Episode Overview
Trying to figure out how you can make time for trading while still working a full time job? I address some of the common obstacles that traders face when it comes to making enough time to trade in the stock market while holding down a full time job.
Available on: Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Amazon | YouTube
Episode Highlights & Timestamps
- [0:07] Trading While Working Nights
Ryan introduces a listener email from a nurse who works night shifts and struggles to find time to trade during the day. - [1:37] From Property Management to Trading
Gator shares how he got started in the market during his teenage years while juggling long work hours. - [4:45] The Risk of Penny Stocks
Ryan explains why trading penny stocks, especially with small accounts, is usually a losing strategy and how commission-free trading changed the game. - [10:23] Managing a Restricted Trading Schedule
Advice on how night shift workers can focus on the most volatile times of the day to make swing trading possible despite sleep constraints. - [14:42] When to Focus Your Trading Hours
Ryan recommends key trading windows in the morning and afternoon and highlights how sleep deprivation often comes with the territory when juggling trading with another career.
Key Takeaways from This Episode:
- Avoid Penny Stocks: Most are scams, and with fractional shares and free commissions, there’s no reason to trade them anymore.
- Respect Your Capital: Gator’s story shows that treating small wins seriously helps build discipline for larger accounts.
- Focus on Volatile Trading Hours: The best trading times are from 9:30-10:30 AM ET and again in the last 30 minutes of the session.
- Leverage Broker Support: Services like ThinkorSwim often offer one-on-one help for new users transitioning from Robinhood.
- Sleep Strategically: Building a side trading career may mean adjusting sleep schedules and accepting some short-term sacrifice.
Resources & Links Mentioned:
- Swing Trading the Stock Market – Daily market analysis, trade setups, and insights by Ryan Mallory.
- Join the SharePlanner Trading Block – Get real-time trade alerts and community support.
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Full Episode Transcript
Click here to read the full transcript
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?
0:29
Hey, everybody, this is Ryan Mallory with Swing Trading the Stock Market and we’re going to do it email today from a person who has some questions about part-time trading has a night job, finds it tough to be able to balance the night job with trading during the day.
0:44
So what is the person do? How do they make that work? Well, it’s funny that this person asks me this and for the for the purposes of this podcast, I’m going to call the guy Gator and before I get any further into it the drink of choice tonight, it’s not a bourbon. It is WhistlePig rye, whiskey.
1:00
Aged 10 years. Let’s see. It is, 100 Proof, it’s pretty good. It’s a little bit harsh. Than I typically like my, my Whiskey’s to taste. I always find that Bourbons are usually a bit little bit softer on the palate. So I always go with like the Bourbons more so than like the right Whiskey’s, maybe you guys are a little bit more seasoned when it comes to Bourbons and Whiskey’s and maybe I’m completely off base.
1:21
That’s just how it tastes to me, I guess. Anyways WhistlePig again, this isn’t like any kind of like paper motion or anything. I just like telling you guys what I’m drinking sometimes if I’m having a drink when I’m doing this, which I am right now. So any case we’re going to call this person Gator gator. Her is the name and Gator says, hey Ryan.
1:37
I’m a night shift. RN who try to get into stocks a few years ago prior to my career but has a renewed interest now that my free time and capital has increased a bit. So intro to my story, I got into stocks back in 2017 when I was just a teenager working my way through a property management company at the time I was busting my ass 60 hours a week just so I could posit the $600 bi-weekly check, I grew up in a family where you have what you earn and nothing is handed to you that and that’s fine.
2:05
Me. Additionally, I was smart enough to know that if I wanted to be in a better financial position, a long run, I would have to look at investing as early as possible, that is how I ended up in Robin Hood based off of a friend’s recommendation. Because at the time it was the only platform. I saw offering no transaction fees and seem simple to use and that’s true.
2:23
Robin Hood. Really changed the landscape. I know I give them a hard time, but they really did change the landscape sometimes though, and this is going to sound crazy when I say this. Sometimes, I wonder if going transaction. Free and yes, it helps our bottom line out quite a bit. Is the best thing for Traders.
