Quote from Bolimomo:
One thing for you to consider, Hardo:
Trading for a living takes a lot of work. I really mean it. The 6.5 hour window where the market opens is not enough. You need to prepare before the market opens and review how it went every trading day. You may think of it as a 40-hour workweek engagement (or less) so it lets you have more time with your family. If this is your idea (8 hour workday and no more), you really need to think twice.
People or commercials may glorify trading: spend 2 hours a day, place some orders in the morning, then take the rest of the day playing golf. My reality trading for a living (for 3 years now) is far from that. Maybe I am not as smart as the others. It depends on the individual's talents and experiences and drives to improve performance. But remember advertisement and reality usually have big gaps between them. Just something to think about.
Once you can trade profitably, well my experience, is that I do all that I can to spend LESS time trading. It's already systematized, so no reason to spend more time trading.
The time away from trading is for recharging. It has nothing to do with being smart...in trading smart enough is ok. Entry criteria intelligence is not excellence criteria. It how smart you work.
The market doesn't know how much time you spend trading, and if it did...it woudln't give a rat's ass. Like in most endeavors, 20% of your time will yield 80% of your results.
I know many many other traders who are better than me, and they in fact do trade only in the first two hours of the day, then in fact they do play golf, or other things. I am still learning to trade less, because trading less for me means more money in general to a point.
There is nearly zero correlation with hours trading spend during the day and profit. I believe the same is true of after hours or before hours prep work.
In developing a system, yes, maybe if you are creating it to your personality it could take years lots of hours. Once it is done, you just have to operate it. This idea that great traders spend 12 hours a day working is utter nonsense for many very profitable traders. Making money trading is both time and after fees are recovered, equity invariant.