Can You Make a Living Swing Trading? (2024)

The dream of making a living through swing trading captivates many, but how attainable is this goal in reality? Can you make a living swing trading, or is this just another case of “too good to be true”?

This trading style is positioned between day trading and long-term investment and demands a strategic approach and a solid understanding of market trends. But, yes – you can absolutely get started swing trading for a living. You just need to set yourself up for success with VectorVest.

Armed with the right knowledge and the best swing trading platform, you are equipped to earn a living as a swing trader. We’ll guide you through the pros and cons of becoming a swing trader and show you how to get started with confidence.

Can You Make a Living Swing Trading?

So, can you make a living swing trading? The answer is a resounding yes as we mentioned earlier. That being said, we want to provide a bit more context and clarity to the conversation to help you set your expectations.

Capital Needs: How Much Do You Need to Start?

The journey to start swing trading for a living requires an upfront investment, not just in terms of capital, but also in education and resources. The amount needed to start can vary widely depending on your swing trading strategy, risk tolerance, and market conditions.

However, $30,000 is the general consensus of how much you should start with. We know what you’re thinking…that’s a lot!

But, we’re assuming that by starting swing trading for a living you are hoping to earn enough income to fund your cost of living, lifestyle, and still put a bit aside for savings. You need to trade in large enough position sizes to do this considering the average monthly expenses for the American household can be $5k.

This buffer also helps absorb potential losses and provides enough flexibility to diversify across different assets, minimizing risks. However, it’s crucial to trade within your means, ensuring that losing a portion of this capital won’t destabilize your financial security.

You can absolutely get started trading with a small account, but you may not be able to “make a living” from your returns until you ramp up your position sizes. That being said, let’s take a step back further and talk about setting your goals for this venture.

Monthly Income Goals: Setting Achievable Targets

Establishing realistic income goals hinges on your investment capital and expected return rates. Aiming for a 5-10% monthly return is a common and a realistic swing trading return. To translate this into a living wage, you’d need to define what “making a living” means for you.

For instance, if your monthly expenses are $3,000, a capital of $30,000 with a 10% return would suffice. However, it’s crucial to remember that these returns aren’t guaranteed, and trading always carries risks.

So, Can You Make a Living Swing Trading?

So, is swing trading profitable? Can you make a living swing trading? While it’s possible, you need to first consider your current situation. How much capital do you have to start this journey? Perhaps more importantly, how much do you need to make each month to “make a living”?

With a better understanding of your present-day position, you can then decide if it makes sense to go all-in on swing trading for a living or dip your toes in the water and trade in your spare time while still holding down a full-time job.

That being said, how can you make a living swing trading if you decide to go through with this? We’ll help you get started on the right foot below with tips on swing trading for beginners!

How Can You Make a Living Swing Trading? Tips for Getting Started as a Full-Time Swing Trader Today

Ready to get started swing trading for a living? VectorVest is your trusted source for all things swing trading, from tips on making a living as a swing trader to tools that empower you to reach your full potential and earn a lucrative income along the way.

Below, we’ve outlined a few steps to getting started on this thrilling, fulfilling journey. From investing time in training to developing a process you can repeat day in, day out – here’s how you can make a living swing trading.

Start By Investing Time and Energy Into Education

Our guide on how to learn swing trading is a great starting point. You’ll get a solid grasp of the swing trading basics like the pros and cons of swing trading, how to find stocks to swing trade, how to analyze stocks, and other swing trader tips.

That being said, you can speed up the learning curve dramatically by investing in paid education. Just as with learning technical analysis or learning options trading, you can hit the ground running quicker.

We have a few great swing trading courses that will pay for themselves by helping you execute your first successful trade faster and instilling a sense of confidence in you.

You can also use YouTube as a resource to jumpstart your journey to swing trading for a living. Many YouTube traders go live during their trading sessions and you can get a sense of what they look for in a trade, their mentality in executing trades, etc.

Choosing a Trading Strategy: What Works Best for Swing Trading?

Swing trading revolves around capitalizing on short- to medium-term price movements, making it essential to focus on strategies that align with this specific timeframe.

Some popular options include trend trading, which involves following the direction of market momentum, and range trading, where you trade within price ranges. While it’s less conventional (and not necessarily suited for beginners), you can even consider swing trading options or swing trading ETFs.

The choice of strategy matters less than your commitment to it. Developing a well-defined trading plan and adhering to it consistently for each trade is crucial, regardless of the specific strategy you choose. We’ll talk more about this later as we discuss the psychological side of swing trading for a living.

Setting Up Your Trading Environment

A conducive trading environment is crucial. Equip yourself with a reliable computer, high-speed internet, and access to a reputable trading platform.

VectorVest’s swing trading tools come in handy here too, offering real-time analysis and insights to guide your trading decisions.

Our software takes all the emotion out of finding the best beginner stocks while helping you determine when to buy stocks for beginners and when to sell a stock for profit. We’ll talk more about what makes our software a must-have in your arsenal in just a bit.

Ensure you have access to quality charting software to analyze price movements and identify potential trades. You can consider something simple like Robinhood for on-the-go trading while using something more robust as your home base – such as TD Ameritrade ThinkorSwim. Again – you’re investing in your new career, so don’t take this decision lightly!