2:40
I think sometimes you pick and choose more of what trades are going to get into if you’re actually paying a commission. I think that even if the commission was just a dollar, we would pick and choose our trades a little bit more closely. Sounds a little bit crazy. I know, I’m just throwing that out there for you guys to ponder a little bit because I think sometimes, especially with the Robin Hood app where they’ve glorified trading to, like a level that no one’s ever seen before that, maybe it wouldn’t be too bad if Maybe we had a little bit more reluctance towards hidden that buy button as much as we do, because we know it’s like, okay, if it doesn’t work out, I’ll just get out really quick.
3:15
And then sometimes those really quick turn into long-term Investments where we lose a lot of money, but yeah, a lot of people start off in Robin Hood these days. The they’ve done a great job of luring people in because of the free commission’s, but now all your platforms are free.
3:31
So, you should really be basing it off of what is the best platform now? For a lot of people and very rarely. Do I ever make a trade? Do my phone? I’ve done it before and I used to think that was like a novelty and now with Robin Hood and all the other online platforms making trades on your phone is like, second nature.
3:47
I still don’t feel overly comfortable making trades on my phone. I mean, I do it and I’ve done it plenty of times but I still like being on the desktop where I have the big screens in front of me. I have like three big monitors. I like that, I like that aspect of where I can see just everything in front of me, all the other services seem intimidating.
4:03
And that’s very true. Because if like, if you To think or Swim their platforms, pretty intimidating. At first for site, which makes it great because they have so many tools and have a lot of really great tools. There is that they actually have a Personnel sit down and walk you through, and that’s awesome. There’s a lot that I like about this email and as we continue to dig into it further.
4:23
So here I went with the initial 250 dollar investment into the stock market to get my feet wet and figure out what I am doing. Well, long story short, I had no idea what I was doing and my blind attempt at, figuring it out. Lee led to a hundred dollar loss within the first week. This lost natural resulted in a panic, sell leaving me biting my nails, as I watch the penny stock, raise back up to its original price.
4:45
Now, I will say this, a lot of times, I think we take bigger risks with smaller accounts. It’s kind of natural, right? You have less to lose. And so we get into these penny stocks and stuff. When we have only like a few hundred dollars that were trading with. And we think that that’s the only way to make our money. Well, I tell you this trading now and a world that has fractional shares that Has free commission’s.
5:07
There’s no reason to trade penny stocks. Absolutely not. There was never a reason to trade it in the first place, but the lawyer shouldn’t be there anymore because you can trade anything that anybody else has trading now. And you don’t have to worry about if you put $250 down on a stock and let’s say the stock goes up five percent, two years ago five percent on a 250 dollar stock well that would be like $10, right?
5:29
That would be like $12.50 well for the longest time it was 699 for your Raid. So all of a sudden you’re spinning $14 to make $12.50. You’re taking a dollar fifty loss so I can see back then more. So now why people would be drawn into the penny stocks because they have to make these big big returns and that’s not the case anymore.
5:49
So there’s no reason to ever even consider trading penny stocks besides that most of your penny stocks are scams. I’ve literally never met somebody who’s a profitable penny stock Trader. That’s shown me that there are profitable penny stock Trader. Now, you got tons of people out there that claim that their penny stock trading.
6:05
Is the latest and greatest in it’ll make you Millions if you just sign up, but you’re going to really believe them. So Gator goes on to say that there, there I sat with a Monumental hundred dollar loss, but a new appreciation for how the market works. I realized impulse some quick cash was not going to get me where I wanted to be so I pulled back and for a long time today, even touch the app which stayed on my phone as a reminder to how quickly play in the market.
6:28
With no real effort can burn you? Yes. That’s and that’s what I’m seeing out there a lot right now and that’s what’s kind of driving me nuts. With this Market is that the Robin Hood Traders? And I again a nice probably say this in almost every YouTube video that I do. And every podcast I do, I’m not trying to vilify every person that uses the Robin Hood app.
6:47
I’m just telling you from what I’ve seen for the most part, A lot of the people who are using that app and it’s not just limited to them. It’s Weeble and you got tons of other people out there too. They don’t know what they’re doing and they’re just trying to get rich quick and here’s the thing. If everybody’s getting rich in the stock market, all of a sudden, Probably not going to last.
