Is Financial Trading a Decent Side Hustle?

Financial trading has long been viewed as a niche occupation that requires a lot of knowledge and expertise and is generally inaccessible to the broad public.

However, the advent of the digital age has massively changed the attitude towards financial markets and trading securities. 

While it may be true that trading requires a lot of time and research, individuals with full-time jobs can also set aside some of their savings for trading, which allows them to safeguard and steadily grow their funds over time. 

Forex and stock trading are two of the most popular methods for people with full-time jobs to interact with the market.

Although, knowing the realistic returns in currency trading, as well as stock trading, is incredibly important to avoid disappointments and to approach the process more realistically, which also increases your chances of success in the long run. 

What to consider when trading as a side hustle

There are a few key factors that differentiate full-time trading from trading as a side hustle that you need to remember in order to avoid false promises and maintain a leveled head when dealing with an ever-changing market.

Keeping these factors in mind can help you set realistic financial goals and an action plan that allows you to reach them.

You will have limited time for research 

If you are practicing trading as a side hustle, chances are you will have limited time to dedicate to market research.

This is natural, as each financial market offers hundreds or thousands of individual instruments to choose from and researching all of them can be an incredibly time-consuming process.

While you can recruit the help of some market research software, the ultimate buying decisions are still yours to make. 

In such cases, it is best to pick a few sectors you are interested in and have some knowledge of and trade ETFs that cover them.

For example, if you are interested in the semiconductor industry, you may trade the Direction Daily Semiconductor Bull 3X Shares (SOXL), or the Bear 3X Shares (SOXS) ETFs, which are inversely correlated to each other. This means that when SOXL rises, SOXS falls by the same rate, and vice versa.

You may miss important market updates 

As you may know, the financial markets are incredibly fast and constantly changing. This means that a lucrative trade that you may have noticed yesterday, may not be as attractive today.

This also means that you are incredibly likely to miss out on some massive market developments, which ties into the limited research time on your hands.

The key here is to keep a cool head when trading and not stress about missed opportunities.

Remember, the market will provide thousands of massively profitable setups and missing some of them ultimately does not mean much for your financial future. 

Do not expect market-beating returns 

Due to the inherent limitations that come with maintaining stable employment and trading on the side, it would be wise to curb your expectations when it comes to your trading returns.

This does not mean that you are guaranteed to have subpar returns, not at all, but a grounded approach here works best.

Therefore, quitting your day job and becoming a full–time trader will have to wait.

What is important is that you keep track of your financial goals and the reasons why you decided to enter the market in the first place. Any overachievement is great, especially when your expectations are realistic and grounded. 

Should you trade financial instruments as a side hustle?

Keeping the aforementioned factors in mind, the question stands—is financial trading a good side hustle to have? The answer to this question is invariably a Yes!

Financial trading is an incredibly flexible occupation that allows you to trade at your own pace and set realistic goals for yourself.

Are you saving up for a new car? A down payment for a new home?

Depending on your goals, you can adjust your strategy and the amount of funds you set aside for trading, which allows you to stay on top of things and only enter trades that look comfortable to you and give you the confidence that you need.

As long as you stay vigilant and do not let your expectations get the best of you, you should be able to build up a decent side hustle that helps you reach your financial goals sooner, while also giving you the necessary financial knowledge in trading multiple asset classes, which may come in handy in the future and open up new opportunities for you to pursue new financial ventures, if you are so inclined to learn more.

Mental fortitude and a grounded approach are key to successful trading and no tried and true strategy or get-rich-quick scheme can substitute for a healthy trading mentality.