What is your daily routine?

kmiklas

kmiklas

For those of you trading full-time, what is your daily routine?

On a good day, mine looks like this:

6am: Awake, groggily pull on my running clothes, straight out the door for a brisk morning walk and some stretching
7am: Home, shower, breakfast, coffee
8am: Check the bond markets open.
-> Read read read:
- WSJ, BB, and FT.
9:30am: BB live - market open
10am -> market close
...watching my positions and the market
...I might observe an important news event, like a fed meeting, or listen to an earnings announcement
...Write code; work on my algos.
... Read more: books, news, whatever
... Perhaps watch some training vids.
US Equities market close: Go for a walk. Maybe go to the gym.
Come home, eat, and sometimes read more, but I'm usually wiped.

On a bad day, perhaps curl up in bed and think about how the market has swallowed my profits.
 
  • Wake up at 5am (west coast hours suck) and hop on broker/research calls (overnight stuff, major things through the day, etc.). Usually I'm skimming over fx/rates/equity futures, and look to see if there are any analyst actions on my positions.
  • ~6am do a review of tasks I need to do through the day such as trades, idea generation items, risk issues, etc. I also write up some notes on key facts before market open (for quick reference through the day).
  • ~6:30am is market open -- I normally watch the the first few minutes, if there is excessive volatility in a single name, I may manage size (add/trim). Normally the market stabilizes around 6:50-7am.
    • For trading, depending on the trade and size, I will either manually execute (e.g. aim to fill at mid) or will utilize an algo (benchmarked against a VWAP), or a combo.
  • After orders are in, I spend most of the time conducting idea generation or risk management. Occasionally, there are times when I need to jump in (alert is triggered, major market event, etc.).
  • I will trade around my positions if they move beyond certain thresholds. E.g. if I have a stock trading at $40 w/ a daily std of 1% that moves down 2.5%, I will aggressively buy if it's just weakness in volume or macro driven, but will trim if it is industry or company related. Trading around my positions is probably the closest thing I do to day trading, because many times I will take on leverage and will close the trade by eod or next day (almost never hold over more than 3 days).
  • 1pm is market close -- that's when I get lunch, take calls from brokers/research, and review positions.
  • 3-6pm is spent on idea generation.
I workout almost everyday, have a girlfriend, and try to maintain an active social life. I probably average around 60-70 hours per week. I trade long/short equities with a pocket for global macro (rates, fx, derivatives). Note: I plan to launch a fund eventually and open up to outside money -- so if you're just managing your own money then you probably don't need to be as structured.
 
Last edited:
kmiklas said:
For those of you trading full-time, what is your daily routine?

On a good day, mine looks like this:

6am: Awake, groggily pull on my running clothes, straight out the door for a brisk morning walk and some stretching
7am: Home, shower, breakfast, coffee
8am: Check the bond markets open.
-> Read read read:
- WSJ, BB, and FT.
9:30am: BB live - market open
10am -> market close
...watching my positions and the market
...I might observe an important news event, like a fed meeting, or listen to an earnings announcement
...Write code; work on my algos.
... Read more: books, news, whatever
... Perhaps watch some training vids.
US Equities market close: Go for a walk. Maybe go to the gym.
Come home, eat, and sometimes read more, but I'm usually wiped.

On a bad day, perhaps curl up in bed and think about how the market has swallowed my profits.
More...

If I'm smart, I enter an order at the open, set a stop and time exit, and close the platform.

If I'm stupid, I watch the chart and try to manage the trade.

As time goes on, fortunately the smart days finally start to outnumber the stupid days.
 
Long only strategy. I am about 12 hours ahead of NY.
Each morning, I update my system and run screen. Run script and update tracking database. Go through charts. If there is potential target, I usually enter trade after 2pm NY time. Spend about half of my time on screening strategy, refining my data tracking script, coding and doing errant and sleep. :)
 
Wake up at 6:45 am. Get breakfast ready for family. Waste time on social media. Take a desultory look at the headline news.

Coffee, food, desultory 10 minute exercise (stretching and pressups)

(Twice a week I'll go for a bike run or a run at this point)

Shower

More coffee

Take the 1 minute commute to the shed at the end of my garden where I work.

Log in. Check emails showing system status. Might have to do a bit of housekeeping: manual check of large price movements or rolls.

What happens next depends. This is the rough order of what I tend to do most time doing:

  • writing code
  • doing research into new and interesting ways to gamble on the financial markets (which mostly involves writing code but also looking at graphs). I usually write blog articles about them.
  • writing a book,
  • preparing lecture notes or writing exams if I'm in the teaching season,
  • waste some more time on social media, which I justify as a public person I have to keep my profile high (mainly by baiting bitcoiners). I also waste time on here.
  • preparing or giving a talk,
  • writing a clickbait article (like this one which describes what I used to do every day),
  • rebalancing my long only ETF and stock portfolio (which I do manually - my futures system is fully automated)
  • or (very occasionally) doing some consultancy.
Plus random family related responsibilities, DIY tasks, gardening and chores.

