ETMarkets Trade Talk | How this Gurgaon CA funds foreign trips with trading income

, my holding period was around 10 days and I was able to capture 15% movement. The profit in that trade covered my whole Euro trip,” says Maheshwari, SEBI-registered investment adviser and full-time trader. Edited excerpts from a chat with the trader-traveller:


Please take us through your family and education background. How did you start your trading journey?
I was born and brought up in a small town in Bihar, where I studied in a Hindi medium school till 10th standard. I was able to secure admission to my dream college SRCC, University of Delhi for graduation.

Post SRCC, I worked with Deloitte’s audit team for 3 years while pursuing Chartered Accountancy and then I worked with OYO for a year.

Growing up, I saw my parents and grandparents doing commodity trading for a living and I believe that trading comes naturally to me. My family has held some shares of

since the 90s and I used to track the portfolio value through newspapers. That’s how the interest started developing in me.

During my college days, I used to actively participate in mock stock events. I always had an inclination towards this field and could feel the passion growing. So I opened my demat account and started trading using my pocket money.

Being in the audit team of some big listed clients during my articleship helped me gain the practical understanding of businesses and financials and my interest in the techno-funda analysis grew further.
After leaving my corporate job in 2016, I decided to start off with my trading journey full time. I convinced my family to give me a year to follow my heart and that I would go back to a corporate job if it didn’t work but thankfully it worked well. My initial capital was only those Reliance Industries shares and I am proud of myself to have taken my capital to 100X in 6 years.

Was quitting your job and getting into full-time trading a tough decision for you?
Deciding to pursue something which you are extremely passionate about is never difficult. Obviously you have to look at all the practical factors but you will ultimately find your way out if you give your full dedication and heart to it.

I took the professional degree just to have a strong backup plan so that I could give my 100% to my passion without worrying about the worst-case scenario. It was not very smooth in the beginning but I started building a secondary source of income and that helped me in trading with a free mind and gradually the capital started growing.

Can you give us an understanding of how much returns you have made in the last 1-2 years?
If I talk about pure numbers, I would say a CAGR of 65%. But in terms of experience, I would say the pandemic taught me a lot. I witnessed such extreme cycles for the first time in my trading career and I am proud of how I managed through it.

As a swing trader what is the strategy that you follow to make quick returns on your positions?
Now-a-days everyone wants to try their hands on options trading, it looks very exciting and doable on the outside but we need to understand what works for one might not work for others. You need to figure out what works best for you and for me that’s swing trading.

I follow a techno-funda approach to trading. I am always on the lookout for opportunities that make sense from a risk reward perspective. I wait for a breakout/breakdown in my watchlist stocks which are majorly from the NSE 500 index. My holding period ranges from 3 to 30 days, depending on the trades and I aim 5-25% on my positional trades. Obviously there are going to be losses, every trade won’t be a profitable one but that’s a part of the game. You just need to be committed to your strategy and system. In the end, short term profits and losses don’t matter much when you are prepared to be in the game for the long run.

We also need to understand that swing trading is riskier than day trading because of the longer holding period and carrying overnight risks, so position sizing is very important here. In my view, money management, position sizing and stoploss are of the utmost importance. My biggest strength is the exit timing, I have a strong mind in that aspect. I have never faced a drawdown of more than 3% on my capital. My mantra is to take the loss and move on, don’t get attached to your stocks. Here, the fight is not with the market but with your emotions.

Along with swing trading, I also sell ‘cash secured puts’ in my selected stocks. Idea is to sell 5-10% OTM put options where I’m ready to take a position if it reaches that level.

You also travel quite frequently and manage to trade as well during vacations. How does travelling help you de-stress?
There are only two things that positional traders require – good internet and stop loss in place, so you can work from any place in the world. I love travelling and I feel blessed to be able to pursue both of my passions together.

We all know how overwhelming being a full-time trader can be. It is important to take a break and give time to yourself. So I make sure to travel every quarter. It clears up the mind and you actually get so many ideas seeing things around, like when I realised the recent travelling craze and people willing to pay higher prices for properties, I took the bullish bet in a hotel stock and it paid off well.

Have there been any memorable trades that you made while holidaying?
In June this year, I was in Paris when I did a swing trade in Titan, my holding period was around 10 days and I was able to capture 15% movement. The profit in that trade covered my whole Euro trip and that felt very good.

What would be your advice to part-time traders who are dreaming of quitting their job and becoming a full-time trader one day?
I always give these tips to the budding traders:

• Make sure you have an alternate source of income so that you’re able to take some risks in the game
• Test your strategies before jumping into it full-time
• Have the patience and discipline to follow your strategy
• Never underestimate the power of stop-loss. Learn to cut your losses early
• Keep realistic expectations in terms of profits and don’t get fooled by the returns shown on social media.

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