Starting side business

[deepak2007]

Hi,

I work full time for the employer who sponsored my greencard. We got our green card in 2005.

I work from home mostly and can work anytime during day or night. Now I want to start my stock trading business as a side business.

I want to know if it is OK to start this business while working full time for the employer.

Appreciate quick response.

Thanks

Deepak

[Jackolantern]

Of course you can start a side business, unless your employment contract has provisions prohibiting it (depending on your state of residence/employment and the nature of those provisions, those provisions may not be legally enforceable). You can start a side business even with EAD.

Now that you have the green card for so long, you can also quit and run your own business full time.

[deepak2007]

Thanks for your reply.

well , the reason I do nt want to quit is that the stock trading is very risky, you may end up loosing lot of money. So i want to first try it for 1 year or so and then take a call on quitting ....

thanks again.

[TheRealCanadian]

Originally Posted by deepak2007

well , the reason I do not want to quit is that the stock trading is very risky, you may end up loosing lot of money.

Which is why the best possible strategy is to buy and hold, and diversify as much as possible. Fortunately, that doesn't take very much time at all.

If you want to trade actively, feel free to do so. The transaction costs will eat you up, and then the lower returns are icing on the cake.

[techie8]

Originally Posted by deepak2007

Thanks for your reply.

well , the reason I do nt want to quit is that the stock trading is very risky, you may end up loosing lot of money. So i want to first try it for 1 year or so and then take a call on quitting ....

thanks again.

Unless you plan on being a day trader, I would not even consider this as a side business. It is just an investment. You can do this even on an H1B and no employment clause can prevent you from investing your own money.

If you plan on providing investment consultancy or trade on behalf of others like a broker, then it is a different story.

[deepak2007]

Yes I plan to be a day trader kind...doing 15-20 automated trades a day atleast. Completely aware of risk involved but still want to give it a shot for a year atleast. have a kept a maximum target I am ready to loose in a month.

anyways based on your comments so I can safely assume that I can do this legally all day trading with a full time job from Immigration standpoint.

[TheRealCanadian]

Originally Posted by deepak2007

Yes I plan to be a day trader kind...doing 15-20 automated trades a day atleast. Completely aware of risk involved but still want to give it a shot for a year atleast. have a kept a maximum target I am ready to loose in a month.

Good luck. Before you go into this, I would suggest you set yourself a target rate of return that you expect to get; perhaps against the Russell 2000 or S&P 500. At the end of the year, see if you hit your target. It's not just a question of losing money, but also gaining less.

If your strategy gives you a return of 20% in a year, in absolute terms that's pretty good. If during that same year you could have put your money in an S&P Index fund and got the same 20% return, you came out behind because of all the work and trades you did - and that doesn't include the negative tax consequences of active trading.

anyways based on your comments so I can safely assume that I can do this legally all day trading with a full time job from Immigration standpoint.

Absolutely. You don't even need a job in order to do this.

[MA_Labor]

You are free to start you business after getting GC. Isn't that what's the GC is all about. I am glad that you understand the risk involved, I've gotten burned by stock picking so I'm sticking with index funds and ETFs for now.

Good luck my friend!

[pratham]

Don't you know that, 90% tech workers do this at work