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Here’s the lowdown on trading in an office vs at home. While we firmly believe working with others will make for a longer career in futures trading, it’s hard to deny some of the perks and benefits of trading futures at home. We spoke to some of our senior traders who trade both in the office and at home. They weighed up their pro’s and cons of both. Have a read below for the pros and cons of office vs home trading.

Office Pros

  • Surrounded by other successful traders that push your performance.
  • Trading firms have a professional infrastructure that is tailored for traders and trading.
  • In an office, the focus is on working together and helping the lives of others around us and collectively improving.
  • Trading in an office means you have the benefit of hands-on mentoring.
  • In an office, traders innovate together and share ideas more easily creating more opportunities.
  • Others help you be more disciplined in trading and indeed your career, to help you be the best.
  • Working with mentors to set goals and targets that stretch your abilities in trading: bigger size, bigger winners, big PnL, better edge, better innovation; to help you become a proper superstar trader.
  • Higher long-term success rate.

Office Cons

  • The daily commute can be a real drag.
  • People generally trading on their own aren’t pushed to increase size or aggression when not surrounded by peers who are throwing size around and going after big trades.
  • If a number of traders are having a bad day in the markets or atmosphere is sour it can rub off on you.
  • Office politics – it is what it is and exists in an office environment for better or for worse.
  • If you like to work alone, you’ll have a hard time in an office full of traders who are focused on working and innovating together.
  • If you don’t like a work colleague you have no choice in avoiding them or not.
  • You can’t have naps during downtime.

Home Pros

  • Trading from home gives you the space to do things that a noisy distracting office environment can’t.
  • Being closer to your family means you get to spend more downtime with them.
  • You can trade wearing whatever clothes you like and look however you like.
  • Less time commuting means more time to do other things that you love.
  • It can be nicer to study in a quiet home environment than in a busy office.
  • More control over your trading setup. You decide how it will look and operate.
  • You will more than likely be able to eat better considering your own kitchen is close by.

Home Cons

  • You have real responsibilities and are only answerable to yourself, for better or for worse.
  • Trading when it’s busy is strange: no atmosphere.
  • Nobody to whip you into shape when you slack off.
  • Without a lot of personal motivation, you can drift in your career, neglect things, and get lazy.
  • When you take big losses in the market it feels incredibly lonely.
  • You miss out on the office fun with co-workers.
  • You are more susceptible to family interruptions.
  • You tend to communicate less with the team and this can lead to isolation.
  • You must manage your own risk for better or for worse
  • Lower long-term success rate.

So what are your thoughts? Did we miss any? Hit us up in the comment section!