Skills For The Full Time Trader | Podcast Episode #140

0:07
Hey, I’m Ryan Mallory and this is my Swing Trading the Stock Market podcast. I’m here to teach you how to trade in a complex ever-changing, world of Finance, learn what it means to trade, profitably and consistently managing risk, avoiding the pitfalls of trading. And most importantly, to let those winners run wild, you can succeed at the stock market and I’m ready to show you how?

0:30
Hey, everybody, this is Ryan, Mallory with Swing Trading the Stock Market. We got a good episode, The we’ll hear today. It’s going to be on the skills for full-time trading. What do you need full-time training? I’ve dedicated a lot of episodes in the past, not a ton. But you know, a good chunk talking about full-time trading. I even did a series on it, but there’s always caveat is right? And a lot of these emails, what I like about the emails that you guys send me and by the way, you can send me your questions ryan@shareplanner.com, I do get them and I do read them. And I usually try to put all of them on the air.

1:02
So be sure to keep sending those to me. But what I like about The emails is that they are coming from personal experiences and these personal experiences, they create caveats, or they create what ifs that I might not have tackled in a previous episode food. So I really like it because it makes me think about something that I might not have considered in this email.

1:21
You’re getting a little bit about. He’s asking me questions that I haven’t really tackled in depth yet. So this guy wants to be called Joss. He says Joss is a city plateau in Nigeria, so that’s pretty cool. Never been in Nigeria. But this guy’s actually from Breaking Bad Albuquerque, New Mexico.

1:41
And as for the bourbon that I’m drinking tonight, I got some good old Wild Turkey, 101 Tucky straight bourbon, not one that I drink a lot of, but it’s one of those things. It’s Dependable better than Jack Daniels and I kind of put it in the same.

1:56
Like, league is like Maker’s Mark, right? Not a ton of flavor to it, but it’s got like this nice heat to it that I always appreciate. And and the world of Evans? I give it like a 6-2 6-3. It’s good. You’re not going to be disappointed in it. It’s something that you know, late at night if you’re just wanting something to take the edge off.

2:14
It’s good for that kind of stuff. And it’s 50.5% alcohol, which makes it 101 proof, which I was kind of surprised by that is like, I didn’t realize it was that high, but it was nonetheless really good. Nice little bite to it, not tons of flavor, but it’s dependable. So we’re talking about skills or full-time trading and Josh.

2:33
Here he says, be kind of a long Our email than usual, but I don’t think he’s rambling at all. So I think it’s worth getting through the whole thing. He says, hey Ryan. I just finished your podcast on Spotify every single episode. He puts that in parentheses, which is cool man.

2:48
Again, I’m always flattered when people actually go through and listen to every one of them. And it’s funny when you listen to the older ones, like the change in the, in the show per se. As as time goes on, I get more comfortable with the podcast over the years and and it’s not not so bad. Now he says, and I think it’s really cool that you take Will’s emails and answer them on the podcast.

3:07
You can call me Joss, it’s a plateau in Nigeria. I’m from Albuquerque. Breaking Bad New Mexico. In addition to my original email below, I thought I would give an update with some questions less than maybe it will help other traitors. Now, if you remember Joss, we did an episode on him before, right?

3:23
And he was the guy that had some pretty incredible growth stories. You got lucky with Tesla by his own admission and he made a lot of money off of that. So he’s doing good there with Tesla. He’s doing good in the stock market trades a little bit on the Volatile side. So he’s now interested in becoming a full-time Trader.

3:38
And I think this is the first time that I’ve done a part two on a traitor, right? I don’t think I’ve done a traitor part 2, but we’re doing one here. He asks. A lot of questions, I don’t know if I’ll get to each one of these questions in this particular episode, but I’ll try to highlight the key points of, and he says, since I’ve been a passive Trader in the past, I’ve missed some great opportunities. So now that I am swing trading, since the beginning of the year, I am learning a ton everyday, especially this year. I admit, I’m a Robin Hood, bro, but I downloaded the, thinkorswim through TD, and I’m starting to learn how to use it, so that can eventually transfer over there. Again, I don’t have any relationship with TD Ameritrade.

4:14
I’m like, you guys, I have a brokerage account with them, but I’ve been using TD. Ameritrade thinkorswim platform before. Thinkorswim was with TD Ameritrade, which is now with Charles Schwab. I always like, thinkorswim, I know it’s got its flaws.

