I’m going to say it upfront – please do not quit your job to day trade right away. Keep your job and grow your small account slowly by trading following these 3 important steps:
In this blog, I’m going to talk about how I traded part time, while working a full time job. Not only am I going to talk about the specific trading strategies I personally used, but most importantly, how to manage your time, prepare yourself financially, mentally and properly allocate enough effort to build your small account from trading part time.
Do you feel stuck in your 9-to-5 job but dream of financial freedom through day trading? Good news – you don’t have to quit your job to start trading! Despite what many people think balancing a full-time job with day trading is 100% possible with the right approach and tools.
I’ve spent years helping people manage both worlds successfully and today I’m sharing the exact strategies that work. Let’s cut through the noise and get straight to the practical steps you need.
Why Keep Your Day Job While Trading
Before jumping into the “how,” let’s talk about the “why.” Keeping your job while learning to trade is actually smarter than quitting to trade full-time right away:
- Financial stability – Your regular paycheck covers bills while your trading account grows
- Less psychological pressure – You won’t make desperate trades when rent is due
- Learning time – Trading profitably takes longer than most people expect
- Risk management – You can focus on learning proper techniques without financial stress
As Shay from Humbled Trader bluntly puts it: “please do not quit your job to day trade right away.” I totally agree. Keeping your job provides that crucial safety net while you develop your trading skills.
The Time Management Challenge (And Solutions)
Let’s be real – managing both a full-time job and day trading requires excellent time management. Here’s how to make it work:
Morning Trading (Market Open)
If you’re on the West Coast like Shay was, this means waking up around 5:00 AM (8:00 AM Eastern) to:
- Create your watchlist (5:00-6:15 AM)
- Trade during market open (6:30-8:00 AM)
- Head to your day job
Why this works: The first 30-60 minutes after market open typically offer the most volatility and opportunity. You can complete quick (though not necessarily easy) trades before work.
Lunch Hour Trading (Power Hour)
If your schedule allows, use your lunch break to:
- Monitor positions
- Look for closing-strong stocks
- Set up potential swing trades
Evening Research
The real work happens after hours:
- Review the day’s trades
- Research key gainers
- Prepare your strategy for tomorrow
- Set up your watchlist for the next day
As Shay points out, “90% of the work in day trading happens outside of regular market hours.” The preparation you do before and after market hours is crucial.
5 Essential Strategies for Day Trading with a Full-Time Job
1. Use Stop-Loss Orders Religiously
When you can’t monitor your positions throughout the day, stop-loss orders become your best friend. These automatically sell your position if it reaches a predetermined price, protecting you from major losses while you’re focused on your day job.
Tyler Corvin from The Trading Analyst explains: “Stop-loss orders are an exceptional tool to utilize when you don’t have time to continually watch the market… It’s like having a friend watch the market constantly for you.”
2. Utilize Bracket/Range Orders
Bracket or range orders go a step further by setting both:
- A stop-loss price (where to exit if the trade goes against you)
- A profit target (where to take gains if the trade works)
For example, if you enter a stock at $2.00, you might set:
- Stop-loss at $1.84 (risking 16 cents)
- Profit target at $2.50 (potential 50 cent gain)
This gives you a 1:3 risk-reward ratio, and one of these orders will execute automatically while you’re at work. Once either triggers, the other cancels.
3. Focus on Higher-Quality Stocks
When trading part-time, avoid ultra-volatile penny stocks. Instead, focus on:
- Mid-cap stocks
- Large-cap stocks with catalysts
- Stocks with decent volume
These provide enough movement for profit but typically have less erratic price action, making them more suitable for traders who can’t constantly monitor positions.
4. Keep a Detailed Trading Journal
Recording your trades helps identify what works and what doesn’t. Include:
- Entry and exit prices
- Date and time
- Stock name/ticker
- Your reasoning for entering
- Your reasoning for exiting
- Risk level assumed
- Emotional state during the trade
As The Trading Analyst points out: “By keeping an accurate record of your trades… you can ensure you’ll be a cut above the rest of beginning day traders, and execute profitable trades in no time while still maintaining your 9 to 5 job.”
