Trader Meetups (Part 4)

I recently came across a thread in an option education forum where a beginning student asked for thoughts and experiences of full-time traders.  He wanted to know how to bridge the gap from traditional job to trading as a business.  You can read the response of an advanced student here and here.

After reading this response, I followed-up with some feedback of my own:

> I have to say that I was rather shocked to read your post.  Here’s a very
> important question:  are you looking to trade for a living or to trade as a
> hobby?
>
> In my opinion when you graduate, you are ready to start trading real
> money in small size.  You will not be ready to trade large or come
> anywhere close to replacing a full-time income.  In order to do that,
> you need to do *many* live trades.  You should also spend generous
> time backtesting in order to see how trades work and how they may
> be adjusted.  While not as valuable as live trades because your
> emotions won’t be involved, I believe backtesting is extremely
> valuable when done properly and a practical way to augment your
> trading experience.
>
> Backtesting, paper trading, and live trading in small size can easily
> take full-time devotion–and by this I do mean at least 40 hours per
> week.  This says nothing for additional study/learning about other
> topics like technical analysis, stocks and futures, trading system
> development, money management… this list could go on.
>
> No insult intended but if you don’t feel you have enough to fill
> your time then I believe you just aren’t working hard enough.  In
> my opinion, the thousands of hours many traders spend tracking
> trades is the only portal to trading for a living.
>
> If you want to trade as a hobby and make some small change here
> and there then it’s another story altogether.