4:30
Like any brokerage really does, but nonetheless, I mean that’s just it’s kind of one of those kind of one of those things I’m just familiar and comfortable with. I also use tradingview since I trade during my full-time job as a project analyst on my phone. Yeah, training views, good. I’ve never used them on my phone though before.

4:46
So maybe that’s something I should try out. He says my ultimate goal is to become a full-time Trader which could be possible since I’m trading with six figures, but like you said, until I get consistent gains and minimize my losses. I can’t consider going full-time trading. My current issue is definitely my entry points and even though I am using Using stop losses.

5:03
I haven’t been good about planning the trade, and I’m getting stopped out all the time. The stops are really useful because I’m avoiding getting stuck in trades holding the bag. I think you call it. Yep, I call bag holding I didn’t come up with that term. That’s been around for a long time, but now, I need to advance my chart reading in my entry exit points.

5:23
I’m starting to realize, I need to devote a portion of my portfolio towards slower-moving ETFs, so I can get consistent results and really focus on managing risk. I am really noticing the impact of making one. Multiple bad trades and it’s really causing a major draw down. How do you feel about having a majority of the portfolio and ETFs while I’m getting better at chart?

5:41
Reading focusing? A lot more on reading charts and I believe I am on the right track so far. I’ve been following moving averages are a size support resistance levels Bollinger, Bands trend, lines and volume. I am curious if you think there are good indicators to follow or if you prefer other indicators, I am also going through your videos on YouTube so I can see what you’re looking at.

6:00
And if you do that, you’re going to see. I really don’t use it. A lot of Indicators, it’s really price and volume. And, you know, I do pay attention to moving averages when they are relevant. He says, I really wish I had taken this more serious in the past and I would have dramatically improved my gains, but at least I’m taking it serious now.

6:17
Thank you for all your incredible lessons to support people. Like you make this world a better place, will I do appreciate that because I really enjoyed this podcast. I enjoy interacting with you guys. Believe it or not. I think when you’re doing these podcasts, you have like these phases of what you think. People will look like and everything else in your mind.

6:34
And it’s kind of like Like a fireside chat for say. In fact, I have a big screen TV because I live in Florida, you can’t have fireplaces for the most part. I mean, you do but you can’t have them on like all the time. And very rarely can you have them on because it’s not cold enough to have them on. So I usually have like a YouTube video but that sucker on.

6:50
I know it’s corny but hey 4K kind of makes it real life. So there’s a lot to unpack. Again, I may not get to all of it or I may just accidentally skip over some of it, but I’m going to try to address the spirit of the email because I do think he raises some good questions.

7:08
Any case having enough money, right? He says, I’m trading with six figures, I want to become a full-time swing Trader, right? But here’s the thing though, is that whether it’s six figures or seven figures or five figures or four figures, well be kind of hard with four figures but there’s not like Magic number.

7:25
When it comes to how much money you need to become a full-time Trader. A lot of it’s like, what can you expect to get on a consistent basis? And that’s even hard to do too. Because each year, the markets totally different than the year before. I mean, you look at 20:20 completely different Market than 20 1920. 19 was entirely different than 2018, 2018 was crazy, because it had that fourth quarter sell-off, that just ruined a lot of people’s portfolios.

7:49
So you were like trading great, the first three quarters of the year and then quarter for comes and it Wiped everybody out. And with that said, 2018 completely different than 2017. And 26th, I remember like 2015 was a weird year just mark. It didn’t really ever do anything that you expected it to do.

8:06
And why do I bring that all up? Is because you have to be consistent in your own trading. You have to be able to be detached from what the markets doing and be patient enough and to be willing enough to wait for the opportunities to come to you. Now in some years, there’s going to be a lot more opportunities than others for instance, like so far this Year 2021.

8:25
I’m waiting for some of these trade setups to develop. I want to take some more trade setups and what I’m doing right now. But I’m not why? Because the risk reward isn’t there. And so while you may have, like good chart reading skills, and why you might be developing them and believe me, the chart being skills are probably one of the easier aspects of trading to be, to be honest.

8:45
It’s not a strong understanding of chart reading. That’s going to make you a full-time Trader. I don’t consider myself to like the smartest person in the world. Like average intellect, I’m not sure. But nonetheless, I think what? I’m not an engineer. I’m not like a scientist and not a doctor, or a lawyer or whatever.