More coffee

More of what I did before coffee

Lunch
Coffee

More of what I did in the morning

More coffee

More of what I did after lunch

Dinner

I rarely do anything after this, but if my kids are still busy doing homework I might snatch half an hour with a book on coding, finance or economics (I'm currently reading Piketty's second book, and Mark Carneys first).

I often think I should post a video on youtube of my 'trading lifestyle', complete with shots of me riding around in my 7 year old ford estate car (in american, stationwagon), and 'just chilling' in my shed in front of my single 14" laptop screen.

GAT
 
430 Wakeup
5-6 process end of day bookkeeping, pnl analysis, idea generation and portfolio plan
6-7 workout or keep working on trading book if there’s more work to be done or work on company
7-830 breakfast with wife, shower, see kids, leave for office
9-5 work on company and/or on trading, which ever is more impactful, important and urgent
5 leave
530-630 walk with wife
630-10 either family time or social time.
 
Wake up at 5 (Euro Time Zone)
Pray
Head to Gym
Boxing,Muay-Thai & Strenght workout 2hrs minimum
Breakfast at 8:30 in the office
scan through news a bit also arrange my charts in the meantime. Get ready for OMXStockholm,DAX and Euronext open
work on the fundementals of my followed companies in excel during the day, read company reports etc
around 11, 12 participate in US Pre-Market trading if any opportunity
sleep at 12:30,12:45 for 20-25 minutes
prepare my lunch(which is also my dinner)at 2
Participate more on US Pre-Market after lunch
have fruits ready
get ready for US Market open at 4:30
leave office at 7:30 which is noon time in US
Make home by 8, open my laptop and continue where I left off (If I feel like it)
Pray and sleep at 10-11 or somewhere in between

Thanks God I am single with no kids
 
6:00 Alarm
6:15 Blow job
6:30 Massive satisfying shit while reading the sports section
7:00 Breakfast: steak and eggs, coffee and toast, all cooked by naked, buxom wench
7:30 Limo arrives
7:45 Several beers en-route to airport
9:15 Flight in personal Lear Jet
9:30 Limo to Mirage Resort Golf Club (blow job en-route)
9:45 Play front nine - 2 under
11:45 Lunch: steak and lobster, 3 beers and a bottle of Dom Perignon
12:15 Blow job
12:30 Play back nine - 4 under
2:15 Limo back to the airport (several bourbons)
2:30 Fly to Bahamas
3:30 Late afternoon fishing excursion with all female nude crew
4:30 Land world record Marlin (1234lbs) - on light tackle
5:00 Fly home, massage and hand job by naked Elle McPherson (and her twin sister).
6:45 Shit, Shower and Shave
7:00 Watch news: Michael Jackson assassinated;
7:30 Dinner: lobster appetizers, Dom Perignon (1953), big juicy fillet steak followed by Ice-cream served on a big pair of tits
9:00 Napoleon Brandy and Habanos cigar in front of wall-size TV as you watch football game
9:30 Sex with three women (all with lesbian tendencies)
11:00 Massage and Jacuzzi with tasty pizza snacks and a cleansing beer
11:30 A night cap blow job
11:45 In bed alone
11:50 A 22 second fart which changes note 4 times and forces the dog to leave the room
11:51 Laugh yourself to sleep
 
levanyashin said:
Wake up at 5 (Euro Time Zone)
Pray
Head to Gym
Boxing,Muay-Thai & Strenght workout 2hrs minimum
Breakfast at 8:30 in the office
scan through news a bit also arrange my charts in the meantime. Get ready for OMXStockholm,DAX and Euronext open
work on the fundementals of my followed companies in excel during the day, read company reports etc
around 11, 12 participate in US Pre-Market trading if any opportunity
sleep at 12:30,12:45 for 20-25 minutes
prepare my lunch(which is also my dinner)at 2
Participate more on US Pre-Market after lunch
have fruits ready
get ready for US Market open at 4:30
leave office at 7:30 which is noon time in US
Make home by 8, open my laptop and continue where I left off (If I feel like it)
Pray and sleep at 10-11 or somewhere in between

Thanks God I am single with no kids
More...
%%
I do a lot of that+ like KMS/ except i seldom sleep during market hours US 8:30-3:oo.
I also Like to reRead jack Schwager old IBD newspaper, some WSJ, Proverbs; Proverbs in serveral Versions. May skip breakfast, except for coffee /tomatoe/grape juice.................................................................................[7,8]Trade Notebook up date; target shoot sometines+ pick up empty brass to sell or recycle:caution::caution::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool::cool:
May listen to NPR /Noel King business news if FOX channel is weak........
 
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