The Part-Time Trader (16 page)

It got even better, though, because the Edwards, Debbies, and Garys grew frustrated with their inability to access me when I was away. Ultimately, they got me a cell phone. They asked me to permanently transfer my personal phone number to them and use their corporate “Obama-Phone” for personal and company matters.

Tempting to have a free cell phone—but no!

So I carried two phones around going forward, but then that also came to a quick end when I started getting phone calls late at night, asking me to bail out the boss man and come back into work for an evening shift. I acquiesced once, but only once. After that, the cell phone was left on my desk at work, and essentially it stayed there unless I was on travel. You see, if you want me to be on call, you should have put that in my contract when I signed up. If they wanted me to be on call around the clock, they would have to realize they better start paying me to be someone who was on call around the clock.

I have started seeing where companies are coming out with their own smartphone and tablet apps for employees to use in conjunction with their job. Often, it is some tailored application providing them with easy access to the company intranet. I suspect as applications in general continue to grow in popularity, so will the need for companies to create them for their employees to use and have them “wired in” around the clock. However, by installing them on your personal phone, you are giving them a foothold into your personal life at no additional cost to them.

I've actually spoken with IT personnel at companies that offer these applications for employees, and they will not install them on their own personal smartphones because of privacy concerns that they determine to be too intrusive. The same logic that goes into not syncing your phone with company Wi-Fi should also be applied with the smartphone apps. You are simply surrendering your privacy when you install these applications on your own personal devices. If they want you to have it bad enough, they will pay for you to have that company smartphone or tablet.

By now you understand the important role the IT department plays in your ability to trade successful as a part-timer at a full-time job. Every company has a different policy and approach to how they monitor Internet and workstation usage. However, there will no doubt be some common threads among all of them. Unfortunately, some will be extremely strict and overbearing with their zero-tolerance policies. When that is the case, you will have to rely more heavily on handheld devices and personal tools, as well as a more restrictive trading strategy.

Most companies have a more moderate approach to how they track you and your network usage, and it will most likely be on an as-needed basis. If you are not bringing attention to yourself for all the wrong reasons, it is probably okay to say that you will not be given much flak about your need to trade in the stock market and polish your part-time trading skills in the process. Just make sure to play it safe, and err on the side of caution to make sure you are irreplaceable and doing all that is expected of you on the job.

Small companies will likely be easier to navigate, but because of the tighter-knit environment among coworkers, it will be much harder to remain ho-hum about your trading passion.

M
uch of what this book revolves around is not becoming a distraction in the workplace and having others become suspicious of your daily activities as a part-time trader. Like the old adage of “minding your own business,” you truly have to do this as a part-time trader. First, you do not have time to partake in squabbles. I realized this early on, as my main objective was to eventually leave the company and become a full-time trader. Getting involved in office politics would only derail my mission.

When the boss man wanted me to do an assignment that I thought did not add value to the company, instead of starting some kind of e-mail war or dysfunction within the organization, I just went with it. I did not want to willingly create enemies because, in doing so, I would have a person who was determined to see my demise in the company. As a part-time trader, I was not going to let somebody I disagreed with try and find some dirt on me, exaggerate it (i.e., complain that I do not work but just trade stocks all day) and thereby wreck my dreams and ambitions, only because I originally felt the need to settle a score with him over a petty disagreement about company objectives.

It is important to guard yourself and your privacy. You could literally spend just one minute a day trading on the job, but if they knew you did that and were doing well at it, the assumptions would spiral out of control. Before long, you would be sitting in the boss man's office explaining how you were still a “company man” dedicated to the long-term vision of the corporation.

So do not share anything with anyone about your trading. Absolutely nothing. You have nothing to gain and everything to lose in doing so.

Speaking to the idea of not raising suspicion is when someone walks into your office and the first thing they hear is the immediate sound of the mouse click. Do not kid yourself, either; usually, it is a ton of clicks that must take place, and if they walk around your desk to get in plain view of what is on your monitor screen, you find yourself ferociously scrambling to get that tiny little pointer on the upper right hand screen over that tiny little “X” that will allow you to close out the window.

It is kind of like the horror movies that have some axe murderer chasing some unsuspecting woman down the street, and once she gets to her car, she frantically tries to find the key to unlock the door. After she loses valuable time doing this, she then has to get the key in the keyhole. After scraping 90 percent of the car paint around the keyhole off, she finally gets the door unlocked and ajar. At this point she is in the seat, and she is really in trouble if there is a different ignition key than the one she used to unlock the door, but once she does get that key in the ignition, the car just turns over repeatedly, over and over again, and she winds up being another victim on the axe murderer's killing spree.

