My routine can best be described partly on a daily basis and partly on a weekly basis. You should bear in mind that my focus is forex trading, so is probably different for some activities than traders who focus on stocks.
On a daily basis I typically am in the office 8am-6pm much I like I used to do when working. During the day I do get out for errands, networking, sometimes investor conferences when they're on in Melbourne, but otherwise I'm at my desk.
The daily routine consists of:
- Catching up on what markets did overnight first thing in the morning
- Checking the forex markets I trade once each hour through the day for setups I'm looking for on completed hourly bars (I trade mostly on a 60 min timeframe), and placing orders where necessary, which takes about 5 mins each hour
- Conducting research on new setup ideas or doing statistics to validate them (this is where I spend most of my time - because these ideas are where future income will hopefully come to build on setups I already use or replace them if they are not performing as they have historically) - this is probably equivalent to the research that I imagine traders focusing on stocks spend their time reading up on companies of interest, etc
- Catching up on HC a couple of times a day (a bit like the way I used to deal with emails)
- Checking on my ASX watchlists once or twice per day
- I probably spend no more than an hour a day on reading/researching stocks - I trade stocks for my smsf so this is not a high frequency activity for me, but its good to change the subject for a little bit each day
- Admin (there is always admin...!) including recording data on my trades which adds to my statistics
- Because I take trades on forex as late as midnight I will check the forex markets I am watching hourly through the evening
Weekly routine:
- Weekly forex and stocks markets review to get the bigger picture - review what happened during the week just completed and prepare for the following week (even though I trade forex on the hourly timeframe I still like to see how the weekly and daily charts frame what's happening, and for stocks I mainly trade off weekly charts since my focus is for my smsf, so I like to review the weekly charts on the stocks on my watchlist)
In terms of scanning, the answer is I don't scan for stocks regularly. Its not a habit I have managed to force myself into as yet (I find it a real chore) and so I rely for stock ideas on general reading and news, ASX ann's etc, (and yes the HC STT and some posters I follow) to find stocks to add to my watchlists.
These days it pretty much feels like a job, and when I review the routines above it sounds like one. But then again, it is my business now, no longer a hobby. But the thing that's missing for me is all the BS politics and people problems I used to have to deal with at work - I don't miss those aspects of work at all, and instead I find my work very relaxing (thanks in no small part to my selected Spotify playlists which I have on all day, and the sun streaming in from the backyard, when its sunny...).