7:06
In fact, it’s never lasted. The last time it was anywhere. Close to what we’re seeing right now. And I think right now is far worse than what we saw was back in the 1990s, where people were quitting, their job to come day Traders. I’m getting emails right now. From people asking me for tips on how to quit their job to become full-time day Traders.
7:22
So Gator goes on to say needless to say, I turned my attention to my career and spent the next five years getting to bachelor’s degrees and eventually coming out the other end as a full-blown nurse. And I have never been happier. Congrats. Man, that’s awesome 2 degrees. That’s great. I got a political science degree.
7:39
I think it’s the most useless degree in the world. If I had to do it over again, I wouldn’t have gone to college. I would have started share player a lot earlier, but if I was going to go to college again, I would do like engineering or something that requires you to go to college. I don’t think there’s a really a job out there that says, hey don’t bother applying for this job unless you have a political science degree, I just don’t see what the point is.
7:59
I think it was kind of a useless degree. Now, I enjoyed my college experience. I went to UCF national champions from 17 that’ll piss off a lot of people me saying that, but hey, we were the best school team in the nation that you’re. And I think we’d be Auburn who be Georgia, who beat, Alabama, the Logics there guys.
8:16
And if you look it up, I think there was one of the poles. It did put us as national champions that’s actually recognized by the NCAA. So all you haters out there. Hey it’s not my fault, they made us national champions. So Gator goes on to say on the other end of that coin, I know that I have the income that I could only have dreamed of back in 2017 and now regain my interest in the stock market determined To avoid repeat, mistakes.
8:36
I took back my previous account with my intention of regaining. My losses to prove. I am not the same impulsive kid. I, as I was before, I now know how to set stop-loss cells in a few other simple techniques to prevent the tragic dive. I took my previous Market Adventures since March, I have earned back about 50 dollars, give or take when this email is actually sent and have only suffered minimal losses on a day-to-day basis.
8:59
I have done away with any attempts at penny stocks and now use the common sense gained over the last few years to actually look into. But he’s, I am interested in, instead of throwing money at the flashing green, number shown on the screen. Oh, Robin headed, why do you do that to people? I bet you. It’s the brightest green on the face of the Earth, right? I haven’t used their app and of time, but you can only imagine how how green that flashing number is coercing.
9:21
You into buying it, but person’s doing a lot of things. One of the things, and it’s a very subtle thing that that Gator makes here. Is it talks about how this person’s proud of the fact that they’ve made back 50 of the $100. Now, a lot of people would say $50, that’s Nothing. This person respects capital and he’s looking at it more than just how much am I making on a dollar standpoint?
9:43
He’s looking at it from a my making money. Am I making a return on the capital? So here you have a person that’s actually respecting the capital whether it’s a lot or a little because if he’s Faithful over a little, he’s going to do fine over a lot. And I think that’s a great trait that this person has that gator has on this email here.
10:02
And yes, this is have kind of a long email, but I’m like, The last third of the email here. So it says, I’m still in the Robin Hood platform. But as I gained confidence, I plan on joining a different service, good for you. You should be, however, the commitment still seems to overwhelm my confidence. The other barrier I find is that since I work nights, it makes it hard to trade three to four days that I need to work prior to my shift.
10:23
Well, first off, it’s not as bad of a thing as it seems I use thinkorswim. I know there’s a lot of other services out there that are pretty good too. When you go and find a service that you like, the best thing that you can do, Is call them up and say, hey I’m interested, you tell them that you got their attention and then say, hey, I’m interested and moving.
10:41
My platform from Robin Hood, over to you guys. I have a lot or I don’t have a lot of money, either way, they are more than thrilled to help you with that transition. They’ll help you know, move your accounts over all that stuff. And then there, they usually have somebody on there that can teach you how to use their platform, whether it’s on the phone that you want to use, or whether it’s a desktop software, the other, the other concern that this person has is the barrier that I find is that since I work nights, it makes it very hard to trade three to four days that I need to sleep.
