Money Magazine

How to set yourself free

One of my clients retired at 50 to become a full-time trader, hoping he could shrug off the rat race and the typical work-sleep-work life.

Fifteen years later he is still “retired” and still trading full time. Now he calls it what it turned out to be: trading not investing. That’s what happens if you do it daily. There is no set and forget – it’s just a series of individual stock-based battles and if that’s investing, so be it, or if that’s trading, so be it. It’s just an endless, but enjoyable (for him) financial survival exercise, in any stock over any time frame.

He says long-term investing is mostly born out of denial, a convenient high-brow excuse for doing not a lot of research, doing a moment’s stock picking and then a lot of hoping. “Being a bad investor is for rich people,” he says.

He is not rich, but he owns himself, which includes playing a lot of tennis and golf and being “free” to do what he wants

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