Mobile Trading: Trading on the road questions answered

[Jared R 10]

My name is Jared, but I go by Hobo Trader in the chat.  I took on the name because 3.5 months ago my girlfriend and I left Austin, TX and hit the road in a van we built out.  I have been trading all along the way with more success than I had in my apartment.  After my trade station video I received a bunch of questions about how trading on the road has gone, my setup, and how I do it.  I figured I would answer a couple of the most common questions and any additional questions you all may have about trading from the road.

My van: We built out a 2013 Nissan NV 2500 HD.  There is a lot to talk about here but the main thing regarding trading is electricity.  The electric setup, which enables me to keep my laptop and other devices charged plus power the signal booster, includes 4-100 amp hour AGM batteries and 2-100 watt solar panels, with all necessary equipment like charge controller etc.

My Setup: My setup is very simple--a laptop, mouse, headphones, a T-mobile hotspot and a cell signal booster.  The cell signal booster is very important.  I use one called AnyCall.  Another popular option is WeBoost.  I spend most of my time in beautiful, but remote areas meaning the signal is often weak or nonexistent.  A signal booster cannot help with a nonexistent signal, but it can turn a weak or unreliable signal into a stronger, stable one.  I would not trade without it, unless you plan on doing all your trading from the road in larger cities.  If I suspect where I am headed will not have signal I watch the signal and try to remember the last place I had it so I can commute to that place in the morning if I wish to trade.

Internet: There are a lot of options, most of which are really expensive.  The best solution for me has been using my girlfriend's T-mobile cell phone as a hotspot.  T-mobile has pretty good coverage in the US in the cities and decent coverage in the more rural areas.  Verizon has the best service in rural/remote areas  but it is also much costlier and when they throttle your connection they slow it down much more than T-mobile. 

I do not trade on a days I don't feel I can get a solid, consistent signal.  I have found the consistency of the signal is much more important than the speed.  I have traded with no issues on speeds as low as 2 mbps.  My only issues come from connections that time in and out, not matter how fast they are when they are connected.  Here is my preferred internet situation:

Ping: 75 or less

Speed: 5 mbps+ (although I have traded without issue on speeds as low as 2 mbps).  With full bars LTE on T-mobile I routinely get 50+ mbps.

Service: 3+ bars LTE after turning on my signal booster.  The signal booster can usually turn one unstable bar of LTE into full coverage without any fluctuation.  On rare occasion it can turn 3G to LTE service.  The most important factor regarding internet is consistency of the connection.  I would rather have 2 bars LTE meeting the other performance requirements than full bars LTE that occassionally drops to 1 bar or times out completely.

Start slow and with small size during remote trading until you get an intuition regarding what constitutes trade-able connection.

Fail-safes: On three occasions I have had the internet time out during a trade.  Only one of them was a substantial loss (1x max daily loss) by the time I got the connection back.  After all of these incidents I put in new measures.  The first of which was increasing my service/internet requirements before trading.  I speed test the connection before trading every day.  I use my girlfriend's phone as a T-mobile hotspot, but I myself have Sprint.  Sprint rarely has better reception than T-mobile, but it is nice to have the variety.  If the T-mobile hotspot fails and I cannot get it to reconnect, my first fail-safe is to go to my phone and use the DAS mobile app to exit the position if I have service.  Having multiple options helps greatly.

The biggest fail-safe I have introduced is the use of hard stops.  I use market stop orders at my breakeven point for a profitable trade on remaining shares.  This is something I used on occasion before the big loss, but made it a rule after.  If I have already partialled out most of my position and only have a very small share size I don't always use them, but until I am down to 40% or less I always have an up-to-date market stop order to make sure in the event of a connection disruption I will get out at breakeven. 

Additionally, if the position doesn't move in my favor immediately but doesn't hit my stop out quickly, I will put in a market stop order for my stop out point to make sure the loss is only as big as I was willing to risk.

Performance: I am trading better than ever in the van, which was puzzling to me at first.  At my apartment I had three screens and incredibly fast, consistent internet.  I have concluded my increased success on the road is due to a few things: lower stress, better sleep, fewer tickers, and better journaling and reflection.

Less stress: Before hitting the road I would wake up, trade, spend the next 3 hours building out the van, then go bartend until late, rinse and repeat.  I always had a lot on my mind.  Now on the road I have significantly less stress.  This has had a huge impact.

