not only have self-discipline in life, but also work attitude. As long as the stock market is open, they will definitely stare at the computer for a full five hours. Of course, I am no exception.

Maybe you will say: “That’s only five hours! We office workers sit for eight hours every day! No matter what you do, it’s relatively easy!”

Who said only five hours? The five hours mentioned here are just the time for watching the market. It does not include the transaction review after the close, the analysis and collection of research reports, the dynamic tracking of current news, the backtesting research of strategy development… If you add up these routines, I believe it must be far more than eight hours.

Full-time traders are not like normal office workers. Once the off-duty time comes, they can leave after punching their cards. The financial market is changing rapidly, and various political and economic events that affect the market are happening all over the world. Don’t tell me you may not know that many professional traders suffer from insomnia or light sleep, which is definitely difficult for ordinary people to understand.

Therefore, it seems that full-time traders do not have to go to work, but the real situation is… full-time traders have never been off work.