5. Develop a Process-Oriented Mindset
Focus on following your trading process rather than just the outcomes. This means:
- Sticking to your entry criteria
- Following your position sizing rules
- Executing your stop-losses without hesitation
- Not getting emotionally attached to trades
My Sample Day Trading Schedule (While Working Full-Time)
Here’s how I structure my day to accommodate both trading and my job:
| Time | Activity |
|---|---|
| 5:00-6:15 AM | Create watchlist using scanners and research |
| 6:30-8:00 AM | Active trading during market open |
| 8:30 AM-4:30 PM | Focus on day job (check positions at lunch if needed) |
| 12:00-1:00 PM | Lunch break – review positions, look for potential swing setups |
| 7:30-9:30 PM | Evening research, journal trades, prepare for next day |
The Tools You Need for Part-Time Trading Success
To trade effectively while working, you need:
- Reliable broker with mobile app – Must allow stop-losses and bracket orders
- Stock scanners – To quickly find opportunities (ThinkorSwim, Finviz, Trade Ideas)
- Charting platform – For technical analysis (TradingView, StockCharts)
- Real-time alerts – Optional, but can help if configured properly
Common Mistakes Part-Time Traders Make (Avoid These!)
- Not using stop-losses – This is non-negotiable when you can’t monitor positions
- Overtrading – Focus on 1-2 quality setups per day, not quantity
- Checking positions at work – Can lead to emotional decisions and workplace trouble
- Starting too big – Begin with small position sizes while learning
- Following chat room alerts blindly – Understand why you’re entering each trade
How Long Will It Take to Succeed?
Be realistic. As Shay from Humbled Trader says:
“Learning to trade means living a few years of your life most people won’t, so that you can live the rest of your life like most people can’t.”
Expect to spend at least 6-12 months developing your skills before seeing consistent results. This means sacrificing some personal time, sleep, and social activities while you learn.
My Final Thoughts
I’ve helped hundreds of traders balance their day jobs with trading, and I can tell you it’s definitely possible to succeed. The key is patience and proper preparation.
If I can give you one piece of advice: treat trading like starting a part-time business, not a hobby. It requires real work, discipline, and time investment.
Remember what The Trading Analyst says: “By keeping an accurate record of your trades, making stop-loss orders a habit, having a process-oriented mindset, and following proven strategies, you can ensure you’ll be a cut above the rest of beginning day traders and execute profitable trades while still maintaining your 9 to 5 job.”
So yes, you absolutely CAN be a day trader with a full-time job – but only if you approach it with the right expectations, tools, and mindset.
Are you currently balancing trading with a full-time job? What strategies have worked for you? Share your experiences in the comments below!
When’s the best time to trade stocks as a part time trader with a 9 to 5 job?
Let’s talk about time. At the end of the day, we all have the same 24 hours. If you want to squeeze in an extra 2 hours to trade before going to work, or 30 min before the market closes, it all comes down to very meticulous time management.
What I did as a trader living on the Pacific West coast time zone was wake up at 5am, which is 8am market time. I didn’t really trade during pre market hours because I didn’t know how. Then I’d spend around 5am to 6:15am creating my watchlist. I didn’t have any fancy scanners back then. So I used Finviz, Stock Market Watch, and Stockcharts.com for my free research resources and Thinkorswim premarket gap up scanner to find the daily gappers.
Then I’d trade from 6:30am to about 8am focusing on some long strategies specifically at the open. What’s so great about trading the open at the first 30 minutes is that you almost always get immediate price movement on the premarket gappers. Whether you are a long or short biased trader, the opening 30 minutes to an hour is where you get to make the quick trades and be done for the day and you can head out to work. Note I said quick not easy.
