Successfully trading while working full time job?

Of course it's possible. You're looking to either invest long-term (holding for 6+ months), or swing trade on a longer timetable. That's what I do. I plan to hold for a week to 3-4 months at a time on average.

The way I do it is when I find a stock that I like technically (the chart), I set a price that I want to get in at. When I get an alert notification using whatever software you want, you log in and buy the stock for the amount that you had already decided you would buy. You can also put a limit order in so the entrance into the stock is automatic whenever it hits that price.

After buying the stock, you can then set a stop order which will automatically exit the trade if the stock dips below a certain price that you choose. This will help you limit your losses when you are not around to watch it during the day. Obviously you don't have to put a stop in and can just have an alert sent to your phone if you know you'll be able to log in fairly soon. You can also set a limit order to sell the stock automatically if it reaches your target price.

To make this more clear, let's say you're looking at a chart for stock XYZ that has been ranging between prices $15-$20 for the last 6 months. It's getting close to $15 again, so you say I'd like to get in at $15.25. You set a limit order to buy the order at $15.25. The next day, the stock hits that price and your order is executed, all while you are at work. Your broker's software will alert you and let you know that you made the purchase. You will set up a stop to exit the trade at $14.50 if gets that low, and sell it at $19.50 if it gets that high for a nice little 30+% gain. 2 months later, the stock hits that $19.50 and the order sells, again while you are at work.

That's just an example, but it's what a LOT of people do. I have alerts sent so that I know when one of the 20ish stocks I'm watching gets close to a buy price that I set. When I enter a trade, I set up alerts in my phone to let me know if my stock is getting close to my stop or target price. Then I'll pull up the chart quickly at work and see if I need to get out, or if I want to let it ride a little longer. If you have less time at work than I have available, you can set it all up to happen automatically.

 

Additional risk would mean that the sale of your security would be triggered as soon as possible at the stop price. So in your example, if you placed your stop at $25, it could sell at $23 if the order couldn't execute until it got down there. During a trading day, it would be rare for it to not execute at the actual stop, but gap downs can happen. For example. If the security was at $25.25 to close the day and your stop is still at $25, the stock could open up at $23 the next day because of a bad earnings report, negative news, etc. and the stock could open at $23. In this case, your transaction would not execute until the open price, so you would get the sale price of $23.

I may have worded it poorly above, you can only have one sell order at a time (see this article for the reasoning: http://www.investopedia.com/ask/answers/171.asp). Because you will be a longer term trader due to inactivity during the working day, you only really need one on at a time anyways. A stock should never hit your target price, and your stop loss numbers in the same day because when you're trading longer term, it should take awhile to get from one all the way to the other.

In your case, you will probably want to start with a stop order to protect losses. Once your stock has started making you money and gets a little closer to your target, you can do one of two things.

1. Cancel the stop order and create a limit order to sell the security at your target price.
2. Cancel the stop order and set a trailing stop to prevent losses of the gains you have already made if your broker allows it. (trailing stops: http://www.investopedia.com/terms/t/trailingstop.asp)