9:02
But what I do think I’ve done that’s helped serve me. Well in the stock market is be constantly reflecting on my approach to my trading. How am I position sizing? Because I started realizing, okay, I got all the knowledge in the world because I studied so many books and study so many charts. I mean today alone I probably looked at 7 to 800 charts.

9:19
I kid you not half the time. I can tell what the charts are without even looking at. What the symbol is. I know what? At companies charges because I’ve seen it so many times. I look at them every day, but it doesn’t just stop with chart, reading. It doesn’t where it starts to get more tricky as with emotions and with position sizing in, how do you place a good stop loss?

9:37
Like, one of the things I would tell you is that it was stop losses and cuz he mentions this in the email, he has difficulty with stop losses because he’s constantly getting stopped out. Well, I would tell you this that stop losses are important, but just as important as stop loss is how you place this stop losses.

9:54
Of people use trailing stop losses. I think that’s the craziest thing in the world. It’s kind of like a lazy man’s way to risk management and I don’t think it’s that effective. The reason why is because trailing stop losses will go up as long as the stock keeps going up. And then it’s just stay still wherever that happens to be.

10:10
So if you get us into a socket like $95 and it puts the stop loss at around, you know, like ninety dollars and change or whatever. And then the stock goes up to 100 dollars then your stop losses at $95. There may not be any Ultimate price support that it’s right below.

10:26
It could just be in the middle of a candle or in a middle of a rally and it doesn’t even make sense to have it. There it pulls back intraday and all of a sudden you’re knocked out of the trade. So that’s not what you want, either, you need to be placing your stop losses below key supports if Loki levels that if it’s broken, you know, that trades time to bail on, and that’s what I do, is swingtradingthestockmarket.com.

10:47
I really try to focus on the technicals of a stock. I try to identify, like, the support level is the trend lines. Where Need to be cautious about because so much of my charting isn’t about like, oh, how high can this stock go? It’s not about that. It’s really about how can you protect your profits, how can you protect your capital on the trade?

11:05
Once you get into it. And so a swingtradingthestockmarket.com that you can access here. As part of this podcast, you’re going to get my market analysis for the broader markets, which is going to be the S&P 500, the Russell, the NASDAQ multiple times each week. You’re also going to get my master watch list. The stocks that I’m following, but you’re also going to get updates on some of the rural population.

11:24
Taylor stocks like Facebook, Amazon Apple Netflix, Google Microsoft and Tesla each and every week and then daily setups and I’m watching each and every day. And then the most important or most intriguing charts that I find that are offering opportunities for trading. So check that out, swing trading the stock market.

11:39
When you join, you’re also supporting the podcast as well. And in the continuance of be making these podcasts a couple of times each week. So now that I’ve managed to incorporate that service into this podcast, let’s continue to dig into jaws’s Well, here he wants to become a full-time Trader.

11:57
And, and one thing that I tell people, it’s not like an all-or-nothing, kind of a thing. Especially nowadays, right? Quit my job. Many, many years ago. I had to make it in trading today, it’s not. So I mean swing trade, especially if you’re not trying to be like a chronic day trader. Swing trading really offers you a lot of downtime.

12:15
I mean if you’re not engaged in social media and stuff like that, there’s a lot of down time to develop other skills and abilities. I mean for me, one of the best things that I do is the podcast. I mean I love it, but it wasn’t doing the podcast. I wasn’t doing shareplanner.com and and these YouTube videos, I probably lose my mind.

12:32
And not because that I find swing trading boring per se, but it’s just that there’s a lot of downtime swing trading at its finest, is kind of boring because it becomes more systematic, it becomes more waiting and waiting and not just having to trade because you feel that need for the action.

12:48
I’ve had plenty of action in my life in terms of clarify, that I’ve had plenty of action in the stock market. I’ve traded pretty much everything out there. I don’t, I don’t need the adrenaline rush that comes with jumping into one of these. I fire stocks. I see how they play out.

13:04
I see it right now with the EV stocks and how you know, they have these nice run ups and then you get caught in at the top and then you have a big pullback in your down 30 or 40 percent before, you know? It, you don’t believe me. Look at, look at a stock recently that just went nuts overstock.com. I mean, it’s not a TV stock but you get the picture.

