Trading with a full time job

[rhetmatic]

Hi All!

I’ve been trading for a little over 4.5 years now. 1 year of Al Brooks inside the trading room and will be 3 years with Mack in June. I’ve been trading Micro’s live for about a year and a half now. I’m just getting past the break even threshold and starting to show some great consistency. I have good weeks and bad weeks but the good ones are starting to stack up

I’m an executive at my day job and typically work 12+ hours per day. I still find time to watch Mack’s Video every day and any content that Top Pick puts out. I live on the east coast so I do all of my trading between 7-8 am which isn’t exactly optimal and always super slow. I’ve tried trading during lunch but by then I have too much going on at work to focus.

My question is does anyone have any feedback or advice they can give? I hate that it is slow between 7-8am but what I’m doing is working….slowly. I’m only averaging 2 trades per week, most days I don’t get any set ups.

I don’t deviate at all from Pats’s system so I’m hesitant to start changing the timeframes and expanding targets but would love to hear some different perspectives.

Also, just a quick thanks to the Top Pick gang. The lectures have been a tremendous help and has played a big part in my consistency!

Happy Trades - Rhet

[eric-pal]

Nice work!!

A couple of aspects. As "reading" is reading PA, you are correct that 7-8 oftentimes is much slower however it simply becomes adapting to how the market moves during certain periods right .

If possible I would include a 15 minute replay of the day before through NT at 10x-20x speed and simply watch the PA at quicker intervals (it is about 15 minutes for a day). It is about reading and visualization and not trading (I've found actually trying to execute trades may develop poor habits as NT8 doesn't keep pace well at that speed). First you may find that it helps to cement the principles that one is executing against, as well as provides a greater variety of input by letting you see how the market trades, and also as a comparative against Mack markings.

Consistency in method, analysis and execution are the "keys to the castle". . . . Why did you take that trade? Well you had to, it meets your criteria of a high probability situation.

Hopefully helpful and good trades to you!

[shoikan]

Good job on the continued success.

I also trade while working full time (8-10hour days). I've been fortunate to block off the first 90 minutes of the trading day. Not sure if you have the flexibility to block off sections of your day to get consistent screen time in.

An alternative might be starting the work day later if it allowed you to get in some of the market open. This is something I would have explored if I was unable to watch the market open.

I've been trading this way for just over 2 years only doing Macks.

Cheers,

[rhetmatic]

Eric thank you for your wisdom as always. I’m going to start adding the replay to my daily studies, I love that idea! I’ve been adding the top gun signal bar characteristics *1T to my daily mark up on the forum. It’s been a great tool when using as a comparison to what’s marked in Mack’s video lesson.

Shoikan, thanks for your feedback as well. Unfortunately as soon as it hits 8 o’clock it’s phone calls and meetings ALL day. Most of it is super fast paced and before 8 eastern is the only time when my head is not filled with work. It’s impossible for me to get in the zone!!