At some point, almost every serious trader asks the same question: can I do this for a living? It is one of the most honest questions in trading because it forces a direct confrontation with two things most people avoid thinking about clearly: how much money they actually need, and whether they have the discipline to pursue it systematically over years.

Everyone who is trading, but not for a living, has probably asked themselves this question. When people ask us, we respond: Well, what is a living? For one person, it is $50,000 a year, for another it is $500,000 a year. We don’t know how much money you have or how much you want to make. One trader might risk more and make 100% on his money, but another might risk less and make 30% a year. Some traders may have a losing year, it happens to the best. The real crux of the matter amounts to what is a living for you, and whether you are able to follow a system to make your goals happen. The answer ultimately depends on your self-discipline and whether you have that needed deep desire to win at all costs.

The Discipline Question

The financial question and the discipline question are inseparable. Knowing your target return means nothing if you cannot consistently follow a system through difficult periods. And the difficulty is not just in the losing stretches. It is in the long stretches of nothing, the flat periods where the market gives no signal and there is nothing to do but wait. Most people find waiting harder than acting. Famed trader Jim Rogers gives this perspective:

Most of us don’t have the discipline to stay focused on a single goal for five, ten, or twenty years, giving up everything to bring it off, but that’s what’s necessary to become an Olympic champion, a world class surgeon, or a Kirov ballerina. Even then, of course, it may be all in vain. You may make a single mistake that wipes out all the work. It may ruin the sweet, lovable self you were at seventeen. That old adage is true: You can do anything in life, you just can’t do everything. That’s what Bacon meant when he said a wife and children were hostages to fortune. If you put them first, you probably won’t run the three-and-a-half-minute-mile, make your first $10 million, write the great American novel, or go around the world on a motorcycle. Such goals take complete dedication.

Rogers is not talking about trading specifically. He is talking about mastery. And mastery in trading, as in surgery or athletics, requires the same thing: sustained focus on a single goal over a long enough time horizon to let the edge of a good system compound. The traders who have built lasting careers on trend following did not do it by being smarter than everyone else. They did it by being more consistent than everyone else, following the system when it was uncomfortable, holding positions when they felt wrong, and cutting losses when every instinct said to wait for a recovery. That kind of consistency is rare precisely because it requires the dedication Rogers describes.

How Much Time Does It Actually Take?

One of the most common misconceptions about serious trading is that it requires constant attention. The opposite is true for trend following. The system does the work. The trader executes and monitors, but the daily time commitment is far smaller than most people assume.

How much time is needed? Not much if you follow a trend following system. Trading signals can be generated manually via a simple PC spreadsheet in a few minutes per day. Just keep careful records and a trading log. You can also automate trading signals with products as discussed here.

Orders can be placed before the market opens and do not need hourly monitoring. Most top traders don’t spend all day trading. If the markets are not moving there is nothing to do. What do they do? They manage their trades in 10 to 60 minutes per day.

That time estimate surprises most people. Ten to sixty minutes a day to manage a professional trading operation. But it makes sense once you understand the structure. A trend following system tells you what to do in advance. The rules define the entry, the exit, the position size. When conditions are met, you act. When they are not, you wait. There is no need to sit in front of a screen analyzing news, watching tick charts, or second-guessing positions. The system has already answered those questions.

Richard Donchian on the Time Requirement

Richard Donchian, widely regarded as the father of trend following, articulated this decades ago with a precision that has not aged:

If you trade on a definite trend following loss limiting-method, you can [trade] without taking a great deal of time from your regular business day. Since action is taken only when certain evidence is registered, you can spend a minute or two per [market] in the evening checking up on whether action-taking evidence is apparent, and then in one telephone call in the morning place or change any orders in accord with what is indicated. [Furthermore] a definite method, which at all times includes precise criteria for closing out one’s losing trades promptly, avoids…emotionally unnerving indecision.

Donchian wrote those words before personal computers existed. The principle has only become more practical with technology. A spreadsheet or software can do in seconds what Donchian did by hand. The time requirement has shrunk. The logic has not changed. Action is taken only when certain evidence is registered. Everything else is waiting. And the system’s built-in criteria for closing losing trades promptly removes the hardest part of discretionary trading: the agonizing decision of when enough is enough on a losing position. The method decides. The trader executes.

Trading as a Business: What That Actually Means

Treating trading as a business means applying the same rigor to it that any serious business demands. A business has a model, a process, defined inputs and outputs, and metrics for evaluating performance. It does not change its model every quarter because results were disappointing. It does not abandon its process because a single month went badly. It runs the system and evaluates performance over a meaningful time horizon.

Trend following maps onto that structure exactly. The system is the business model. The rules are the process. Risk management is the financial controls. The drawdown periods are the equivalent of a slow quarter: uncomfortable, expected, and survivable if the underlying model is sound. The traders who have made trend following their full-time business understood this from the start. They did not treat each trade as a standalone event. They treated the system as the unit of performance, evaluated over hundreds of trades and multiple years. That perspective is what separates trading as a business from trading as gambling. For the full story of how the original TurtleTraders built exactly this kind of operation, see the TurtleTrader story.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can trend following realistically be traded for a living?

Yes, but the answer depends entirely on what a living means for you and how much capital you have to work with. One trader risking more might target 100% annual returns. Another risking less might target 30%. Some years will be losing years even for the best. The real question is whether you can follow a system consistently over time, not whether a single year produces the target return.

How much time does trend following require each day?

Most top trend following traders manage their trades in 10 to 60 minutes per day. Signals can be generated manually in a few minutes with a spreadsheet or automated entirely. Orders are placed before the market opens. If markets are not moving, there is nothing to do. The system defines when to act, and when not to.

What did Richard Donchian say about the time required for trend following?

Donchian said that trading on a definite trend following loss-limiting method can be done without taking a great deal of time from your regular business day. A minute or two per market in the evening to check for signals, then one phone call in the morning to place or change orders. He also noted that a definite method with precise criteria for closing losing trades avoids emotionally unnerving indecision, which is one of the most significant practical benefits of a systematic approach.

What is the most important factor in trading for a living?

Self-discipline and a deep desire to follow the system regardless of short-term results. The financial question of how much capital is needed is important, but it is secondary to the behavioral question. As Jim Rogers noted, sustained focus on a single goal for years, giving up other things to pursue it, is what separates those who achieve mastery from those who do not. Trading is no different.

What does treating trading as a business actually require?

A defined system, consistent process, and performance evaluation over a meaningful time horizon rather than month by month. It means not changing the model after a bad quarter, not abandoning the rules because a few trades went wrong, and understanding that drawdown periods are a normal feature of the business, not evidence that the model is broken. The system is the business. Running it with discipline is the job.

Trend Following Systems
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