The Rise Of The Part-Time Trader: How Everyday Investors Are Playing The Markets In 2025

The alarm goes off at 5:30 a.m., but Mark Lacy isn’t getting ready for work—he’s already been trading for three and a half hours. The 67-year-old retiree starts his day at 2 a.m. PT, analyzing pre-market movements and executing trades before most people have their first cup of coffee.

According to Business Insider, Lacy represents a growing tribe of part-time traders who’ve transformed how everyday Americans engage with financial markets. What started during the GameStop (NYSE:GME) frenzy has evolved into a sophisticated community of investors squeezing trades between Zoom meetings, following market gurus on TikTok, and building portfolios from their smartphones.

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The New Trading Class

Gone are the days when retail trading meant calling a broker during market hours. Today’s part-time traders operate in a world of mobile-first platforms, flexible work schedules, and gamified finance apps that make trading as accessible as ordering lunch.

Zach Kleinwaks exemplifies this shift. The 27-year-old futures trader built nearly 40,000 followers across Instagram and TikTok by sharing trading tips under the handle “zachaustintrades.” Unlike the meme stock hysteria of 2021, today’s retail investors crave serious analysis over viral hype.

“My guess is it came somewhere around when people realized that their investing strategy can’t simply be: every time GameStop or AMC drops, just buy,” Kleinwaks told Business Insider. “Too many people got severely burnt on those stocks.”

From Pandemic Hobby to Professional Pursuit

Kevin Xu‘s journey illustrates how quickly fortunes can change in this new landscape. The San Francisco day trader “accidentally” began swing trading in 2020 with a $35,000 work bonus he’d originally planned to use for a car purchase. Today, his portfolio is worth $8.6 million, and 174,000 users follow his moves on AfterHour, the social copy trading platform he launched.

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“I think what people are hungry for right now is where do I go to find and learn about what’s hot in the market right now,” Xu told Business Insider. “What people are trading, why people are trading it.”

Even baby boomers are getting in on the action. Kenneth Schweitzer, a 68-year-old former dentist from Vermont, maintains a daily profit quota of $1,200—potentially earning $36,000 monthly from his home office. He trades between checking on his granddaughter’s college fund, which his trading profits now largely cover.

The Wisdom of Experience

What separates successful part-time traders from those who flame out? Discipline and proper risk management, according to the veterans.

Paul Kornreich, a 65-year-old former floor trader, made over $300,000 in profits just in the first quarter of this year. His secret: decades of experience reading market signals and technical analysis.

“I am kind of living that trade dream,” Kornreich told Business Insider, noting he’s used his trading funds to travel and live abroad for years at a time.

But getting started in today’s markets doesn’t require floor trading experience. The key is having access to the right tools and real-time data to make informed decisions quickly.

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Plus500 offers exactly what modern part-time traders need: a user-friendly platform that provides real-time tools for trading major markets including stocks, commodities, and forex. Whether you’re analyzing pre-market movements like Lacy or catching momentum plays during lunch breaks, Plus500’s intuitive interface makes it easy to execute strategies from anywhere.

The platform’s mobile accessibility means you can monitor positions and react to market movements whether you’re in a conference room or commuting home—crucial advantages in today’s fast-moving markets.

The Future of Retail Trading

As Vaughn McNair, the former WallStreetBets moderator known online as “Grandmaster Obi,” told Business Insider: his focus on each trade is simply “not to lose any money.” That conservative approach, combined with modern technology and educational resources, is helping a new generation of part-time traders build wealth alongside their regular careers.

The part-time trading revolution isn’t just changing individual portfolios—it’s democratizing financial markets in ways unimaginable just a few years ago.

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