3 tips on how to trade stocks part-time

If you work a regular job and you’re interested in stock trading, then you have to find the best combination of these two activities. If the question of how to trade stocks part-time comes to mind often, here are some tips that can help you to find a way to do both.

Check your time schedule

You have to check what your actual time schedule is. You need to know what segments of free time you have available for your stock market activities. You can hear a lot of about multitasking, but the reality is that multitasking is not good. Every person has to concentrate on a single task to do it the best way. And if you want to make money by stock trading, this rule is much more important.

You also have to understand that as a stock trader you fill two roles. The first role is as a stock analyst who studies charts or other relevant sources of information. The analyst  finds the best trading opportunity and prepares the trade setup. The second role is a trader who uses the trade setup received from your role as analyst and executes it in accordance with trading rules.

These two roles can use different time slots of your time that you can set for trading and analysis.

Select a trading style

With information about your free time, you can decide what your trading style is. There are several different options from day trading to position trading. As a day trader, you’ll use reserved time for short-term stock trades that will last a few minutes, no more than several hours.

If you want to hold positions for a longer period of time like days or weeks as a swing or position trader, then you need to define your trading rules for these styles.

Although it looks more ideal to be a day trader and spend only a few hours watching the market and making the trades, the truth is that you make the big money on larger time frames.

stock trade example

Combine the time and style and dedicate your time for trading

Use your knowledge from the previous points and define how you use your time for your stock trading activity.

If you plan to make day trades, you need to analyze the market quickly during a trading day. You must make the trading decisions and trade setups quickly.

If you decide to be a swing trader or position trader, you can divide your activities. Your analyst role can work after the market closes and you’re not at your job. You can prepare your trades during a quiet time without distractions. But you have to define how the trade will work. When you will enter the trade? How do you manage your trades during a trading day? How you will exit your trades? You can base your answers to these questions on your exact time schedule. This is when you define the first rules you’ll later use for your real trading.