This is an interview with a well-known trader to ask the hard questions regarding the necessary characteristics of a successful stock market trader, and also, how to maximize one's time when trading.

David: A question has been sent in: I'm new to this game and I'm slowly but surely learning. How does one become a trader? What are the habits that are common to your family? Where must I begin so to speak in order to make the first confident step, to feel as a trader must, in knowing where to look. What I'm trying to find is an underlying process that will ensure the job's done successfully.

As a blacksmith, in order to make a tool I need to understand the whole process in my mind before I begin. This is so I can know exactly what tool is to be used in order to develop design and the process to do this, in order to feel confident of the success, allowing that our best made plans can still fail due to unforeseen uncalculated constraints. How do I learn or find my basic processes associated to your profession?

Stuart: What I got out of this is what behaviors do we associate with a stock market trader? When I think of traders, I think of people who are structured, disciplined, they're planners, they're organized, they're efficient. A couple of important ones there are being organized and being structured. They have a methodology they follow; they have a routine that they follow, obviously complementing their plan.

David: He also mentions wanting to know what tools to use in order to develop and design and the process, when he was using the analogy of the blacksmith. There are the three m's the mindset, money management and method, making sure you have those in place. It is also taking it in the right steps. A quick overview: make sure you define your objectives. This will dictate what markets you will be trading and the methodology you will be using. Also what returns, and is it realistic.

Then you'll look at some entries and exits and money management for that particular market and make sure you document those appropriately. Then you do some backtesting to build up the confidence or even some paper trading if you're not comfortable doing backtesting. Depending on what components you've got in your trading, some are easier to backtest than others and then you look at starting to trade your system. If you have backtested, keep monitoring your system, keep an eye on the stats as you go, to see that you are on track and you will be on your way to becoming a successful stock market trader.

The next question which is: my biggest issue is with time. With a full-time job, kids and working life limits my time. What sort of system can be used that would maximize my time? Many trading systems treat you as if all you have is all day trade, but a lot of people would rather have a system that uses less than an hour per day. How can this be done?

Stuart: Trading stocks medium term is probably the simple answer to that. I think the situation that person has raised a lot of people could relate to. That's how I started. Our ultimate goal is to give up work and trade full-time but we need to go through that apprenticeship to get to that point. While we do that we need the support and security of a full-time job until we can become a fully fledged stock market trader.