Career report
Introduction
Day trading is a highly skilled, self employment based job. Day trading is investing in the stock market and buying or selling shares. I am interested in this career as it provides freedom. This is done by allowing me to work from anywhere in the world and even on vacations. Compared to long term investments, day trading is more efficient at either making or losing money with. It is where you can see a profit or loss even within the span of a second. The job is hard to succeed in, as only around 10% of people make it through as a full time job. This means that 90% are losing all of their money, or are giving up. Being in this industry, you must be ok with risk. If someone is too scared of losing a couple bucks, larger risks and larger profits are impossible.
The expert I found (Thomas Cooney) specializes in investment advising. His role is based under a company rather than himself. Currently, he is working at Craigs Investment. From the interview, this is what I gathered:
Day traders watch current, live news while trading to grasp an understanding of when to buy or sell a certain stock, share or commodity. To be a financial adviser, you need to have a New Zealand certificate in financial services which is level 5. To trade on the market, you need an NZX registration.
To succeed in the market, you need to understand how bonds, currencies and commodities run and why they increase or decrease in value.
To start, people assume that thousands are needed for the first deposit but money can be made from a little amount such as $100. While there are great things about this industry, there are also the bad. The good news is that 20 minute trading exists. This is where someone is only on the market for 20 minutes a day, but still makes a living - this requires an extremely high skill level and expert knowledge.
The worst aspect of day trading is that some days people do not make money - possibly even ending in a loss some days. Profitable traders know this - and make sure that they always have some money saved just in case of this event.
Benefits/Pay
There are no distinctive qualifications needed for this career. The only requirement is that you have a driver's license or passport to prove your identity. Pay with this career can vary, as each day is not guaranteed with a profit but the average salary is over $120,000 (This figure is from ziprecruiter, which is one top trusted american job search engine). To reach this point, it means that the individual is in the top 10% of traders. Compared to other jobs, people may be worried about the possible inconsistency of each pay. Traders that are working for a company on a normal salary, only end up carrying a salary of $70,000 to $90,000.
Day trading is very difficult to succeed in but when you do, the reward has the chance to be much higher than employment. With a traditional occupation, the average salary in New Zealand is $61,000. The salary and work that is required is arguably much better and more enjoyable than having a simple job like a tradie. For example, I personally made $60 of profit for less than 2 hours of work. For the amount of work that was done, that is a solid hourly income
for my age.
Qualities
There are 3 main qualities that can transform an average and worried trader - into a highly successful and dominating trader. Quality 1 is patience. Patience when trading is the most important quality, seeing as to make profit in the market, an individual must wait possibly up to an hour or longer. When people trade, people buy low and sell high. For the value to be higher, people must wait and not be afraid of where the market will go.
Discipline is the second major quality within a trading environment. A strong discipline level means that an individual works every day and is on the market at an early time for premarket research. Premarket research is key to gain a daily understanding on how your desired stock is performing - this process starts for most traders around 5 or 6am.
The last quality is tolerance, as having a high tolerance level means that even if a trade loses money, they are either ready to enter a fresh, new trade or stop trading for the day to ensure that they are not overtrading. Overtrading can usually be the downfall of the day for most traders - due to the fact that emotions become the initial reason for entering a trade. Traders who end up trading on emotion, commonly neglect the critical thinking aspect of market entries. When this happens, it can become highly risky and money is commonly lost.
Competencies
A strong variety of competencies can take any trader to the next level of their career. Being able to adapt to any market which is entered and to have the skill to follow trends within each stock is arguably the best support for day trading.
Critical thinking is as well as important due to the fact that each trader must make fast, snappy decisions before clicking the buy button on any stock. If critical thinking is not present with a trader, losses are practically inevitable if luck is not on their side.
Without self management, traders can really struggle in the financial aspect of trading. Being able to manage one’s self opens the possibility of more profit - this is done by being able to self-reflect on past trades and know what you did right or wrong. Without these competencies, traders can be blindsighted when entering this sometimes volatile industry.
Career plan
In year 10, I am going to find another job to develop my commitment skills and adapt to a new environment. In math and business studies, I will try my best to reach my highest potential and develop my critical thinking skills through new experiences. This year, I am taking a leadership course - which will definitely help me in many aspects of commitment as I must be committed to the people around me and the tasks that are laid in front of me. This year I will do as much as I can - such as new work experiences, courses, through school and in my free time - to ensure my success within these elements.
Deliberate acts
The deliberate acts which I can do to improve my personal success in day trading, requires daily tasks or goals which can be implemented into my understandment of trading. A main deliberate act may look like, simply watching an hour or 2 of trader’s expertise on a variety of social media platforms such as youtube or instagram. Talking to people that are knowledgeable and profitable can be useful as I can take certain actions and techniques from them, while applying them to my own personal trades.
I can grow my discipline at first, by doing either daily or weekly market research and reflect on how the market performed on certain days and why they performed the way they did. I can expand my patience by slowly growing my financial situation and not expecting fast money.
Senior
The deliberate act that I must do in senior school is very limited but important. In year 12 or 13, I must obtain a drivers license. I will have a job at this point which means that I can develop my commitment skills by showing up every shift. I will have built up my money management skills as well which means that I will have more money to deposit into the market. At this age, my discipline will be reflected in the gym as I will be there no matter what.
Conclusion
In conclusion, day trading can be a well paying but risky business. It is easy to start as there are no qualifications in order to sign up besides for a driver’s license. Skills and qualities are not so easy to acquire - but can be built up overtime. Understanding the market can sometimes be a lifelong journey. I can be successful in the market by utilizing both my in class and out of class time by maximizing what I get out of subjects like business studies.
Day trading is a career which allows freedom as anyone can work from where they want and typically when they want. To succeed in this industry, it requires hard work, long nights and struggle.