13:21
Look at the chart, it just goes straight up, straight back down. You had that. With a few Bo. I mean, you just have a constantly, right? You had it with Bitcoin a few years ago, I know Bitcoins. That crazy all time. I’m high as right now but eventually that’s going to have a pull back too. I don’t need that brush.

13:37
I don’t need that inability to sleep at night because I don’t know if I just got into the worst trait of my life for the best trait of my life. What I want to do is make consistent gains. You got to remember that with full time trading, you don’t have to put all your pressure on yourself to make the game that actually opens the doors for you to engage a little bit in your entrepreneurial spirit.

13:56
I mean, like I said, I do I do podcasting and YouTube videos. And I have the trading block and I love it. I love all of that. It’s like, makes trading so much more fun, but for others, you might have another skill set. I mean, there’s so many different things out there like podcasting like Etsy, right?

14:14
I mean people sell things on that Co and you can freaking it. And so things on Etsy, right? If you wanted to and there’s just so many different things, there’s opportunities out there for you to develop skills or to basically use the time, the downtime in your trading, the actually amplify some other skills and it takes a little bit of the pressure off with your full-time trading and that’s a good thing.

14:32
You don’t have to put unnecessary amount of trading on yourself and you gotta remember to like if you’re trading with 100,000 dollar portfolio and that’s a good good trading Capital right there, but if you want to make seventy thousand dollars a year, just off your trading so that you can live on it, will guess what? But you got to make a seventy percent return on the stock market and then if you want to keep growing your portfolio at the same time, will you also need a much bigger return than 70%?

14:55
You might need 80 or 90% to to keep growing your portfolio on a yearly basis. So that’s a lot of pressure to say, okay I’m going to go full-time trading and I’m going to be almost doubling my account every single year. You don’t want that kind of pressure. So you want to make sure that your approach to trading is able to yield you a decent income without putting too much pressure on yourself.

15:16
I mean, you can’t judge it off at 2020 because if you got into the market and you didn’t know what you were doing, you just got into it. And said okay I’m buying SQ at the marshmallows or on buying Overstock at the March lows and you watch this Market, just go to, you know, infinity or Tesla or whatever and all of a sudden you got all this capital in your portfolio.

15:36
That’s not what is normal for the market. I mean 2020 was probably the most bizarre your of tray I have ever seen I think 2008 Date was pretty bizarre. I remember 2014 being pretty bizarre, I think 2016 and actually 2017 was kind of bizarre, just because of the market reacted with the election and everything else from 2017.

16:02
So that was that was interesting in and of itself as well. So I mean you have bizarre years but no bizarre year is like another bizarre. Your 2020 was the craziest thing I’ve ever seen. I mean the just a massive sell-off back in February Arch in the subsequent rally that nobody really saw coming.

16:19
So you have all of that but in and you can’t base your trading ability off a 2020. So if you’re new to trading, yes, there was a lot of experiences that you are able to take in. I think there was a lot of development that you could do in 2020 because there was Major sell-off, some major rallies and everything in between but you need to see what other users are like to.

16:39
Before you can say, you know what, I got what it takes to become a full-time Trader. If I knew how hard it was when I quit my my job, it was a decent. Paying job. But if I knew how hard that was to become a full-time Trader, I might have been scared off and never quit, you know, because it is hard. It’s not the easiest thing I’ve ever done and there was times where I thought, you know what, I don’t know, if I’m cut out for this, he also talks about indicators, right?

17:02
And I’ve always felt like indicators are better for references rather than like trade signals. I know some people trade off of macd and they trade off RSI. That’s the two that I usually see. The most people emailed me about RS. I am activate. Ras, iMac T-Mac the RSI. They’re, they’re kind of Use the my opinion.

17:17
I think that a lot of the information you get from macd and rs, I can be found, basically, with price action, I have stochastics on my charts but I don’t reference it a ton. I sometimes I’ll like to see whether or not, okay, has it been sitting in overbought territory for the last two months? And if so maybe maybe I pass on that particular trade or is the stock bottoming and showing a little bit of reversal on the stochastics, but I don’t make my trading signals off of stochastics, right?

17:44
And I don’t think you should do that off of macd. And rs. I think they’re good references but I don’t necessarily think that that’s what you want to be basing. Your trades off of now, Different Strokes for different folks. Everybody can come up with different ideas and strategies and if it works it works. I’m just telling you from personal experience. I think indicators are better for references like Bollinger Bands, for instance, right?