11:08
Prior to my shift. The other barrier I find is that since I work nights, it makes it very hard to trade, the three to four days that I need to sleep. Prior to my shift as a result, my strategy has centered around more stable stocks that I can buy on the off, trading hours and check when I am awake.
11:24
It is not ideal and requires more strict, stop loss limits than I would like, but it is working for me so far to wrap this novel up your podcast. Put the stock market into terms that was simple and relatable compared to the vast sea of big words and dry reading the exists on the web. I have been listening to your podcast, the last few nights during my available time at work and have gone in about halfway through it all.
11:44
Wow, that’s awesome, man. I mean, I hope that I can continue to make it simple and relatable you know, and in the weeks months and years that follow, I love doing this podcast, I really do. I get your emails, I get a lot of them and I’m always excited about reading them and see it.
11:59
Okay? Can I incorporate this into a podcast? So, make sure you guys keep sending these to me. And also If you’re listening to this through the Apple podcast, can you guys go on there and make sure you’re subscribed to it but also leave a review to it is immensely important to me that I get those reviews.
12:15
If you can leave, five star reviews, that’s even better nonetheless. It helps me out to to reach more viewers in a larger audience. When you guys leave those kinds of reviews, all I can say it is given me the drive to reattempt investing in the market. But this time I plan on being smarter and more focused and doing.
12:31
So honestly, this is my first time, sending an email like this, and And on the feedback if it should arrive you should not fear or worry about the kind of feedback you get because I I’ve worked in Corporate America. I’ve worked plenty of jobs. I’ve cleaned toilets for a living before. So I’m not a person that that that cannot relate to your emails.
12:51
I can. And I have the reason why I’m doing what I’m doing today is because I figured out how to trade stocks while I was working. And I had a full-time job. And I was a part-time Trader. I started SharePlanner all of a sudden, it started becoming a little bit more popular than I expected. And I My job, wraps It Up by saying this is not only something that I’m interested in.
13:08
But something that I know if Done Right, could end up slowly helping with the financial way to student loans in the long run, I look forward to hearing from you and would also appreciate any tips on trading with a restricted schedule, such as a night shift worker, that has to work, three to four nights a week. This was a good email.
13:24
Now I know it took a long time to get through it and maybe in the future you know, on some of these future emails, if you guys can reduce some a little bit so I can get through them a little bit faster. Nonetheless, there’s a lot of good information. There. And yes, I continued reading in the end, even though if it was kind of just like, patting me on the back there.
13:40
Hey, I like reading that. I put a lot of work into this stuff. I want to hear about it a little bit, I like the feedback. Okay. But nonetheless, this person has an issue with working at nights, so we got to figure this out here. How does this person balance working at nights and that’s hard to do because that requires that you get your sleep in off hours?
13:59
That’s not typical for most people. That means that this person is probably sleeping while the stock market. To be open not by choice. But by necessity, when I was working in Corporate America, I was also dealing with challenges because look, this person could be working during the day and sleeping at night and Gators still going to have the same problem that that he had before.
14:19
So I would actually say working at night is more conducive to be in able to do the stock market. Now, it does create challenges, one of the things that I would probably say is is pick and choose. If you have to sleep during the day, what times are you going to be awake for? Well, the most volatile times in the The stock market is no doubt from 9:30 a.m. eastern until 11 a.m. eastern.
14:42
And if you crack that down that 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. eastern and then drill it even further down from 9:30 a.m. eastern to 10 a.m. eastern. Those are your times that were the markets, the most volatile, the other segment is the final hour trading from 3, p.m.
14:58
Eastern, till 4:00 p.m. Eastern or 3:30 Eastern, till 4:00 p.m. Eastern. So if you could sleep during gosh, I sound Awful saying this, but it because the markets only open six and a half hours a day, right? The stock market. So, if you can trade or at least follow the stock market between 9:30 a.m. eastern and 10:30 a.m. eastern and then go to sleep after 10:30 because by then you have enough time to probably go through your scans, go to your watchlist and also start figuring out.
15:26
Okay, the market, gapped up its now fading. I will get long on these stocks if the market comes back up and this stock crosses this particular price A threshold. And then, all of a sudden you’re awake for the most important times in the market, you put your stop losses and then you can go back to sleep.
