“So, what’s it like doing that whatever-you-do at home all day?” is a question I get asked quite a lot. Others include “Dad, what is your job?” “What can I put you down as on this form?” and “How tall are you?”

With the markets winding down for Christmas I thought I’d give you an insight into life as a full-time trader working from home.

The decision-making starts when the 7 o’clock alarm shouts at me; the choice is simple-up and keen or a bit longer in the sack? There’s definitely a seasonal factor to this one and 7.15 has become the typical winter start. The three-metre commute from bedroom to office is usually trouble-free, allowing me to start work immediately.

After a quick look at the sports pages the next two hours are a subtle blend of chart analysis and checking my early-bird e-mails, whilst trying to listen to the key stories on Bloomberg TV. Multi-tasking doesn’t come naturally, which is probably why it takes 2 hours, but I like to try and have as much info as possible for the 8 o’clock open.

The early e-mails are an assortment of business and general news from the FT, Reuters, Times, Telegraph, Economist, Marketwatch and Saxo Bank. I wouldn’t go near Saxo with a trade, but they do send some useful economic summaries. I also get a few Digital Look messages; most of them don’t really put a lump in my shorts, but the Newspaper Watch is a useful summary of equities in the news.

As well as the fundamental news and views I’m reliant on my dark arts, otherwise known as technical analysis. I limit the thorough chart analysis to my key trading instruments, FTSE and GBPUSD, checking the daily, 30 and 10-minute charts for support & resistance lines, trend lines and moving averages. I also check the momentum and overbought/sold indicators.

The most stressful part of the day is 8-8.30, with the missus and youngest son trying to get ready for school. Phew, I can start to relax at 8.30 and by 9 the house is mine.

Now it’s a bit quieter lets have a look at the dealing room.

Dress code is smart casual.

Noah had a large influence on my office set-up; not just the recent move upstairs to avoid flooding, but making sure that I had at least two of everything (companies call it ‘disaster recovery’ and office suppliers have wet dreams about it). On my desk I’ve a desktop pc with twin screens and two laptops (useful for working away, or in the garden in the summer). I use two independent broadband providers, NTLVirgin and BT, have three separate e-mail providers and four phone systems.

I reckon a back-up Internet provider is essential unless you fancy a rapid weight-loss programme. Last year I was caught out with live positions, no broadband and only a steam-powered Teletext to price off. I don’t recommend it!

The four phones aren’t quite as excessive as it looks; BT and NTL lines come with the broadbands, my mobile has free minutes but little reception and I try and use Skype (phone via the Internet) as much as possible. Quite a lot of my mates and contacts are on Skype so the calls are free between us; the Gnome and I spend many an hour discussing the markets and it doesn’t cost us a bean.

So When Does The Shuttle Take Off?
Hey! Four screens might look OTT, but I can justify all of them and could still use more. As well as the Paddypowertrader platform I have two other trading platforms. The Paddypowertrader one has always been reliable, but it’s good business sense to have back-up providers. I also use those platforms to play around in something called Options (remind me to talk about them one day), which give me some monthly income from a different source, but aren’t for Newbies or the faint-hearted.

My other systems include a chart package called MetaTrader for further currency analysis, and the Digital-Look heat map. No, it’s not something to keep my pinkies warm while I’m typing, it shows all the FTSE stocks in order of % gains or losses on the day, colour coding the moves from deep blue for a big rise on the day to deep red for, yep, you’ve guessed it. There’s a 15-minute lag behind the live prices, but I find it useful enough for looking behind the move on FTSE to see what stocks or sectors are driving it.

I need an admin screen to cope with over 60 e-mails a day as well as constant use of Excel and Word for articles and position monitoring.

I watch Bloomberg TV on the Internet, but limit the hours as it’s pretty mind numbing, although there’s a certain something about Nina De Roy for the older bloke, and of course I need a screen to check out the humorous e-mails that arrive by the electronic sack load.

There’s a theme to most of the services I use; they’re free! Yeah, I know; I’ve brought my kids up telling them they get what they pay for and that paying peanuts only gets them monkeys, but here’s my tuppence worth:

I ask myself, “Will it add value to my trading?” As I trade mostly the FTSE index and currencies I don’t need to pay a big monthly bill for live equity prices. I’d love to have the subscription Bloomberg service with its live news and red-hot analysis, but at about £1000 a month it’s hard to justify. Every subscription service needs to be assessed as a debit against the trading profit.

I decided to fork out for the FT.com service, mainly because it’s a pr*ck-tease. All the daily bulletins will hook you with the big story, but any sign of interest is met with “pay up if you want anything else. Subscribers only.” It’s only about £100 a year, which is worth it just to know what’s rockin the City’s boat each day.

The Time’s My Own But….
One of the many massive advantages to working from home is that I can do what I like when I like.

Hmm, it’s not always like that. Just like a proper job, work is determined by important figures; not men in expensive suits or women with sensible shoes and shoulder-pads, but key economic figures. My Monday morning job is to key all the important releases, events and speeches into the Calendar function on Microsoft Outlook. During the week, an alert will shout at me 15 minutes before each event. This gives me time to see what the market’s expecting and make sure my news services are up and running. Crucial times for me to be at my desk are 9.30, for the UK data, and 1.30 for the US, with a few random numbers at 2.15, 3 or 5 o’clock. I was lucky that the Federal Reserve realised that announcing a change in interest rates on a Wednesday evening coincided with my rugby training, and moved it to Tuesdays.

There’s not a lot of structure to the rest of the day; I don’t set aside a particular time for trading as it’s dependant on the price action.

I try to finish off between 5.30 and 6 o’clock but sometimes I have to work late.

Having just moved into my new office, I’m planning my back-up office in case it gets too hot to work indoors next summer; I’ve got wireless broadband so I just need a garden table and chair and a filter so that I can still see the screen. Oh, and some suncream!

The Grass Is Always Greener
OK, yeah, of course there are drawbacks. Holidays have two main expenses; the holiday and the missing profits. I’m keen on not getting ill for the same reason.

And there always sees to be something missing at the office Christmas party!

Would I change this for a proper job?
Not a chance