Your fellow coworkers are like that axe murderer. Once you start panicking and trying to minimize the screens or simply closing them out because they showed up in your office unannounced, they become interested in what is on that monitor that is only for your eyes. They will stroll over casually like that is not what they are coming over there to do. But rest assured, they have only one objective in mind and that is to know what is on your screen.

The boss man is the absolute worst about this. If he hears that mouse start clicking (and like I said, it never takes just one click like it should), he might as well fire up the chainsaw because he is going to chase down a visual of that monitor no matter how bloody it has to get.

Save yourself the time and anxiety of worrying about their seeing what is on your screen. Let's say you have just placed a trade and you are taking a few minutes to observe the price action, and then in walks the boss man. Do not panic. Better yet, do not look up. Use your peripheral vision to know that he is there, but do not look up. First of all, you will look intense like you are absorbed in your job and you just cannot break it off. You are wired in, and that is what the boss man likes to see. Stay expressionless as well; do not change your expression because if you show any fear, worry, or anxiety about his walking in, the start cord is going to get pulled on that bone-crushing chainsaw instantly.

The next step is key, and it may take some practice. Some of you may already use it, and that is fantastic. Whenever you are on the computer, you always have at least your left hand on the keyboard, or when you are typing you have both, obviously. When the boss man walks in, you take your thumb and push down and hold the “ALT” key. Then, with the ring finger, you strike the “TAB” key but without letting go of the “ALT” key. You will have a box pop up front and center on your screen and you simply “TAB” your way to the programs until you find the screen you want to replace your current display with.

If you have no other programs running, you are screwed because that window is not going away, without clicking the mouse. So always make sure you have at least two windows up and available on your screen at the same time. If you do not, you are then doing the equivalent of dropping the keys on the ground with the crazy man nipping at your heels. It sends sheer panic through the body when you have no other windows to “ALT+TAB” on and you will have to resort to a last-second attempt to close out the window without being exposed.

Let's assume that you are able to avoid the pitfalls that come with minimizing or exiting out of whatever trading screen you might be in. But there is this annoying little taskbar found at the bottom of your window. You have to get rid of this. The taskbar tells them exactly what programs you are running, what applications you have minimized, and anything else you might be wanting to keep on the downlow.

There is good news, though—you can have this taskbar minimized at all times unless you hover your mouse over it down below. It is extremely easy to set this up. Using a Windows-based computer, you simply right-click anywhere on the taskbar and select “Properties.” Once the dialog box pops up, click on the check box that reads “Auto-hide the taskbar” and then the “OK” button down at the bottom.

Mission accomplished!

Maintaining monitor privacy cannot be overstated. The two tricks of the trade I just described will go a long way in doing just that. However, one of the biggest mistakes you can make when it comes to privacy from co-workers is keeping your computer unlocked when you get up and walk away from your workstation.

I remember one such occasion where I went to the soda machine probably 20 paces from my work desk. As I was contemplating my third soda choice of the day to help keep me awake on the job, one of those overwhelming, dastardly Debbies walked into my office and assumed the controls of my workstation.

When I walked back into my office, to my astonishment, she told me that IT was updating some piece of software on her workstation and that she was just using mine for the time being. E-mail, trading portal, and a few charts had been minimized, but they were still there from hours earlier; I just had not yet closed them out.

The problem facing me was that she was one of those people that you could not just simply ask get out of your chair because she would not likely get up. She would see it as some kind of challenge. Of course, I did not want to raise suspicion that I was trying to hide something from the company because I was just trying to keep my privacy in check from her. Eventually, I just made up some hokey excuse that I needed to access my e-mail to find out where the next meeting was because I was late. She offered to get it for me. I refused to let her do that and made it sound like getting to this meeting was a life-and-death matter.

Phew! Crisis averted.

But I could have easily avoided this from ever happening in the first place had I just hit the “CONTROL+ALT+DELETE” keys to keep anyone from accessing my account by locking my computer while I was away. This whole event unraveled shortly before I gave my two-week notice, and to this day I do not know what she learned of my part-time trading, if anything. The problem was that I had been compromised, and had I not left when I did, perhaps things might have become much more difficult for me.

