The Day In The Life Of A Professional Trader

Trading for a living is a very glamorous lifestyle, from the outside.

Working from anywhere with an internet connection.

No boss to answer to.

No dress code.

Buying and selling at a moments notice.

Staring at all those beautiful charts on big monitors.

Reading news voraciously.

Discussing global issues over martini's with world leaders in Davos.

All those things can be true, but the real day to day of a trader is more about doing less, eliminating the noise, finding where your advantage is and exploiting that advantage to its greatest effect.

The real life of this trader is actually a pretty enjoyable life. I've developed habits that help me eliminates much of the clutter, the drama and noise and let's me focus on exploiting those beautiful trade setups that I just sit back and wait to show up.

Warren Buffet talks about waiting for the perfect pitch. He considers himself a batter at the plate and each investment idea he see's is a pitch. The advantage he has is that he does not need to swing at every pitch. He can sit back and wait while pitch after pitch comes his way, there is no count, there is no umpire to call a strike or a ball.

Trading is the same way.

Identify where your sweet spot it, where your perfect trade setup is and wait until that setup arrives.

In my case, I focus heavily on Cryptocurrency markets. I didn't always, I spent a large portion of my life trading equities, derivatives, and currencies. Sure they trade 24/5 but in reality they really only traded during the US Session (930am to 4pm EST). Crypto on the other hand is 24/7/365 and they don't trade during any time pattern. They are active all day and night, and other times they are dead. With a manic depressive market like that I need to spend my time passively monitoring, but also keeping myself busy with complimentary things.

A typical day for me has a fair amount of structure, but it's also a structureless design so that I can trade when the perfect setup presents itself.

Key elements for me:
Always have internet access
Always have access to my charts
Always have access to my trading accounts
Be able to make good decisions

That's about it.

In order to maintain that minimum requirement I need to plan my life around it, traveling, wifi, backup tools, and not taking on responsibilities that would keep me from maintaining these key elements.

Keeping my mind right, not being anxious, overly aggressive or passive are how I make good decisions. This is what a day in the life looks like.

A Day In The Life Of A Professional Trader

-Wake up (no alarm) check charts.
-Make coffee (this is a whole ritual with grinding and preparation)
-Drink water/take vitamins
-Grab noise canceling head phones and start reading.
I typically read for about 4 hours first thing in the morning. Articles, books, forums, comments, deep and light research are usually how I spend those 4 hours.
-Coffee is added throughout the day.
-Bloomberg TV is on in the background all day...and night.
-Lately I've been trying to write 1 article per day.
-Meditate
-Workout
-Yoga
-Read more (usually another 2-4 hours)
-Go for a long walk
-I stick to a pretty mellow diet, at least it feels very easy for me to maintain. I usually only eat once per day, in the afternoon or evening.
-Some days I eat more.

My screens are always on, my charts always up, I'm always monitoring the market but not making decisions until a decision is just so obvious that I am compelled to make a trade.

Rarely do I schedule things to follow a time line, sometimes I'll meet with people or do a phone call at a set time but those are few and far between.

It seems ironic that trading the most volatile, manic/depressive market in the world, that never has a day, hour or minute off would be the thing that has calmed me down.

Rather than the glamorous image of a trader, screaming and yelling, monitors everywhere, news feed galore, look at me trading and you'll see a lot more calm than excitement as I sit and watch pitch after pitch (idea after idea) until a signal is generated and I make my move.

Happy Trading