Better, deeper sleep:  Because my days were pretty full I was getting home late and waking up early.  For most of the 2.5 years I have been trading I consistently operated on less than 6 hours of sleep.  Usually 5.5 hours or less.  Everyone knows sleep is important, but I underestimated its importance.  Since hitting the road I consistently get 7.5+ hours, often getting more than 8 hours.  I never realized how foggy-brained I had been all this time on less sleep.  The fogginess made it much harder to maintain appropriate discipline and manage my emotions.  I believe better sleep is the single biggest reason for my success.  I cannot stress this enough.

Fewer tickers: In my apartment I had three screens and usually watched 6 tickers.  I had all six tickers' 5 min charts pulled up, SPY, all sorts of stuff going on.  On the laptop I only watch 4 tickers and can only fit a 1 min, 5 min, and daily chart for one of the stocks on my screen.  That has caused me to skim the 4 tickers for what I am looking for pattern and volume-wise, pick the best one, and then completely focus on only that one ticker.  This has given me a much better understanding of the price action and personality of the ticker in focus, which has led to much better entries and quicker cutting of loses because it is more clear when the tug-of-war between bulls and bears takes a turn against me.  Before I think I tried to watch too many things at once and it led to poor decision making.  Additionally, I found I got FOMO when I had a position but could see another ticker making a better move and it would change my trade management.  I believe fewer tickers and therefore greater focus on the one with my criteria is the second biggest reason for the increased success.

More reflection/journaling:  Because of my busy schedule trying to complete the van and working evenings, on bad days it was hard to muster the energy and emotional currency to journal my failures.  I always made time on green days, but red ones I used the excuse I needed a break or some time to get my energy back to take on the rest of the day.  Since being in the van, I have a lot more time and that has led to much deeper reflection and journaling.  Now I journal extensively and post trade recaps to my youtube channel every day.  I have gained a much deeper understanding of my trading in the past 3.5 months than I did from the 2 years before.  You cannot have success as a daytrader without thoroughly journaling and reflecting on your trades.  You cannot find your edge or know who you are as a trader without deep inspection of your trading patterns.

I hope this is helpful to some people who are interested in trading while traveling!  I answered most of the common questions I have gotten since the trade station video, but feel free to ask away if you have an unanswered question.  Safe trading!

 

[Brad 18]

I just spent a month away from home on a mobile setup and had a similar experience. I was trading better away from home and it was probably for the reasons you outlined above. Time for me to size down and get the consistency back. Thanks for the analysis of trading on the move!

[Jared R 10]

Thanks Brad!  I am glad it helped.  I have gone through many ups and downs along the way.  It took me over two years to find consistency and understand who I am as a trader.  I have had tears and never had to fight so hard to accomplish anything in my life.  I still have a long way to go of course, but the consistency is here.  Day trading is a pursuit of perseverance and discipline.  If you keep it up you'll find your way!

[Chevey 1]

This is very interesting, I appreciate you taking the time to post it.  While I think I have too many anchors at this point in my life to ever try a consistently mobile lifestyle, I do love to travel and might consider getting a camper at some point in the nearish future , which this type of setup could work very well for. I'm going to refer back to these signal boosters/criteria.

Have you given any consideration to the small travel lcd screens I know some other members like to use, or are you thinking you'll stick with a more focused approach long term?  I have often given consideration to whether I might be doing myself a disservice having so much data coming my way at once on 4 screens, but It can often be so hard to narrow stocks down pre-market into few enough to fit on the screens I have that it always feels like I'm missing out. 

 

[Jared R 10]

2 hours ago, Chevey said:

This is very interesting, I appreciate you taking the time to post it.  While I think I have too many anchors at this point in my life to ever try a consistently mobile lifestyle, I do love to travel and might consider getting a camper at some point in the nearish future , which this type of setup could work very well for. I'm going to refer back to these signal boosters/criteria.

Have you given any consideration to the small travel lcd screens I know some other members like to use, or are you thinking you'll stick with a more focused approach long term?  I have often given consideration to whether I might be doing myself a disservice having so much data coming my way at once on 4 screens, but It can often be so hard to narrow stocks down pre-market into few enough to fit on the screens I have that it always feels like I'm missing out. 

 

I have considered it but have decided to stick with what is working.  One screen and very focused approach is getting results so I'm not going to rock the boat.  Maybe eventually I would try to introduce another screen and test the waters, but nothing in the foreseeable future.