18:03
Sometimes if I seen the stock that I’m in, that goes up like 30, or 40 percent, and it’s just ripping the faces off of shorts, right? I’ll put some Bollinger Bands on the chart just to see. Okay. Is that way? Outside of standard deviations because that’s what Bo Your bands are really right, like standard deviation.

18:19
So if it goes way outside of its standard deviations and it doesn’t have a history of trading, well, outside of a two standard deviations. For instance, that maybe I start taking some profits off the table and see how much further the rest of the position wants to run. It’s good to be able to take as much emotion out of the trading.

18:37
Like I said, another podcast or humans. We can’t completely Escape emotions or emotional people. God created us that way, but I also O to that. These same emotions can really wreak havoc on your portfolio. That’s why I like to take profits along the way in my trading, I like to take profits, you know, sometimes, you know after three or four percent up on the trade and then, you know, I get into double digits.

19:02
I oftentimes like to take another, you know, third or a half off the table there and then I’ll let the rest run and then it gives you some freedom to really let us talk really go to heights. Yeah, I know it’s not the original size position. But oftentimes when were trading a full-size position, it when we get completely in and then get completely out and I always Completely in.

19:19
On a trade, I don’t use into a traitor. It’s all in on a trade, not all in on a portfolio, but if I’m like, putting x amount of dollars on every one of my trades, I’m going to go all of that on the initial because I have confidence of where I’m getting in at, right, I believe that the stock is at a place where it should rally.

19:35
So I put my full position on and then I start scaling out a bit as its chose me to be more and more, right? And then when I get to that last third or last half, or a last quarter of a position, is really freeing because already know that I’ve made my profit on the tray. And it’s like, I’m letting the rest run.

19:50
I want to see how far I can go. I’ll keep raising my stop-loss where I can, but I don’t have to worry about my winning trade turning into a losing trade, because I booked enough profits along the way. Like I said, this this podcast episode, I feel like I’m going all over the place on this particular one. I’m like I’m jumping around all over different subjects here but he asked a lot of good questions so I don’t mind addressing them all.

20:11
I think it’s useful for you guys even if I repeated some of it in previous episodes for you guys to hear it again because oftentimes we learn by hearing things multiple times. Over and over again, like manage the risk. Because I pretty much say that in every one of my episodes. So need to say it again, just so I can keep my streak alive. Remember knowledge is important, you know, chart reading is important but don’t use it to justify what you want to do.

20:32
Let chart reading be used in a way that keeps you, out of Trades, that you shouldn’t be getting into charts that show you, okay, there’s a lot of people piling into the stock its way over extended. I don’t need to taste that a lot of times people look at it. Turns out go, let’s push. So I should go ahead and buy it. You don’t want to be buying it for those reasons, you want to be buying And it because the charts tell you to be buying it not just because you’re using it as confirmation bias.

20:54
If you guys enjoy this episode, make sure to leave me a review. Those things really do encourage me along the way. I know people act like they don’t read reviews. I do read them because it does encourage me. I take it to heart. Sometimes that hurts my feelings. What people say.

21:10
But no, I really, I really do appreciate what you guys do, to encourage me to continue to do this stuff. I love it. I really do in the Tomb. That I’m helping you guys out means the world to me. It makes me think man. I’ve actually accumulated some skills skills that make me now.

21:26
Get I’m not gonna go Liam Neeson, but but it’s been great to be able to help you guys over the years and it’s only gotten better and better. So make sure to continue to support the podcast, swingtradingthestockmarket.com and also on my whatever podcast platform that you’re listening to it on.

21:41
Leave a good review, helps me there. Follow subscribe, whatever you got to do. All right, guys, thank you. Thanks for listening to my podcast. Wing trading the stock market, I’d like to encourage you to join me in the SharePlanner trading block, where I navigate the stock market, each day with Traders from around the world with your membership, you will get a 7-Day trial and access to my trading room including alerts via text email and WhatsApp.

22:04
So go ahead, sign up by going to shareplanner.com trading block, that’s www.shareplanner.com/trading-block. And follow me on SharePlanner’s, Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook, where I provide unique market, and trading information. Every day you have any questions, please feel free to email me at ryan@shareplanner.com all the best to you and I look forward to trading with you soon.