Practice With Paper Trading Before Using Real Money

Engage in paper trading to hone your skills and test your strategies without financial risk. This practice lets you simulate real trading experiences, understand market dynamics, and gauge your ability to make profitable decisions, all while using virtual money.

Platforms like VectorVest offer these capabilities, allowing you to build confidence and competence before transitioning to real funds. This also helps you perfect your trading strategy when integrated with VectorVest.

Risk Management: Protecting Your Capital

Successful swing trading requires robust risk management to safeguard your capital. Set stop-loss orders to limit potential losses on each trade.

A general rule is to risk no more than 1-2% of your trading capital on a single trade. This strategy ensures that even a series of losses won’t deplete your trading account, providing sustainability for the long term.

You also need to come up with a strategy for cutting losses without becoming emotionally attached to your position. This is how costly account blowups occur. The good news? This is yet another thing VectorVest can help you with as you get started swing trading for a living.

We have an intuitive software that sets up dynamic trading stops, which helps you take profits when they’re there and cut losses when a trade simply doesn’t work out. We’ll offer more context as to the role ProfitLockerPro plays in your strategy later on.

Psychological Aspects: Maintaining Discipline and Patience

Swing trading demands mental resilience. Maintain discipline to stick to your trading plan and strategies, even when emotions run high.

Cultivate patience to wait for optimal trading opportunities, rather than rushing into trades out of fear of missing out. Remember, consistency is key, and emotional stability is paramount.

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again – the appeal of using VectorVest as part of your trading strategy is that it removes human error and emotion from the execution of your trades. You can’t get in your own way when you use technology like ours!

Charting and Analysis Tools: Understanding Market Trends to Find Opportunities and Capitalize

Leverage charting and analysis tools to dissect market trends, identify swing trading patterns, and make informed decisions.

You’ll also need to know about the best time frame for swing trading and how to use the best EMAs for swing trading, as these are considered the best indicators for swing trading.

Swing trading is all about finding a short-term uptrend in a stock’s more broad price movement. It can be as little as a 3-5% gain over a few-day period. Being able to identify, validate, and execute upon these “swings” is where you’ll make your money.

In essence, you want to buy the dip that occurs just before a quick reversal. Being able to do this on a consistent basis is easier said than done, though, which is why more and more traders are choosing to leverage the technology we’ve developed over the past few decades and counting.

That being said, it’s officially time to introduce you to the VectorVest system and show you how it can aid you in your efforts to make a living swing trading.

If You’re Serious About Swing Trading For a Living, Invest in the Best Tools at VectorVest!

Swing trading for a living demands more than just knowledge and discipline. It requires having the right tools at your disposal. That’s where we come in.

VectorVest stands out as an invaluable asset for anyone aiming to make a living through swing trading, providing a comprehensive suite of tools designed to empower traders and enhance their decision-making process.

It’s outperformed the S&P 500 index by 10x over the past 20+ years – but the best part is that it’s done this while simplifying the trading process immensely – saving you time and headaches.

Rather than stressing over complex technical indicators and feeling shackled to your screen, you can leverage the proprietary stock rating system. It gives you clear, actionable insights in just 3 simple ratings.

These are relative value (RV), relative safety (RS), and relative timing (RT). Each sits on a simple scale of 0.00-2.00 with 1.00 being the average. Pick safe, undervalued stocks rising in price to win more trades – it’s really that simple!

You’re even shown a market sentiment indicator each day so you know when it’s favorable to invest and when you may be investing in a down market.

But, it gets even better as the system gives you a clear buy, sell, or hold recommendation for any given stock, at any given time – completely eliminating guesswork, emotion, and uncertainty.

Beyond helping you find the best stocks to swing trade or how to pick a stock for any other goal, it helps you execute your trading – timing your entry and exit to perfection.

This can be further enhanced by integrating your process with ProfitLockerPro – which we discussed earlier as a great way to remove emotion/uncertainty from the process of selling your positions.

We encourage you to learn more about our stock analysis software or stock advisory with a free stock analysis. You will never look at trading the same again. With that being said, it’s time to bring our guide on how to make a living as a swing trader to a close.

Final Thoughts on How to Make a Living as a Swing Trader

We hope this guide on swing trading for a living has left you feeling confident and capable of your next steps in this journey. So, can you make a living swing trading? While this certainly isn’t for everyone, it can be an incredibly lucrative and fulfilling venture for the right individual.

If you want to learn more before you get started swing trading for a living, our blog has a ton of additional resources worth reading. These include the day trading vs swing trading, swing trading vs long term, scalping vs swing trading, fundamental vs technical analysis, how to do fundamental analysis of stocks, what happens to the stock market during a recession, best time of day to buy stocks, market timing strategies, and more.

Remember, success requires thorough education, rigorous practice, and a steadfast commitment to risk management and discipline. But above all else, you need to be setting yourself up for success with the right tools.

Don’t leave your trading success to chance. Equip yourself with VectorVest’s comprehensive suite of tools and join the community of successful traders who have chosen to trade smarter, not harder!