With the advent of social media, our private lives are exposed for the world to see—sometimes willingly, and unfortunately, at times, it is shown to the world unwillingly. A word of advice for you as a part-time trader: Do not talk about it on Facebook, LinkedIn, Twitter, or any other forum that a coworker might have access to.

When I was still laboring away in the corporate world, I never, ever accepted a friend request from a friend or colleague at work. If I mentioned something about trading, and I made sure I never did, I did not want that status update flashing on their news feed at home. If you are going to put something on Facebook about trading (and this can go for nontrading topics as well), expect that the world will see it, even if you have the strictest of privacy settings. When it comes to social media, you can count on the fact that there is never going to be a true sense of privacy in regard to what you post.

So stay away from posts that would reveal more about your life and in particular your trading. If you would not be comfortable with every person in your workplace knowing about it, do not post about it.

Early in my corporate career, there was a guy who was interested in following my trades. He was a good friend of mine, so I had no problem in sharing those “picks” with him on a near-daily basis. However, this guy could not handle the stress of trading. He did nothing outside of the trading opportunities that I would provide him with, in terms of making himself a better trader. Instead, he would call me each morning and ask, “So what are we trading today?” I typically would reply with some of the stocks on my radar and the entry prices I was pursuing. I am quite certain he would jump into any pick that I gave him.

On one such occasion, the stock was Microsoft at $25.20. He placed a limit order like I had told him to do in the past, and he got filled at the same price I did. Fifteen minutes later, I received a panicky phone call in which the first words out of his mouth were, “IT'S TANKING! IT'S TANKING!” At this point, my stomach was in my throat. I popped up my brokerage screen to find Microsoft trading at $25.18. That's right, it had tanked a whole two pennies. When I questioned his fears, his response was, “It just doesn't look good, man. We gotta get out . . . NOW!” At this moment he made a noise that was essentially an inverted “hissing” sound, followed by three pounding sounds of his fist against the desk.

Looking back at this, the story was comical. The guy had no business trading stocks and probably should relegate his trading to long-term interest-bearing assets. Believing that Microsoft was tanking simply because it was two cents lower than my entry price was ludicrous.

I got to thinking after this particular experience, wondering why in the world this guy was acting so crazy about such a small pullback (if you want to call it that). What would a normal loss be like to this guy, say, of 4 or 5 percent? Would he go postal on the whole place? Probably not, but what if in the future he got into a biopharmaceutical company on my recommendation, and it tanked 8 or 9 percent on a bad piece of news unexpectedly. While that rarely happens to me in my trading, it is at least worth exploring the what if's and his reaction to such a scenario.

I concluded that this guy was a huge risk. If he had a particularly bad trade happen, and it was my recommendation that got him into it, there is a good chance it would create some bad blood between the two of us, and as a result he would probably want some revenge for his losses. There is no better way of doing this than by simply shooting off an e-mail to Human Resources informing them of my trading and really making it look like it was something horribly wrong that I was engaged in. The mere thought of that really bothered me. I realized that we would probably be friends as long as he continued to profit off of me, but the moment that he lost some money that meant something to him, all hell would break lose, and I could be the biggest loser after HR straightened out the situation.

As a result, I withdrew from providing him with any more trading opportunities. He would follow me into any trade that I would take but rarely follow me out of a trade. This is one horrible trait to have, when you cannot sell a stock that you know you should be selling, simply because the gains are not enough for you, you cannot accept a loss, or your expectations are far too high for the trade.

Could you imagine the pressure I would've been under to keep everybody in the office happy had I let all of them into my trades? One larger-than-average loser and I would probably have to get armed escorts to get me out of the building.

The takeaway here is to keep your trades to yourself. There is nothing more problematic than letting folks know about your trading habits because as soon as they know about it, they are going to want in on them. You see, for everyone who is not a trader, it does not dawn on them to consider measuring the risk and reward associated with the individual trades, nor can you as a trader understand their mindsets when it comes to the emotions of greed and fear and how they will handle a losing trade. Instead, for your coworkers, it is those three or four letters that they desperately seek to make a lot of money off of. To them it is all about the stock pick. If there is money to be made, you can rest assured that your coworkers are going to want in on it.

What is worse, though, is that you will have to babysit every one of these people who are trading your stock recommendations. They will constantly be coming into your office to ask about the current state of the trade: