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Aug 31

Why The Grass Isn’t Greener

Categories:

Forex Trading, General Trading

by Rogue Traderette

Some people are a little bit mental.

I mean, I’m sure they’re lovely and everything, but just raving mad.  In a nice way.

I met a trader on Twitter yesterday who was trading FX and the US markets, which of course is very un-crazy and really rather normal.  What I found slightly nutso was that he was getting up to trade currencies at 2.30 am, then the US markets at 9.30 am and was considering moving to Australia because as you might imagine, his sleep patterns suck.

Nutso.

While I certainly can’t fault his decision to move to Australia – it’s a rather nice place to live, after all -  moving to Australia to make your trading life easier is crazy.  Moving house down the road is a big enough deal, moving continents is huge.

But it’s not an uncommon thing.  I know Aussie traders who’ve done the opposite and moved to the US to take advantage of the massive markets they have there, only to return a short time later.

They do come home a little wiser, however -  they come home realising that it’s not the market that makes the trader profitable, it’s the other way around.

The trader makes the market profitable.

The grass is always greener in a different market, and some time zones do have advantages over others.  But with the good comes the bad – the Aussie equity market is very different from the US one, for example, and might not be conducive at all to the intraday strategies a US trader is used to, even though it is possibly more conducive to trading $EURUSD on the London open.

You wins some, you lose some.  It’s a matter of trading the markets that work for you, not against you.

As traders we have the flexibility to trade when we want - there are markets trading around the world all day pretty much 6 days a week.  There is zero reason to be up in the middle of the night trading unless you’re a vampire and that is your preferred time to be awake.

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  • http://twitter.com/danewilliamsau Dane Williams

    The key point when it comes to forex for me is that the market is flexable enough to let you really trade anywhere and in any timezone.

    I’m going to be spending the last 3 months of the year in the US for a “trading holiday” so we’ll see how it goes!

    • http://www.roguetraderette.com/ Jessica Peletier

      Good luck! How’s it going to work – holidaying during the day, trading at night? Trading during the day, holidaying weekends?

      That’s my absolute point – markets are pretty much 24 Hrs these days, so there’s no need to trade the wee small hours unless you actually want to. :)

  • ryan

    Hi, great blog. What is the size of your trading account in order for you to live of your profits ?

    • http://www.roguetraderette.com/ Jessica Peletier

      It depends on how much you need to live. If you need $200k/year to fund your lifestyle you’ll need a much bigger account than if you only need $50k to live on.

  • Gary

    Expect the Aussie immigration levels to boom now that Gina Rinehart has let it officially be known that all the blokes (and blokettes) get to drink more and work less than we poor souls.

  • http://www.andrewcaldwell.org/blog Andrew Caldwell

    So along this line of thought, do you not trade at a specific time of day Jess? Only asking as I’m sharing the same timezone! From what I’ve read (as we’re in GMT +8), 8pm to midnight is the over-lap of the London and NY exchanges, so the market is the most active then?

    Anyway, I’m hoping a hefty lot of backtesting will reveal whether times to trade is like a scatter gun or highlights some key times to trade.

    Cheers,

    Andrew

    • http://www.roguetraderette.com/ Jessica Peletier

      I trade 24hs :) But I don’t really because i go to sleep. I set my stops and let the market go overnight and then readjust things in the morning. I have rules regarding signals that I miss overnight, and it works well for me. I also use hard stops to make sure Ben doesn’t pull the rug from under me while I’m sleeping!

    • http://www.roguetraderette.com/ Jessica Peletier

      What I have noticed though is that between 12pm and 2 pm is very quiet, so during our day that’s when you’re allowed to take a nap :)

  • 1Lot

    I moved to a tax haven for trading – but then again I am also a little bit mental.. ;)

  • Krypty

    The next question will be, will you move to another country or continent if you could get 0% tax on your Forex/Stock Trading?

    • http://www.roguetraderette.com/ Jessica Peletier

      Ooh, this is opening a can of worms…if it was just me, yes, I would move for things like that. I would move to a country where the cost of living is extremely low compared to home, ie Indonesia for example, where I can trade in AUD, make AUD and live in rupiah.
      Tax-free status would appeal also.
      However with kids and a family there is a lot more to consider.

      I like your thinking :)

      • Krypty

        This is precisely the answer I had.

        The reason is in South Africa the Rand is at this stage is
        $1 = R8.30
        $1AUD = R8.72

        So living can become very nice but tax will eat you alive as it can go up to 40%

        Will I move to another country with lower tax even if cost of living is more expensive. From a South African perspective… in a heart beat.

  • http://twitter.com/ZachShackleford Zach Shackleford

    Honored to get a blog post about your interaction with me haha. I trade FX in the middle of the night because I am primarily a night owl, take a few hr nap, and then trade the first few hours of the US market, then I take the rest of the day off….sounds crazy to normal people, but I don’t have children, I’m young, and I enjoy what I do….btw if I was born a few weeks earlier, I would have dual citizenship in the US and Australia, so it’s not entirely crazy since my family has lived there and I have been quite a few times ;)

    • http://www.roguetraderette.com/ Jessica Peletier

      LOL! I wondered if you’d read this! Some people are night owls, for sure.
      I knew there would be other factors so it wasn’t aimed only at you – I’ve thrown around the idea of moving for markets myself, but ended up giving myself a good slap and I got over it :)

      But our equity markets are hugely different from yours, so you need to be prepared for that :)
      Let me know if you move!

      • madLyfe

        i think i might be missing something, wouldnt he be trading the same things just moving for better hours?

        he trades what i do but im CST so its an hour earlier.. 2am 6E start and the 8:30 ES start.. i just end up going to bed around 6-7pm to make up for it. i used to deal poker on the grave yard shift(few years ago) so ive done it before. im also young and single so its not a huge deal..

        • http://www.roguetraderette.com/ Jessica Peletier

          My point here is that if you’re moving just to trade a certain market, it’s probably a better option to change markets. I realise some people like getting up at 2 am, but for those that don’t and feel the need to move internationally to cope, well there are better, less dramatic ways to earn a crust :)