We all know that beginning your investing journey at a young age will reap tremendous benefits in the future. Even if it’s not in the context of trading; if you’ve attended a basic investing seminar you would’ve probably heard that the younger you start, the better. Imagine how much more impactful it would be if you started trading as a student. Nevertheless, whether it’s trading or investing, starting on your journey towards financial freedom at a young age is a HUGE advantage.
If you’re a student reading this article you may be saying to yourself, “I’m too young, trading as a student is impossible” or “Investing is only for those who are already working.” Let us be the first to tell you, there is NOTHING hindering you from starting your journey at a young age. The only thing stopping you from achieving financial freedom is your own disempowering beliefs. In order to succeed in trading as a student, you will have to believe with all your heart and soul that YOU can do it. Your age will never define what you can or can’t do.
But don’t go thinking that everything’s going to come easy since you started early. It’s without a shred a doubt going to be a difficult challenge, but great things shouldn’t come easy anyway, right? One of the defining factors that will lead to future success in the market is your willingness to PUT IN THE WORK! Now that we got that out of the way, here are a few advantages of starting your trading journey as a student:
ADVANTAGES OF TRADING AS A STUDENT
1. TIME
The biggest advantage young people have above all else is TIME. You have more time to learn, make mistakes, refine your strategy, and learn more about the markets. However, you will also need to have patience in a longer-term perspective and understand that the success you seek in trading won’t come quickly.
We tend to overestimate what we can accomplish in a year and underestimate what we can do in five. What’s important is you have to understand that achieving success in the markets is a long process, but also have the balance to know that a ton of work will need to be done on a daily basis. Oh yeah and you also benefit from compounding interest, but you already know that.
2. LESS RESPONSIBILITIES
Don’t get us wrong, we know that you all have your own responsibilities and circumstances. Being in school feeling academic pressures is no easy task to deal with. However, that’s mostly where the struggle ends for most students.
You don’t have to provide for your own family yet, you don’t have to pay for someone else’s education, you don’t have to deal with real estate, tax, and the like. You guys are at the time of your lives where you may possibly have the least amount of responsibilities to deal with. It’s much harder for a 40 year old person to go all-in on becoming a great trader considering that person may have a full-time job and three kids.
3. YOU BECOME FINANCIALLY LITERATE
Before you even begin on your investing journey, we all know that you will need to start saving up money first. By wanting to start trading as a student, then that means you also build good financial habits you carry over once you get older. Eventually, you will also begin building an emergency fund, getting some form of insurance, all while going through your trading journey.
TOMATRADER’S TIPS FOR TRADING AS A STUDENT
We have a good amount of teammates here in Investagrams who began trading the stock market while still in school. Our youngest teammate, TomaTrader, began his investing journey at the age of 16 when he was still in first-year college. We asked him to give a few tips and tricks for everyone looking to navigate their way through the financial markets while navigating their way through life as a student as well.
What’s up, mga ka-Investa! I’m more than thrilled to share a few tips I have for all the current and aspiring student traders out there. First of all, just the fact that you’re reading this article up to this point shows a level of dedication that only a few have. So kudos for that! Now let’s get going with a few tips I used when I was still a student trader:
TRADING AS A STUDENT TIP #1: ASK PERMISSION
Now, this tip is pretty basic, you may have some professors who don’t allow the use of gadgets during their class or the use of gadgets for things unrelated to what’s being done in class. I got caught a couple of times myself, so I simply asked all my professors if I could trade during class. Well, they all allowed me and it was great!
TRADING AS A STUDENT TIP #2: USE THE RESTROOM WISELY
Now before I continue, I’d just like to say that I do not promote cutting your classes just to trade. BUT I didn’t say you couldn’t use the restroom. There may be an instance where a professor may not allow you to trade during his/her class, so the only way for you to quickly execute on your trades is to step out of the class. What better way than to use the restroom really quick, right? But make sure you come back after a few minutes!
TRADING AS A STUDENT TIP #3: SET ALERTS
This may sound like a plug since I’m already working at Investagrams, but the INVESTAWATCHER played a huge role in my ability to latch on to huge winners even if I was busy with school. Even if I was allowed to trade during class I didn’t just glue my eyes to the screen. So with the InvestaWatcher’s real-time alerts I was able to quickly pull out my phone or laptop and quickly execute on my already set out trading plan.
To know more about TomaTrader and see his market and stock insights, you may follow him via this link: Tomatrader at Investa