How to start trading to travel full time ?

For the hundreds who messaged me how to travel full time and not worry about money, there are only two options – first is to do a job & earn a lot and then travel in old age which doesnt make sense & second is to have a passive income stream. I have tried most of the passive income techniques like blogging, youtube, freelancing, weekend trek leader and realised nothing really works in long term, My search for such income stream without any thing holding me down from travelling led me to share market. Trading has the power with which you can work for one hour a day & earn enough for a week or even a month. It can be done from any part of the world with an internet access & hence give flexibility to keep travelling .Trading has the power to make you super wealthy but I look at it as a way to just get enough to power my travel dreams.

Even I am on this learning curve which seems to be slowly moving towards reaching that level of financial freedom within another 6-8 months. I am pretty sure you are also interested in lots of free time to just travel on your own terms. So how to start trading ?

What is trading ?

Two of India’s most famous stock exchanges are NSE & BSE. When a company is listed on these exchanges normal people like us can buy shares of those company i.e. buy ownership in that company. Depending on the company’s business trend its share value rises or falls. If we have trust in the company’s future prospects we buy the shares now and sell it at a higher price later on.

This process of buying the shares i.e. equity and selling it on later date is broadly said to be

1. For short term as Swing trading.
2. For long term its called an investment
3. If buying and selling happens on the same day it is called intraday trading

The first two take a substantial amount of start-up money and duration, hence to be able to achieve our goal of financial freedom we will focus on the Intraday Trading. Basic trading starts with shares but with increase in expertise trading can be done in futures & options and commodities which are riskier but have even higher profit margins.

How much money can be made ?

Trading in share market has endless possibilities. As a beginner we can trade in shares , later on in futures & options and commodities. The profit level goes on increasing as we move up the ladder. There are people who earn crores in a month at a very expert level. However for every person who makes crores there are 100 who lose that money to that person. Hence the dream of earning crores should not over write your risk taking capability. Start by deciding that I will take only X amount loss per month and not exceed that limit till you have completed your learning phase. There are lakhs if not crores to be made if you have patience and willingness to learn & scrape through the learning curve without loosing much. Dont be greedy and you will make it.

How to trade ?

Trading account will be active within a day , but learning to trade will take you an year. Once the account is active you can look at the share values of all the companies. Zerodha even provides the price -charts from which you get an idea how the share price have moved since the company listing. Different companies have different value based on the company’s performance and total shares available. E.g. A company can have 10 crore shares with current price Rs 100, while other company may have 10 lakh shares with current price Rs 5000. So different shares trade at different values which change with market forecasts, expectations & the age-old demand-supply.

So Niraj, you gave me the basics but didnt answer how to actually trade. Well share market is a very complex market. I would have loved to say its easy, risk free & you will earn in crores from tomorrow. In reality its one of the riskiest business out there. It seems easy but its not & you will definitely take an year to actually start making some money out of it. Bhai tu bata raha hai ki dara raha hai. Just telling the truth. This is for someone who has that inner strength, patience & willingness to learn new things till you get it right. If you dont have these qualities its better to stay at a job. But if you have foresight and drive to learn & tackle obstacles during the learning phase its worth a shot for owning a lot of free time in future.

Trading techniques

For starters it is essential to get hands on with the trading account where you can see all the shares , their prices, price -movement, the company fundamentals ,news etc. Once you are used to the share market eco system then you will start to get your hands dirty learning the actual trading techniques like

1. Price -action which estimates how the price will move and when you should enter the trade to get maximum profits. Since its a theory of Buy LOW , Sell High you will need to learn price action and various chart patterns which guide in predicting price movement like flag pattern, triangles , head & shoulders, M /N pattern etc. These are various names given to how the share -price actually moves
2. Technical Analysis while with the above price -action you can predict how the price will move, using technical analysis the chart algorithm will tell you how the price may move using Moving Averages, RSI, MACD , bollinger bands etc . i.e. there are various pre-defined indicators which will tell you where to enter to get maxmum profits.

These naming convention may sound a bit complex but its not. These are just jargons for some simple things. While opening an account is like learning ABCD…., learning the above techniques is like studying for an exam & actual trading is like writing an exam paper. To get good marks in the exam you will need to start studying early. So if you plan to be earning consistent money from trading after an year, the first step would be opening a trading account as early as possible and start your trading journey towards financial freedom. I know people who have left their jobs as trading provided them enough to be self sufficient and left cities for peaceful life in mountains

Should I leave my job and start doing trading full time? No, Nahi, Bikul nahi.

Trading may seem lucrative with easy money ones you are experienced. But reaching that level of expertise may take atleast a year if you really work for it – but it may also not happen for some after two years. So unless and until you get a steady income equal to your current salary you should not think about calling it quits. What you should be doing is take it up as side hustle , put in the efforts for an year and hope for the best. Instead of wasting time on youtube , instagram ,watsapp and other useless time pass activities if you spend your time learning price -action, technicals , observing live markets for an year it will do wonders to your trading experience.

How much money is needed to start ?

I started off with Rs 2000 in trading per month & gradually increased the trading amount. Rs 10000, seems to be fair enough amount to get a look and feel of the market. Instead of using that money of buying a shirt or eating out once, I decided to invest this to learn trading. The amount should not be big enough to hurt my emotions in case of a loss & should not be small enough to be taken for granted.

Would there be losses ? ABSOLUTELY GUARANTEED. Gradually I had set out 10% of my monthly salary to be used in trading. Losses are part of trading during initial days. Instead of paying lakhs to some trading classes I prefer to learn it practically myself which is thousand times better. Losses teach you valuable lessons and the experience you gain from it is everything you need to understand how trading works.

This is a first trading related blog I have written. If I get more interest from you guys I will write further detailed blogs on fundamentals, techniques, learnings , trading psychology, risk management, money management and also advance topics of future & options. You can get in touch me with me on my handles. I check insta regularly , other social media on weekly basis. All links at the bottom of the page.