15:41
I’m not saying this is the greatest strategy, a lot of this is me trying to think off the top of my head and try to tell you, okay? This is maybe something that could work, but I can tell you this, though. I mean, if you’re working construction, if you’re doing Roofing or something during the day, you’re not looking at the stock market at all probably. So you’re actually in a better situation in this in this particular instance, and I don’t know how it works across the country or across the world, but we’re on that most of the Like nurses there’s like 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. and 7 p.m. to 7 a.m. shifts so if you’re trying to balance two different things yes there’s a there’s a lot of time and effort that goes into it on your off days where you’re not working.
16:18
Maybe maybe you start going back to sleep at around 11 a.m. eastern and you get up at like 7:00 p.m. Eastern or if it’s on a day where you work from 7:00 p.m. until 7 a.m. you come home, maybe you get like an hour or two of sleep you wake up again for the stock market you go back.
16:35
Back to sleep. It’s it look, I know that. That’s crazy. It’s not ideal situation there. But anybody who tries to do two jobs, they’re probably going to have a little bit of sleep deprivation, right in the same sense. Anybody who’s trying to start up a career in the stock market or at least start up a very serious side gig in the stock market.
16:52
There’s probably going to be some sleep deprivation, but I’m just trying to tell you like, okay, focus on the times and the stock market that are the most important. The most important being that first hour hour-and-a-half trading and then the last 30 minutes or an hour of trading. But if you have Choose between either choose the morning over the afternoon and make sure you’re always using stop losses because those will work for you now.
17:10
Is it going to be a perfect situation? No. Because if you have a afternoon sell off, and you’re sleeping, and you can see, okay, the stock market’s going to blow through my stop-loss that’s about 5% away, but based off of the price action I’m seeing. Yeah, it’s going to get really ugly really fast. Well, then maybe if you were awake, you could go ahead and get out of that position and everything and avoid the extra 5% loss.
17:30
But if you’re sleeping, you can’t. So, but a restricted schedule. When you’re working the nice then, actually, Working nights is the best-case scenario unless you have a desk job that allows you to be able to follow the stock market closely during the day. And there’s a lot of those out there that was what my previous job was like, wasn’t necessarily what I was supposed to be doing with my time but I was good at my job and I did what I was supposed to do and I used the extra time to work on the stock market.
17:51
So you have a restricted schedule, you’re working at night, you’re going to have to tailor your sleep around it, and that’s hard. And there may be times where you’re sleep-deprived, but the nights that you’re off because I think nurses for the most part work like what? Three days. Ace four days a week. Usually those days where you’re off, you’ve got to make sure that you’re getting caught up on your sleep quite a bit.
18:11
I do that and I work, one job, my job, entails a lot from, you know, trading the stock market to having a successful YouTube channel, to having a podcast to having a website where there’s a subscription service to it. So, there’s a lot of moving Parts there I’m doing this podcast, at 1:00 in the morning right now.
18:27
And so yeah, I’m usually somewhat sleep-deprived, you know, I don’t, I don’t work off of a ton of sleep the night before I think it was I fell asleep at my desk. A desk. But I’m also wanting to continue to build the audience that I’m reaching out to in this podcast. So sometimes it requires me to work a little bit longer hours.
18:44
But, you know, if you want to get good at the stock market, you’re going to have to really, maybe push her limits a little bit. Now, I don’t want you to do something that puts other people at risk, when you’re in the hospital and everything but you just got to take your downtime, you know, a serious as possible to make sure that that you’re not only paying attention to the markets but you’re also staying up on your sleep.
19:03
Please keep your stories and your It’s coming because I do make podcasts out of these as Gator. Gator knows what I’m talking about. I just made a whole podcast off of this person’s email. I humbly, ask that you guys keep sending them. My weight, make sure you’re leaving reviews for the podcast on whatever app you’re listening to subscribe.
19:20
Thank you. God bless. Thanks for listening to my podcast. Swing trading the stock market. I 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 Day trial and access to my trading room, including alerts via text email and WhatsApp.
19:39
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 chatting with you soon.
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Welcome to Swing Trading the Stock Market Podcast!
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