Mind Over Markets

What You Should Know About Trading While Traveling

Jun 11, 2020

01:15:14

In today’s episode, we are going to be speaking on the topic of trading while traveling! It’s no secret that one of the major benefits of trading the markets successfully is having the ability to work anywhere in the world (being location independent) while making a full-time income. While there are several benefits of trading while traveling, there are also a number of challenges that you will face on your journey that are not often marketed on social media. It is important to first understand the pros and the cons of trading while traveling before determining whether it is something you can consider as an option for yourself! So what are some of the benefits of trading on the road?

You can trade for a few hours and then use the rest of the day to fulfill other purposes
You get to see the world and experience cultures while making a full-time income
Being on the road forces you to simplify things (You only keep the essentials vs overdoing it with charts on the office desktop)

Now that we've identified some benefits, here are the most common challenges traders run into when trading on the road:

Finding the right place to trade (At home you have a high-performance trading environment which you will have to replicate while on the road)
Bringing the right equipment (Laptop + portable monitors)
Internet connection limitations (How to ensure you have a fast and reliable ISP when you are traveling)
Balancing the line between work and play - managing your time (Can you walk away when it’s time to shut down the monitors?)
Adapting your routine - time zone changes and giving your mental state time to adjust

While there are certainly a number of challenges to trading while traveling, the benefits often outweigh them - after all, if it was easy, everyone would be doing it! With that said, it's an important point to make that there are some times when you should consider not taking the portable setup with you altogether. This is especially important if you struggle with letting emotions from your trading leak over into your personal life - good or bad! Sometimes it's better to just disconnect, recharge the batteries, and come back with a renewed sense of opportunity and we discuss these times in more detail. If you're still committed to giving this a go, then the first thing you will need is a mobile trading setup! We've put together a handy list of some of the hardware and software requirements for traveling traders which you can reference below:

Laptop
Backup battery for laptop or external power supply
Portable monitors (USB -C)
LAN cable for hardwire connectivity
A nice portable and comfortable mouse
USB hub with monitor support
VGA to HDMI converter

Software

Download your trading templates to your laptop
Move over any data you have captured in last 30 days (these files can be huge and take hours to load if you don't do this before you leave)

Once you have your portable trading setup ready, the next step is to plan ahead for your travels! The first thing you will want to do is to identify your "working hours" in the time zone of your planned destination. For example, if you live in Toronto and trade between 9.30 am - 11.30 am EST and you are planning to travel to Sydney, Australia (which is 14 hours ahead), then your working hours would effectively become 11 pm - 01:30 am. Knowing your working hours at the destination you plan on visiting will help you decide whether trading on the trip is actually a good idea or not! If you are happy with your "new" working hours, the next step is to find accommodations with access to high-speed internet so that you can actually connect to the market and trade when you arrive at your location. There are a couple of websites and apps available these days to help with this research and we've included a list of some of them below:

WifiMap (Available for iPhone and Android)
Hotelwifitest.com
Nomadlist.com

You can also call the hotel and ask them to provide you with a screenshot of the internet speeds from their location using Speedtest.net! Now that you have put together your mobile trading office and planned ahead for your travels, you are prepared to trade while traveling! You'll walk away from this episode with a concrete understanding of trading while traveling, including what to bring along with you, how to plan ahead, and how to adapt once you arrive at your destination! Some Things We Also Discuss

The benefits of trading while traveling 03:50
The challenges that traders will face when traveling 10:15
George's experience trading from the beach 14:20
Mark's most memorable experiences trading while traveling 22:16
The situations when it's not a good idea to trade while traveling 30:20
The hardware and software requirements for a mobile trading setup 36:25
Identifying your "working hours" at your travel destinations - timezones matter! 43:40
How to research wifi hotspots and hotel internet speeds for your travels 47:35
How to pack for convenience as a traveling trader 56:10
Leveraging the benefits of travel rewards cards 61:20
How to adapt to trading while traveling 65:05