During the day while at work, I did check on the overall market once a while, but generally speaking, I did not trade while at work. Even if I do, it’s just closing the rest of the position that I had already entered from the morning. Usually that’s if I was trading mid cap and large cap stocks.
Whether you want to manage your positions full size on your desktop or on your phone while at work, that’s entirely your own decision of course. Of course, besides trading the first hour of the open, I also tried to find time in the last hour before the market closes, which would be what we call power hour from 3pm to 4pm eastern time. And for me, that would be around 12pm to 1pm lunch time for me at work. And yes, that means I had to say goodbye to socializing with coworkers at lunch and the amazing lunchtime yoga or gym sessions. But that’s just the kind of sacrifice you might have to make.
During power hour, I actually don’t actively day trade. Most of the time I spend the hour looking for stocks that are closing strong on the day and holding daily key levels. And I would sometimes look to take a swing position overnight. I rarely day trade during the power hour.
The work doesn’t stop there when the market closes. If you haven’t noticed by now, this trading part time, while working a full time job concept, actually requires full time effort.
At the end of the day after getting home around 7:30pm to 8:00pm. I would still spend about 2 hours before going to bed researching the key gainers on the day.
The truth is, 90% of the work in day trading happens outside of regular market hours, and definitely before you even enter a position. It’s the preparation you put into your trades either premarket, afterhours, or before bed, that’s going to give you better chances of making it in this game.
Yes, doing all of that still does not guarantee you 100% success rate in making that profit. but the odds are definitely better than waking up 30 minutes before the open and stumbling straight to my computer and getting ready to follow chat room alerts.
Because I’m being real here, trading is not a hobby. It’s a business, you are essentially starting a part time business that requires full time effort, while you’re working your 9-5 job, well in my case it was more like a 9-7 job, and sometimes even 6 days a week too.
So if I could do it, while maintaining only 10% of my sanity, 50% of my normal sleep schedule, and 30% of my personal relationships. You definitely can too!
Use range orders/ bracket orders/ OCO orders when trading.
Now the second thing that’s extremely beneficial when you are trading while working a ful ltime job is utilizing range orders or bracket conditional orders on your broker platforms.
So let’s say you want to enter this stock CPAH at $2. Because you see that it’s reclaiming a key daily level and broke the downtrend intraday. But you want to make sure while you are away, you get to sell if the stock goes in your direction, and cut the loss small if it doesn’t.
So the solution is, you can use range orders, or bracket orders that allow you to attach both stop losses and take profit orders once you enter a position. once your buy order gets triggered. You can attach a stop loss market order at let’s say $1.84, and a sell limit order at $2.5.
That means you intend on risking 16 cents to make 50 cents. That’s a good risk reward. And one of the two attached orders will trigger, and once one triggers the other will cancel. So in this example, your take profit sell limit order at $2.5 will get hit. You made your 50 cents, and your stop loss market order at 1.84 would be canceled automatically.
That’s something I used on mid cap and large cap stocks, not penny stocks. When I was slowly building up my small account, I preferred to trade these higher priced stocks and higher market cap stocks because there’s almost always volume in them when there is a catalyst. And they are a lot less volatile than these low float penny stocks.
Most brokers out there have these order types available for you. TD thinkorswim, Interactive brokers and Trader zero all offer those order types.
Can You Day Trade While Working Full Time?
FAQ
What is the 2% rule in day trade?
One popular method is the 2% Rule, which means you never put more than 2% of your account equity at risk (Table 1). For example, if you are trading a $50,000 account, and you choose a risk management stop loss of 2%, you could risk up to $1,000 on any given trade.
What is the 90-90-90 rule for traders?
“90 % of traders lose 90 % of their capital within their first 90 days of trading.” It’s called the 90 – 90 – 90 rule, and if you’ve been through it, you know how painful it feels.
Can I be a day trader for a living?
Yes, it is definitely possible to day trade for a living and make a consistent income from trading. While it’s true that there are challenges and risks involved, many traders have achieved long-term success in the field. Here’s why: